Lake Ronkonkoma was once home to four Native American tribes, the Nissequogues, Setaukets, Secatogues, and Unkechaugs. In the Algonquin language, “Ronkonkomack” has been translated as “Boundary Fishing Place,” reflecting the understanding that the four tribes fished and hunted within their boundary of the lake. Native traditions held that the lake was bottomless and contained a terrible whirlpool that served as a hatch to the beyond. Early settlers also heard the story of an Indian chief who cursed the lake after his daughter drowned while canoeing with a young man against his wishes, and according to the legend a man would drown in the lake every year thereafter. Another tradition tells of Princess Ronkonkoma of the Setauket tribe, forbidden by her family to marry outside her race, who sent messages written on pieces of tree bark through an underground stream to her White lover on the Connetquot River miles away; after seven years of separation, she set out in a canoe on the lake one night and was found dead floating down the river the next day. Her spirit was said to roam the lake’s shores, and some said the waters rose and receded every seven years in mourning, though there is no proof that Princess Ronkonkoma existed. Beyond its legends, the lake’s documented history reaches back to 1655, when the Setauket tribe bartered the Lake Ronkonkoma shoreline in exchange for White men’s valuables. Ronkonkoma has also been translated as “glittering white sand” and “healing waters,” though many historians favor “boundary fishing place.” In the late 1700s farming was the chief occupation of local townspeople. In 1795, Portion Road was built as a path wide enough for horseback riders or people on foot and was later widened for wagons. Over time, the lakefront developed into a fashionable place for wealthier people with summer estates. The expansion of the Long Island Rail Road in 1844 brought sweeping change, and by the 1900s Lake Ronkonkoma had been transformed from a sleepy farming community into a well-known summer resort. In 1908, William Vanderbilt began building Motor Parkway from Queens to the banks of Lake Ronkonkoma. In the late 1920s, gabled mansions overlooking the lake hosted a couple of thousand middle-class summer visitors, and by the 1950s through 1980s people were building housing developments and making Lake Ronkonkoma their home.
