The earliest known inhabitants of Sayville were the Secatogue tribe of the Algonquian peoples.
Sayville was founded by John Edwards (b. 1738) of East Hampton, New York. He built his home, the first in Sayville, in 1761, located at what is now the northwest corner of Foster Avenue and Edwards Street. The house was destroyed by fire in March 1913. Another man, John Greene, settled what is now known as West Sayville in 1767.
The community had no formal name until 1838 when residents gathered to choose a name for their post office, which had opened on March 22, 1837.
Passages that mention Sayville, cut from the printed page as they were published.
...History of Suffolk county, New York1882 · page 17Read the page →
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Mr. Wood was appointed a notary public by Governor King in 1857, and has several times since received a similar appointment. At the centennial celebration at Sayville, July 4th 1876, by request of the committee of arrangements, he read a history of the village of Sayville prepared by him, which was well received, and published with favorable notices by several of the county newspapers.
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Sayville, the most considerable village on the South road, is located about two miles east from the western boundary of the town. The name of the village was derived from the city of Seville, in Spain ; but by a blunder of the secretary of the meeting at which it was adopted it was 'written Sayville, and so recorded in the post-office department at Washington. The center of this village is more compactly
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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
Sayville, 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, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia) 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.
1902
1915
1917
