Southampton

Southampton: Mercator Cooper House

Southampton, village and town (township), Suffolk county, southeastern New York, U.S., lying along the south shore of eastern Long Island. Settlers from Lynn, Massachusetts, landed at Conscience Point in 1640, founding the first English community in New York. The original Shinnecock Indian land deed (December 13, 1640) is preserved. Many colonial buildings in Southampton town have been restored, including the Halsey Homestead (1648; the state’s oldest English saltbox house) and the Old Water Mill (1644). Within the town is the Shinnecock Indian Reservation (1703) and Sag Harbor, once a whaling port. The Southampton campus of Long Island University was founded in 1963. The Parrish Art Museum is in Southampton village. Area town, 139 square miles (360 square km). Pop. (2000) village, 3,965; town, 54,712; (2010) village, 3,109; town, 56,790.