Pergolas in Manorville, NY

The hamlet of Manorville was a small farming community for many years. The area of the hamlet once laid within the huge tract of land known as Manor St. George, a land grant given to Col. William “Tangier” Smith in 1693 for recognition of his service as governor of Tangier in Morocco. In 1844, the Long Island Rail Road built a station called St. George’s Manor, which was situated off of Ryerson Avenue. However, Seth Raynor, the station agent who was a patriot during the American Revolutionary War, disliked the name due to its similarity to the British and their colonial dominance (Saint George, the patron saint of England, is a symbol of the English monarchy), and decided to paint over the sign, leaving only the word “Manor”. The hamlet changed its name to “Manorville” with the opening of its post office in 1907, but timetables and Long Island Rail Road documents retained the name “Manor” until 1907 or 1908.

The Long Island serial killer is sometimes dubbed the “Manorville killer” because four victims’ remains were discovered in Manorville from 2000 to 2011.