All About Nassau County, Long Island
| Nassau County, with a population (as of 2000) of 1,334,544 is one of the four counties that make up Long Island. However, when most people think of Long Island, they refer to the counties of Nassau and Suffolk. A complex area, consisting of three townships (Hempstead, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay), two cities, each with it's own governing bodies (Glen Cove and Long Beach) and many incorporated and unincorporated areas, Nassau county is within easy commuting distance of Manhattan at one end and the North and South Forks of Long Island's Suffolk County at the other. |
| Nassau county has an interesting history and to really appreciate it, one has to go back long before it's birth in 1899. In 1640 a small group of Englishmen from New England made an unsuccessful attempt at colonizing on the North Shore of Long Island, but were driven off by the Dutch who claimed the land and forced the settlers to move on east, where they ultimately formed the town of Southampton. With adventurous souls ever at the ready, three years later another group crossed the Long Island Sound from Connecticut and established the first English community in the then Hempstead Plains. With the passage of more than two hundred fifty years and the advent of Queens joining Greater New York City, the eastern towns, though remaining a part of Queens were not a part of the city. Thus, the citizens held a meeting in Allen's Hotel in Mineola where the seeds were sown for the secession of the towns of Oyster Bay, Hempstead and North Hempstead and at the start of 1899, the county of Nassau was born. |
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