Long before suburban development, the Hempstead Plains in central Long Island covered tens of thousands of acres and served as a rare prairie ecosystem. On October 17, historian Jennifer L. Anderson spoke at Stony Brook University’s Humanities Institute, presenting the history of this landscape and the communities that depended on it.
Anderson’s lecture, titled “Transforming Hempstead Plains: The Demise of the ‘Public Commons’ on Long Island,” drew an audience mainly from the College of Arts and Sciences. She combined environmental history and archival research to show how the story of the plains connects to broader issues of land, race, and belonging on Long Island.
“It was this amazing resource… Everyone who lived in the community had access to it. Whether you were a wealthy landowner with 30 cows or a poor family with one mangy cow,” Anderson said, referencing an 1802 map of Long Island. “What remains, I guess I would say, is priceless.”
She described how, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the plains were open grassland used collectively by settlers in Hempstead. Black and Native Long Islanders, who were often excluded from owning land, still relied on the commons for grazing and resources.
By the early 19th century, Anderson noted, communal land use began to break down due to private development, new agricultural practices, and changing ideas about land value. “There’s a cultural turn,” she said, “where land that was once understood as valuable because it was common begins to be called ‘waste.’”
This shift justified selling and enclosing the land. Anderson showed evidence from historical documents, including efforts by agricultural clubs and railroads to promote settlement, experiments linking Long Island farms to Manhattan’s waste, and campaigns portraying the area as ready for improvement.
A significant change happened during the Civil War when Hempstead sold its commons to pay for public expenses. Alexander Stewart, a wealthy developer, bought large portions of land to build Garden City, leading to evictions.
“Within a generation, the land that had sustained people for centuries was gone,” Anderson said.
Today, only a small part of the Hempstead Plains remains, protected behind Nassau Community College. Its preservation is credited to a biologist who recognized its ecological value, and controlled burns are now used to maintain native grasses.
Anderson argued that the history of Hempstead Plains challenges common views of Long Island’s identity. “We think of segregation as starting with redlining,” she said during the Q&A session, but she believes it began with land access shaping who could belong.
Audience members asked about property law, genealogy, and Anderson’s future research. Rita Langdon, assistant vice president for communications at Stony Brook University, shared her family’s connection to the original settlers of the plains. Anderson indicated she may expand her research into a book.
The event closed with a reflection on how the past continues to influence Long Island today.
