Long Island and the Sea: A Maritime History - Paperback

by Bill Bleyer (Author)

For more than five centuries, the waterways surrounding Long Island have profoundly shaped its history.

Familiar subjects of lighthouses, shipwrecks and whaling are found alongside oft-forgotten oddities such as Pan-American flying boats landing in Manhasset Bay in the early days of transatlantic flight. From the British blockade and skirmishes during the American Revolution to the sinking of merchant vessels by Germany in World War II, the sea brought wars to these shores. By the later part of the 20th century, Gold Coast millionaires commuted in high-speed yachts to Manhattan offices as the island's wealth grew. Historian Bill Bleyer reveals Long Island's nautical bonds from the Native Americans to current efforts to preserve the region's maritime heritage.

Author Biography

Bill Bleyer was a prize-winning staff writer for Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper, for thirty-three years before retiring in 2014 to write books and freelance for the newspaper and magazines. He is coauthor, with Harrison Hunt, of Long Island and the Civil War (The History Press, 2015). He is the author of Sagamore Hill: Theodore Roosevelt's Summer White House (The History Press, 2015) and The Fire Island Lighthouse: Long Island's Welcoming Beacon (The History Press, 2017). The Long Island native has written extensively about history for newspapers and magazines. In 1997-98, he was one of four Newsday staff writers assigned full time to "Long Island: Our Story," a year-long daily history of Long Island that resulted in three books and filled hundreds of pages in the newspaper. His work has been published in Civil War News, Naval History, Sea History, Lighthouse Digest and numerous other magazines, as well as in the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Toronto Star and other newspapers. Bleyer graduated Phi Beta Kappa with highest honors in economics from Hofstra University, where he has been an adjunct professor teaching journalism and economics. He earned a master's degree in urban studies at Queens College of the City University of New York. An avid sailor, diver and kayaker, he lives in Bayville, Long Island.