Hog Island (New York)

Hog Island was the name of two islands near Long Island, New York until the 1890s. One, shown on the map at right, is the present day Barnum Island, part of Island Park, New York. The other was a mile-long (1600 m) barrier island that existed to the south of Rockaway Beach before being mostly destroyed by the 1893 New York hurricane and completely lost to erosion and storm damage by 1902.

The Barnum Island/Island Park/Harbor Isle "Hog Island" was used by the Native Americans to raise pigs, once they had been introduced by Europeans and left to run feral. It later became a small farming area. In 1874 Sarah Ann Baldwin Barnum purchased the property (she is unrelated P.T. Barnum, despite local lore). A syndicate of businessmen were about to bid $70,000 for the property, but she persuaded the owner to it sell it to her for use as a working farm, to house and employ the poor. While she made the purchase with $13,360 of her own money, she immediately resold it to the Queens County government for the same price; at the time, Nassau was part of Queens.

In 1898, the county closed the almshouse, and sold the property to developers for $40,000.

In 1926, part of the island was incorporated as the Village of Island Park. The remainder is still unincorporated: the northeast portion of the island continues to be known as Barnum Island, while the western portion is called Harbor Island. All three are part of the Town of Hempstead.

Sea movement built up a large sandbar. Reports suggest that it began to emerge from the ocean during the Civil War period. It was about 1,000 feet south of the Rockaway shore. Eventually, it grew to about a mile wide (parallel to the Rockaways) and several hundred feet deep. Shaped like a hogback, it came to be known as Hog Island, or sometimes as Far Rockaway Beach Island.

The island is believed to have hosted a number of seafront resorts. Developers created resort businesses, including bathing facilities and restaurants. The island was a favorite getaway of Tammany Hall politicians, and many "backroom deals" were actually concluded in the open air here.

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