Ridge’s post office opened in 1949, and 1 of its places is on the National Register
Most of Ridge was built recently: 2% of its homes predate 1940 and the median home dates from 1979. Below: 4 old photos and papers from 1873 on and old-book passages.
In 1693, William "Tangier" Smith, who owned a homestead in Setauket, was allowed to purchase a large tract of land on the South Shore of Long Island in recognition of his being mayor of Tangier in Africa. The land, called Manor St. George, stretched from the Carmans River (then called the Connecticut River) in the west to the edge of the town of Southampton in the east, with a northern border around present-day New York State Route 25, as much as 81,000 acres (330 km2) of land. He made his manor seat on the South Shore in present-day Mastic, and the northern part, now the south side of Ridge, was called "The Swamp" or "Longswamp". A house wasn't built at Longswamp until after the American Revolution. In 1817, William Sydney Smith inhabited the house and changed the name to Longwood.
Passages that mention Ridge, cut from the printed page as they were published.
...History of Suffolk county, New York1882 · page 49Read the page →
Read the text
187 1 a church was organized there by the withdrawal of 60 members from the old church. A preaching station has for many years been occupied by this church at the Ridge school-house, about four miles east of the meetinghouse, and since 1872 another has been maintained at the Middle District school-house, only one mile east.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Ridge, 1873 to 1985
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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.
2011
2010