Quogue Historical Society and Quogue Village

The Quoque Historical Society is located in the Pond House at 114 Jessup Avenue in the midst of the National Register-listed Quogue Village Historical District. A walking tour brochure is available from outside the Pond House or from an online download (linked below), showing some of the historical buildings along Jessup Avenue. The historic district encompasses about 200 buildings (maps provided as figures below) representing the village's 250-year-old history. The village was an isolated agricultural settlement in the early eighteenth century, settled from existing settlers moving from nearby Southampton (which had been settled by Puritans in 1640). The Long Island Railroad reached the village in 1876, encouraging the development of truck farming and bringing summer visitors. By the late nineteenth century, Quogue was a bustling seaside resort with many hotels, boarding houses, and seaside cottages and estate residences. The twentieth century brought the incorporation of the village in 1928. The contributing buildings in the historic district date from the mid-1700s to the 1930s and are 90 percent residential.

The Pond House was the location of Mary Payne's Home Store in the 1910s, where shoppers could browse the two front rooms. The Quogue Historical Society (QHS) moved from the Quogue Library to the Pond House in 2011 after renovating the building. A local historical walking tour brochure may be picked up from outside of the Pond House or can be viewed at the link provided below. The tour begins at the Pond House and explores both sides of historical Jessup Avenue. Jessup Avenue opened in 1878 and runs northward from Quogue Street to Montauk Highway (County Road 80). Jessup Avenue features a small commercial district in the lower portion of the road and at its intersection with Quogue Street; buildings ae typically one-story wood frame or masonry, with some of the early twentieth century commercial buildings covered in stucco. Montauk Highway is an an eighteenth-century road based on a pre-settlement path that connects many of the south shore of Long Island communities. The stage coach from New York City reached Quogue in the mid-eighteenth century and was an overnight stop in the three-day trip across Long Island. In Quogue, Montauk Highway used to follow the route now called Main Street. In the mid-1890s, Montauk Highway was realigned and straightened to match the road's eastern and western approaches to the village.

The Quogue Historical District was listed in the National Register in 2016 and covers over 500 acres. Quogue Street tends to be a dividing line between two types of residential areas. The homes south of Quogue Street up to the oceanfront tend to be those of the the wealthier "summer people" who could afford larger homes closer to the Atlantic. Homes north of Quogue Street tend to be more modest, catering to the village residents who service the summer people. The historic district straddles Quogue Street and is mainly south of the re-routed Montauk Highway.

Although most of the contributing buildings (about 90 percent) are single-family residences, there are other types of resources, including a cluster of mid- to late-19th century commercial buildings. The Quogue Cemetery (58 Lamb Avenue) was established in the 1750s and is also individually listed in the National Register (2013) as part of a themed nomination of historic burial grounds of Southampton Township, Suffolk County. Most of the older headstones are in the northwest portion of the cemetery. The first public building in the village still survives - the 1822 one-room schoolhouse. The building was moved from its original location to the Quogue Library grounds to save it from demolition, the Quogue Historical Society has been restoring the former school building recently. The second schoolhouse in the village was constructed in 1893 on Jessup Avenue; the two-room structure was later enlarged, but no longer is standing. The third school building survives (10 Edgewood Road) and was built in 1934; it is a one-story colonial revival style brick structure. All three churches built in the historic district survive: a Presbyterian Church (1870/ enlarged 1901, corner of Quogue Street and Beach Lane); an Episcopal Chapel (1883, 17 Quogue Street, now Church of the Atonement), and St. Paul's A.M.E. Zion Church (39 Montauk Highway).

The Quogue Village Historical District is considered significant in areas of settlement, social history, recreation, and architecture, from 1750 to 1935.

Quogue Historical Society. History, Quogue Historical Society. January 1st 2021. Accessed June 13th 2021. https://quoguehistory.org/.

Studenroth, Zachary. Betsworth, Jennifer. NRHP Nomination of Quogue Village Historic District, Quogue, N.Y.. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 2015.