GEORGE WASHINGTON TOURS LONG ISLAND.

• Author: Grasso, Joanne S.
• Position: USA YESTERDAY - New York

AFTER becoming the nation's first president, George Washington set out to tour the new nation, which was desperate for a unifying symbol. In April 1790, he spent five days on Long Island, N.Y., an area recovering from seven years of devastating British occupation.

Washington saw plenty, from Brooklyn to Patchogue to Setauket and back. He was honored at each venue and wrote extensive diary entries about his impressions of the carriage stops for food and overnight stays at taverns and private homes.

By the time Washington's carriage stopped at Zebulon Ketcham's homestead, he was in Huntington South, now called Copiague. Ketcham had been in Long Island's Suffolk County Militia during the Revolutionary War, and he now was hosting the president for a meal.

Ketcham owned a "frame, unpainted shingle house that stood near the end of what is now Deauville Boulevard and Montauk Highway." Although it has been claimed that the Ketcham house was moved to Amityville in 1827, a sign erected by the Babylon Town Board on the site states the house was "razed" in 1857. The original table on which Washington had dinner is said to be with the Huntington Historical Society.

Washington noted in his diary: "After dinner we proceeded to a Squire Thompson's such a House as the last, that is, one that is not public but will receive pay for every thing it furnishes in the same manner as if it was."

As recorded in his personal journal, Washington spent his second night on Long Island at Sagtikos Manor. Sagtikos is an Indian word meaning "snake that hisses." Sagtikos Neck, on which the Manor stands, was known by the English as "Apple Tree Neck." The neck of land was purchased from the Secatogue Indians in 1692 by Stephanus Van Cortlandt.

Washington's bedroom was on the second floor. He wrote: "British Commander Sir Henry Clinton had slept here a few years earlier during the Revolutionary War occupation and three hundred Hessians had also camped here. A bullet hole is in the attic wall, the bullet 'meant' for the patriot proprietor, Judge Isaac Thompson."

As Washington continued to travel into Suffolk County on April 21, he encountered a different farming environment than in Queens, writing: "The Road in which I passed to day, and the Country here more mixed with sand than yesterday and the soil of inferior quality;--yet with dung which all the Corn ground receives the land yields on an average 30 bushels to the acre more often.--Of wheat they do not grow much... but the...