Historical Timeline

Richmond County was originally divided into four towns, Castleton, Northfield, Southfield, and Westfield. In 1860 a fifth town, Middletown, was created from parts of Castleton and Southfield. Castleton was the closest town to New York City (by ferry), and the first to lose its rural character. Its north shore was incorporated in 1866 as the village of New Brighton, and in 1872 the village boundaries were extended to include the entire town, so that Castleton and New Brighton covered the same area. There were smaller incorporated villages in the other towns, of which the following have surviving vital records in addition to those of the towns: Port Richmond in Northfield, Edgewater in both Middletown and Southfield, and Tottenville in Westfield. On January 1, 1898 the Borough of Richmond was created, and the former towns became wards: Castleton/ New Brighton was Ward 1, Middletown Ward 2, Northfield Ward 3, Southfield Ward 4, and Westfield Ward 5. In 1975 the Borough of Richmond was renamed the Borough of Staten Island. The county continues to be known as Richmond.

Year 1698 - 727	Year 1800 - 4,564	Year 1865 - 28,209
Year 1723 - 1,506	Year 1820 - 6,135	Year 1870 - 33,629
Year 1746 - 2,073	Year 1840 - 10,965	Year 1880 - 38,950
Year 1776 - 3,000	Year 1850 - 15,061	Year 1890 - 51,693

1609: September 3
While seeking Northwest Passage, Henry Hudson sights island, naming it Staaten Eyelandt.

1661: August 22
Gov. Peter Stuyvesant permits first permanent European settlement of 19 Dutch and French settlers at Oude Dorp (now South Beach).

1776: July 2-3
9,000 British troops under Gen. William Howe land on Staten Island "to the great joy of a most loyal people."

1828: February 23
Capt. John Jackson buys land in Westfield (Sandy Ground), first record of a black man buying land in Richmond County.

1830s:
Newly freed blacks from Manhattan and free black Maryland oystermen begin settling at Sandy Ground (parts of Rossville, Woodrow, Pleasant Plains and Charleston).

1831:
Sailors Snug Harbor (Livingston) is established; begins operation two years later.

1850
Italian born inventor Antonio Meucci comes to Staten Island from Cuba to develop and patent his telephone. His experiments with medical shock treatments had revealed the possibility of transmitting the human voice over electrical wires. Because Meucci lacked the funds to patent his invention the credit for the invention of the telephone eventually went to Alexander Graham Bell.

1858: September 1
Mobs from New Brighton and Edgewater, fearing spread of yellow fever, torch Marine Hospital Quarantine in Tompkinsville, where immigrants with infectious diseases are held.

1860: July
Richmond Co. Mirror, first newspaper printed on Staten Island, is published.

1870
Swinburne Island, a man-made island off of South Beach, is constructed as a Quarantine hospital for immigrants arriving in America with contagious diseases. It replaces the quarantine ships which had housed the sick immigrants since the burning of the Tompkinsville Quarantine Station in 1858. Originally named Dix Island, after a former New York Governor, the name was soon changed to Swinburne after the Civil War Hero and surgeon who headed the development of the Island: John S. Swinburne.

1871: July 30
The worst accident in the history of the Staten Island ferry occurs. A boiler explosion aboard the ferryboat Westfield II kills over 125 passengers and injures over 200 as it departs South Ferry

click to enlarge

1873
Hoffman Island, a second man-made Quarantine Island, is completed off the shore of South Beach. Conditions on the both quarantine islands were often overcrowded and unsanitary. In 1901 7,801 people were detained on Hoffman Island. Use of the hospitals declined until they were finally closed in the 1920s. From 1931 to 1937 the island was used as a bird quarantine station for imported parrots. The island is named for John T. Hoffman, a former New York City Mayor and New York State Governor.

1886: March 8
The first ferry terminal at St. George opens combining a rail connection in the same building allowing for a fast transfer to points on the south shore.

1888: September 26
First street lights brighten Richmond Terrace.

1904: February 9
Curtis High School opens in St. George. Named for the writer, editor, orator George William Curtis.

1905: October 25
The City of New York takes control of the Staten Island Ferry due to dangerous conditions created by private ferry operators.

