Most of Manorville was built recently: 2% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1991. Below: 6 old photos and papers from 1873 on and old-book passages.
The hamlet of Manorville was a small farming community for many years. The area of the hamlet once laid within the huge tract of land known as Manor St. George, a land grant given to Col. William "Tangier" Smith in 1693 for recognition of his service as governor of Tangier in Morocco. In 1844, the Long Island Rail Road built a station called St. George's Manor, which was situated off of Ryerson Avenue. However, Seth Raynor, the station agent who was a patriot during the American Revolutionary War, disliked the name due to its similarity to the British and their colonial dominance (Saint George, the patron saint of England, is a symbol of the English monarchy), and decided to paint over the sign, leaving only the word "Manor". The hamlet changed its name to "Manorville" with the opening of its post office in 1907, but timetables and Long Island Rail Road documents retained the name "Mano…
A part of the settlement of Manorville extends into the southwest corner of the town. This locality abounds in swamps and ponds which form the sources of Peconic River. These characteristics hold all along the south side of the town, following the course of that river as far east as the village of Riverhead. These marshes have been made exceedingly valuable in the cultivation of cranberries.
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as far as Northport in 1868. From a point on this line a little short of the end it was extended to Port Jefferson in 1872, giving this branch a le'ngth of 25 miles in the county. The branch from Manorville to Sag Harbor, a distance of 35 miles, was constructed in 1869. The Sogth Side Railroad, which had been projected in i860 but delayed by the war, was commenced in May 1866, and completed to Babylon inpctober 1867. It was ex-
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Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
By decade
Manorville, decade by decade
3 decades in the archive, from the 1870s to the 1910s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (6), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
1915
1917
1917