Nathaniel Conklin House

During Long Island's Hidden Past's visit to the Nathaniel Conklin House in Babylon this past September, the team visited the house to gain further insight into its history.

In Babylon's first home, now famously known as Nathaniel Conklin House, which can be found in a chimney stone, is a clue as to how the village got its name. Built in 1803 on the northeast corner of Deer Park Avenue and Montauk Highway, Conklin, a wealthy landowner, made up the center hall of the large federal-style home.

Upon his widowhood, he moved his mother and two sons into the new home. Conklin's mother would refer to the neighborhood they lived in as Babylon, which was a derogatory name for the Babylon of the Bible.

Conklin would add the words, "New Babylon," to the stone - to assure his mother that the new home would indeed be a wonderful place to live.

At the time an area in Babylon was first settled by farmers in the early 1800s, it was known as Huntington South because of an influx of Huntington residents who flocked to the South Shore to gather salt hay to feed livestock and mulch for planting.

Conklin's mother gave the home a name — Babylon — because it was much farther from the community than her home in nearby Dix Hills, which the family had moved to in 1803. People have claimed this was inspired by an expression found in the Psalms: “By the water of Babylon we sat down; how we wept when we remembered Zion.”

Based on the Babylon Historical Society, Babylon left Huntington in 1872 and put in place a new local government. This village was incorporated into its current form in 1893. A room of the Babylon Historical Society contains farm tools, photos of millsteads, and testimonies from early Babylon residents. According to published accounts of that time, life in Babylon was typical for a traditional farming community. Several mills operating in the Great South Bay used waterpower generated from the streams flowing through it, which has been considered a water testing and development area.

In conjunction with the introduction of stagecoaches to the town at the turn of the century, ferries which ran between Fire Island and Oak Beaches met up with those heading for the village. The time that Babylon was incorporated was an already-established resort with a considerable estate and a number of hotels. Generally speaking, the "Gilded Age" encompassed the decades between 1870 and 1890.

Thus, the history of Nathaniel Conklin House in Babylon.


Ellis Carpet Cleaning Babylon

Coming Up: Town of Babylon History Museum at Old Town Hall