Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 257, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1911 — Terrible Lake Ronkonkoma. [ARTICLE]

Terrible Lake Ronkonkoma.

The brakeman on the Long Island railroad whs talking to two schoolboy* who got on the train at Garden City. "Say, kids, did you know there’s s lake down the island where the suicides disappear, and their bodies are found in the Atlantic ocean? That’s a gospel fact I lost a friend there once. We dragged for his body three | days,' and some fishermen picked it up near Oak Island Beach, just outside Fire Island inlet Now, kids, what do you think of that? Ask your teacher. Maybe she can explain all about it” Needless to remark, the hoys were much interested. | The lake referred to is Ronkonkoma, a freak of nature, about fortyeight miles from New York’s City Hall, and half way, between Stony Brook and Bayville. Strange are the traditions hovering over this small body of water. The' Indians around Islip used to call it Ron-konk-o-MA, but many of the present day Long Islanders say Ron-kon-KO-ma. Old I “resldenters” tell that the tide rises and falls there twice in twenty-four hours, sometimes stx inches, at other times two feet. It is believed that there is an underground connection with Great South hay, leading to the ocean by way of Fire Island inlet. At ' times, they wilt declare, the water Is salt, and at other times fresh.