The picturesque Oregon Road, which stretches some three miles from Mill Lane in Mattituck to Cutchogue’s Bridge Lane, was originally built so people living nearby had access to the grist mill on Mattituck Inlet, according to Norman Wamback, curator and historian at the Mattituck Laurel Historical Society. The area was settled in the 1840’s and farming along the road soon flourished.
Wamback found an old map in the attic of the organization’s main building, a structure that was built by the Tuthill family in 1799. The map, dating to 1909, named all the farm families on the north and south sides of Oregon Road.
Those names included the following: Gildersleeve, Burns, Hallock, Robinson, Wyckoff, Duryea, Tuthill, Hamilton, Waters, Moore, Bergen, Ruland, Bond, Wiggins and Shalvey.
The Wiggins family were the road’s first settler. A pastor had asked them where they lived when they told him, he exclaimed, “that’s out in Oregon.”
The name stuck.
Previously:
‘Zenful’ flowers in Baiting Hollow
Hello from this North Fork mama and her babies
Aquebogue peacocks with spring fever
