ISLIP  , a township of

Suffolk county, New York, U.S.A., in the central part of the S. side of Long Island . Pop . (1905, state census) 13,721; (1910) 18,346 . The township is 16 m. long from E. to W., and 8 m. wide in its widest part . It is bounded on the S. by the Atlantic Ocean; between the ocean and the Great South Bay, here 5-7 M. wide, is a long narrow strip of beach, called Fire Island, at the W. end of which is Fire Island Inlet . The " Island " beach and the Inlet, both very dangerous for shipping, are protected by the Fire Island Lighthouse, the Fire Island Lightship, and a Life Saving Station near the Lighthouse and another at Point o' Woods . Near the Light-house there are a United States Wireless Telegraph Station and a station of the Western Union Telegraph Company, which announces to New York incoming steamships; and a little farther E., on the site formerly occupied by the Surf House, a well-known resort for hay-fever patients, is a state park . Along the " Island " beach there is excellent surf-bathing . The township is served by two parallel branches of the Long Island railroad about 4 M. apart . On the main (northern) division are the villages of Brentwood (first settled as Modern Times, a quasi free-love community), which now has the Convent and School of St Joseph and a large private sanitarium; Central Islip, the seat of the Central Islip State Hospital for the Insane; and Ronkonkoma, on the edge of a lake of the same name (with no visible outlet or inlet and suffering remarkable changes in area) . On the S. division of the Long Island railroad are the villages of Bay Shore (to the W. of which is West Islip); Oakdale; West Sayville, originally a Dutch settlement; Sayville and Bayport . The " South Country Road " of crushed clam or oyster shells runs through these villages, which are famous for oyster and clam fisheries .

About one-

half of the present township was patented in 1684, 1686, 1688 and 1697 by William Nicolls (1657-1723), the son of Matthias Nicolls, who came from Islip in Oxfordshire, England; this large estate (on either side of the Connetquot or Great river) was kept intact until 1786; the W. part of Islip was mostly included in the Moubray patent of 1708; and the township was incorporated in 1710 .