History of Babylon

Babylon Town possesses a rich and colorful past. History records that in 1710, Captain Jacob Conklin constructed the first residence in the Town of Babylon in the region which is currently referred to as Wheatley Heights . Conklin sailed with the renowned pirate Captain Kidd. It is actually uncertain whether Conklin was pressured into service by Kidd or was a willing accomplice. One version of the story states that Conklin eluded from Kidd whilst the ship was docked in Cold Spring Harbor, disguising among the Native Americans and afterwards buying land from them. The other version is that Conklin was a full participator in Kidd’s explorations and basically decided to disembark when the ship arrived at Long Island. What is certain is that, subsequent to his service with Kidd, Conklin acquired a huge amount of money, which he utilized to buy wide tracts of land.

Conklin’s son, Colonel Platt Conklin, was a passionate patriot serving in the Revolutionary War. He married Phebe Smith and they had one child, Nathaniel. It was Nathaniel Conklin who named Babylon in 1803. Conklin was an adventurous type of man who relished the difficulties of frontier life. It is this behavior that led him to relocate his family from their comfortable residence in Dick’s Hills (now Dix Hills) to develop a new life on the mainly undeveloped southern portion of Huntington Town. Upon discovering that their new home could possibly be next to a tavern, Mrs. Conklin, Nathaniel’s mother, declared the area to be another “Babylon.” Seizing on this, Conklin called the town “New Babylon” and embedded these words on a stone tablet in the chimney of his new home. The name “Babylon” caught on quickly and in 1830, the Federal Government gave official recognition by changing the name of the Post Office from Huntington South to Babylon.