Stump Grinding in Westbury

The first settlers arrived in 1658 in the region known as the Hempstead Plains. Many of the early settlers were Quakers.

Westbury’s Jericho Turnpike, which provides connection to Mineola and Syosset as well as to the Long Island Expressway (or LIE), was once a trail used by the Massapequa Indians. As far back as the 17th century, it served as a divider between the early homesteads north of the Turnpike and the Hempstead Plains to its south. Today, it serves as a state highway complex.

In 1657, Captain John Seaman purchased 12,000 acres (49 km²) from the Algonquian Tribe of the Massapequa Indians. In 1658, Richard Stites and his family built their homestead in this area. Theirs was the only family farm until an English Quaker, Edmond Titus, and his son Samuel joined them and settled in an area of Hempstead Plains, known today as the Village of Westbury. In 1675 Henry Willis, also an English Quaker, named the area “Westbury”, after Westbury, Wiltshire, his hometown in England. Other Quaker families who were also seeking a place to freely express their religious beliefs joined the Tituses and Willises. The first Society of Friends meeting house was built in 1700. The early history of Westbury and that of the Friends are so interconnected that they are essentially the same.