Back in 1900, a little village sprouted up on Long Island called "Comac" along the Huntington/Smithtown town line. Located in the little hollow created by the gently rolling hills that surrounded the intersection of Jericho Turnpike and the Commack/Townline Road, it was a cross-roads community that stretched out to the north, south east and west from Comac Corners.
"Comac is a name derived from the Algonquin Indian word of Winnecomac which means "pleasant land" or "beautiful place" and it was the name that the native inhabitants gave to the region," says town historian Brad Harris. "The little cross-roads community was known as Comac at the turn of the last century and then suddenly, around 1906, the spelling of the name changed to Commack. Why? Apparently the mail for Comac kept getting mixed up with the mail for Coram and the U.S. Postal Service changed the spelling of the name to end the confusion."
According to the Smithtown Historical Society, the Smithtown portion of Commack was originally part of Richard Smythe's colonial land grant in 1665 for the town of Smithtown, and part of another land grant known as the Winnecomac Patent in 1689. Settlement in the Comac area was mostly by homesteaders who were farmers and some of their pre-Revolutionary War houses are still to be found in the area. By 1783 there were enough residents in Comac to form a Methodist congregation and by 1789 the congregation erected its first church that is still standing on Town Line Road just north of the Commack Corners.
Commack, at the turn of the century, was a thriving, bustling little village that had a sizeable population and a history that was already over two hundred years old.
"Commack had two hotels, a general store, a candy store, a large centrally located school building (the Frame School, 1899-1924), a wheelwright shop, a blacksmith, a butcher shop, a Methodist Church, a Presbyterian Church, a cabinet maker, sawmills, racetracks and many large homes and farms," says Harris. "Commack also had its share of wealthy and influential residents."
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