1907: October
Procter & Gamble Corporation opens a factory in Mariners Harbor where they produce Ivory Soap and other products for more than 80 years.

1912
Staten Island Lighthouse on Lighthouse Hill begins operation, guiding ships from the Atlantic Ocean into Lower New York Bay.

1912: June 21
Abel Kiviat, a Curtis High School Track Star, wins the Olympic silver medal for the 1,500-meter run in Stockholm, Sweden. He also captures gold with the U.S. 3,000-meter relay team. He is the cabinmate of track great Jim Thorpe on the ship to Sweden.

1913: November 12
Sea View Hospital opens to treat Tuberculosis patients, becoming a national leader in the field.

1916
The New York Bay Oyster industry, long vital to Staten Island's economy, is shut down by the New York City Health Department. Fears of Typhoid caused by the polluted water force the closure. Staten Island Oysters had been considered great delicacies around the United States and Europe. Recent efforts have been made to reintroduce oysters into New York Bay.

1914-1918
World War I. More than 5,000 Staten Islanders join the armed services, more men per capita than any county in the United States. 160 are killed in action. 9,000 workers are employed building steel cargo ships for the war effort at the Standard Shipbuilding Company on Shooter's Island.

1918
Wagner College moves to Staten Island from Rochester, NY. The campus is established on the Cunard Estate, former home of the famed British shipping line's American operations manager. The college has only 16 students at the time.

1919
The former New Dorp farm of William H. Vanderbilt is converted into a coastal air defense station. Named Miller Field air in 1920 for Captain James E. Miller an American airman killed in France during World War I.

1922
The poet Langston Hughes lives and works for a season on a Staten Island farm growing vegetables.

1923
Ground is broken in St. George and Brooklyn for a subway line connecting the two boroughs. It is never completed.

1928: June 20
The Outerbridge Crossing and the Goethals Bridge, both connecting Staten Island to New Jersey, open on the same day.

1929
The Staten Island Stapeltons, a long time Island semi-professional team, joins the National Football League.

1931: November 15
The Bayonne Bridge opens connecting Elm Park, Staten Island and Bayonne New Jersey. It is the longest Steel Arch Bridge in the world when it is completed, just slightly longer than the Sydney Harbor Bridge in Australia.

1938
The US Maritime Service opens a training school for merchant marines on Hoffman Island. By 1943 the school enrolled 1200 students. By 1947 the school outgrew the island and moved to Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

1939: July 4
Dedication ceremonies held for FDR Boardwalk in South Beach, including huge parade with bathing beauties and babies. Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia cuts ribbon.

1942: March
An explosion in the Unexcelled Manufacturing Co., a fireworks plant in Graniteville, kills five employees.

1941-1945
Staten Island fights World War II. A submarine net stretching from Miller Field across the Narrows prevents attacks by German submarines in New York Harbor. Troops train at Miller Field before being sent to fight in Europe and Africa. 250 Italian Army prisoners of war are housed on Staten Island. Island Anti-aircraft batteries defend New York City against potential air attacks.

1946: June 25
St. George Ferry Terminal is destroyed by fire. Three are dead, 280 injured.

1947
Halloran General hospital is converted from military use to the Willowbrook State Hospital.

1947
The Jacques Marchais Tibetan Museum, modeled after a Tibetan mountain temple, is constructed on Lighthouse Hill. The museum has a large collection of Tibetan art and was visited by the Dalai Lama in 1991.

1948: April 16
Fresh Kills Landfill opens. Planned only as a "temporary" solution to New York's trash disposal problem the landfill will grow to become the world's largest. The landfill operated for more than 50 years.

1950
The Korean War begins. Fears of an air attack on New York City bring Staten Island anti-aircraft batteries back to full strength. The Korean War Veterans Memorial Parkway, formerly the Richmond Parkway, now honors Staten Islanders who served in the Korean conflict.

1951: October 3
Bobby Thomson, "the Staten Island Scot", hits "the shot heard 'round the world" a homerun giving the National League pennant to the New York Giants.

1953
Passenger runs along the North Shore Railroad, connecting St. George and Mariner's Harbor, are abandoned.

1954
"Nike" guided surface-to-air missiles are based at Fort Wadsworth continuing an active military role for the fort which began when the Dutch constructed a block house on the spot in the 1600s.

