Identity Crisis in Port Jefferson Station is Old News

A at the brings to mind not only the history of the people who built the area around Port Jefferson and Terryville but also the many different names a place can have before modern times.

The title of the show refers to the area as “Cumsewogue” from

The issue of the differing titles is not a new one as an Associated Press article picked up by newspapers around the country in 1975 shows. The report says that many neighboring institutions call the area by various names.

“The Post Office calls this area Port Jefferson Station, the fire department favors Terryville, the library likes Comsewogue and some old timers still use Echo,” says the article in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune from July 13, 1975.

While not much has changed in almost 40 years, you’d probably be hard pressed to find any old timers who call the area Echo anymore.

Even Floyd Linton the Suffolk County legislator for the area at the time admitted they were “having an identity crisis.”

There was a desire back then for the locals to have a unique name differentiating themselves from Port Jefferson village not very far away but in all these decades, none has been found.

Read the full report on the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

For those nostalgic types, the version of the article in The Press-Courier from Oxnard, California has a story about Evel Knievel recovering from a crash after attempting to jump 13 buses in London.

An abbreviated version of the story in the Herald-Journal from South Carolina was printed opposite movie listings featuring ads for Jaws, “held over for second weekend.”

Even The New York Times ran the story.

The image of the map of Port Jefferson Station and Terryville from 1909 is courtesy of the historical section of the Port Jefferson village official website from the Kenneth Brady Collection. Visit the website for many more historical photos and to order prints of many of the photos.