ja_mageia

Queens County was settled as farmland in the 1640s after the Dutch founded Flushing in 1637 - the name is an anglicization of the Dutch port of Vlissingen.

The village of Astoria was developed in 1839 by one Stephen Halsey, aided by the creation of a Ferry station at 92nd St in Manhattan. Bits and pieces of this antebellum Astoria still exist, colonaded mansions and all - go to 12th Street between 26th Avenue and Astoria Park South to look them over.

In 1870 all of western Queens was chartered as Long Island City, an entity that lasted until it was consumed by expanding New York City in 1898.

Until the eighteenth century the area now known as Astoria was known as Hallets Cove after the Englishman William Hallett bought 1,500 acres along the shore from the Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant in 1652. It was renamed in honor of the elder John Jacob Astor, who had his summer home here. (The house was where Washington Irving wrote his work on the fur trade. Astoria (online) [1836]). Some residents wanted to call the area Sunswick, an Indian name, but Halsey persuaded them to change the the name in the hopes that Astor would donate money to the village's young ladies' seminary; he eventually sent $500.