1958
Richmondtown Restoration, now called Historic Richmond Town, opens. In Staten Island's answer to Colonial Williamsburg, costumed guides reenact historical Staten Island trades and home life in original historic buildings.

1960 December 16
128 people are killed in a mid-air collision between a TWA plane and a United Airlines plane over Staten Island's Miller Field. The TWA plane rains wreckage down on Miller Field while the United plane flies as far as Park Slope Brooklyn before crashing. It is the worst air disaster in US history to that point.

1964: August 29
Mid-Island Little League defeats Monterrey Mexico 4-0 to win Little League World Series. Islander Dan Yaccarino pitched a no-hitter.

1964: November 21
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connecting Staten Island and Brooklyn opens. Othmar Amman, designer of the Bayonne Bridge, designed the bridge. Then the largest suspension bridge in the world, the design had to incorporate the curvature of the earth and seasonal expansions and contractions which drop the roadway twelve feet lower in the summer than the winter. The bridge began a massive building and population boom on the Island that continues into the present day.

1964: December 18
NYC approval is given to establish a "Greenbelt" park reaching from Sea View to New Dorp.

1965
At the first meeting of the newly created New York City Landmarks Commission 6 Sailor's Snug Harbor buildings are designated as landmarks, saving them from demolition.

1971
Geraldo Rivera brings the abuse of disabled students at the Willowbrook State School to national attention. The publicity leads to the closing of the school.

1971
St. John's University opens an Island campus after acquiring the all women's College of Notre Dame.

1973: August 9
The Staten Island Mall opens. Stores in traditional shopping areas such as Port Richmond relocate or close due as the large chain stores gather together in one location.

1974
Thanks in part to the Clean Water Act of 1972, wading birds are first spotted returning to the cleaner waters around Staten Island. By 1994 there were approximately 1300 pairs of wading birds on Shooters Island (43 acres), Prall's Island (80 acres), and the Isle of Meadows (101 acres). New species include ibis, heron, and egret.

1974
The Staten Island Children's Museum opens in a storefront. In 1986 the museum moves to its current location in Snug Harbor Cultural Center.

1975
The Borough of Richmond is officially renamed the Borough of Staten Island.

1976: June
The last of the retired sailors relocate from Sailor's Snug Harbor to Sea Level, North Carolina.

1976: July 1
New York City takes possession of the Sailor's Snug Harbor. It begins its new life as the Snug Harbor Cultural Center with museums, artists' studios, performance halls and botanical gardens.

1976: July 4
New York Cit celebrates the US Bicentennial with a parade of tall ships in the Narrows and harbor.

1984
Prall's Island in the Arthur Kill is acquired by the New York City Parks system as an 80-acre bird sanctuary.

1985: December 23
The Muslim Majlis Mosque, Staten Island's first Islamic house of worship, is founded in Concord.

1986
The "Teleport" is opened by the Port Authority of NY & NJ providing satellite and fiberoptic telecommunications to businesses.

1990
Several oil spills in New York Harbor turn back many of the gains made by nature in reclaiming the waterways around Staten Island. In January an Exxon pipeline spilled 567,000 gallons of fuel oil into the Arthur Kill damaging an estimated 197 acres of salt marsh and killing about 700 birds. Fortunately, the local herons, ibis and egrets had migrated south at the time.

1990
The Stapleton Homeport opens providing major facilities for the docking of US Navy war ships. It closed in 1994 due to budget cuts.

1993
The College of Staten Island starts moving to its new campus on the grounds of the former Willowbrook State School.

1993: November
65% of Staten Island voters approve a draft charter for an independent City of Staten Island but the charter is not adopted by the state government.

1996: May 23
The New York State Senate approves the closing of the Fresh Kills Landfill.

2001: September 11
Members of the Al Quaeda terrorist organization hijack and crash two passenger jets into the World Trade Center destroying the building and killing nearly 3,000. Staten Island bears much of the loss of life, nearly 300 residents, with a large numbers of firemen and World Trade Center workers living on Staten Island. The Fresh Kills landfill is chosen to hold the debris from the towers and serves as a crime lab for police investigators searching for human remains.

Oil Barge Explodes on Staten Island

01/05/08

History of Staten Island