July 4, 2026, will mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the foundational document of the Revolution that occurred between 1774 and 1783 and resulted in the creation of the United States of America.
Though Long Island played a vital role during the Revolution, our history with independence is complicated. On July 9, 1776, the New York Provincial Congress, meeting in White Plains, officially affirmed its support for the Declaration, becoming the 13th and final colony to do so.
Our hesitancy may have stemmed from our connection to Queens County (Nassau County would not be formed for another 120 years). Many local farmers and Quakers in the area remained nonpartisan. Others—especially those living in the southern part of the Town of Hempstead, where many British troops were already garrisoned—wanted to remain loyal to the Crown.
These Loyalist tendencies were not forgotten by other Americans, even after the war. In February 1786, a newspaper reported that residents of South Hempstead were from “that most obnoxious part of the county.” So angered were they by our devotion to the Crown that residents in the northern part of the township broke away and formed the Town of North Hempstead in 1784.
The area that became Freeport was settled in 1659, though it would not be known as Raynor South or Freeport until the 1800s. During the Colonial Period, Freeport was part of the larger area known as Hempstead South. This makes determining Freeporters’ opinions during the war difficult; however, there is evidence that locals saw themselves as British subjects. In 1780, when the British ship Glatea ran ashore near Hog Island (now Island Park), militiamen from Hempstead South came to the Royal Navy’s rescue. The surnames of the militia include many of the same names associated with long-time Freeport families: Raynor, Mott, Pine, Southard, Pearsall, and Powell. Nevertheless, two local residents emerged as patriots—Benjamin Raynor and Adam Rock Smith.
After the American loss at the Battle of Long Island in August 1776, Long Island remained occupied territory until the end of the war in 1783. How residents on Long Island’s South Shore fared under occupation and during the British retreat is still being researched. During his tour of Long Island in 1790, George Washington would have traversed a road—most likely Babylon Turnpike—and passed briefly through northeast Freeport.
Beginning in the late 1920s, Freeport began to revise its Tory past. Freeport’s Municipal Hall was constructed as a replica of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. For the 150th anniversary of George Washington’s birth in 1932, “Washington Trees” were planted throughout the Village, and a stone marker with a bust of our first president was erected on the grounds of a school. A model of Mount Vernon was also given to the Freeport Memorial Library by the Freeport Daughters of the American Revolution.
