Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Great River, NY

Great River is a suburban hamlet and census-designated place in the Town of Islip in Suffolk County, on the South Shore of Long Island adjoining Great South Bay.

Great River's name is a translation of Connetquot, the Algonquian name of the river that flows through it, meaning "great river."

Great River had a population of 2,005 at the 2020 census, living in 798 households — a sharp rebound from 1,489 people in 2010.

For about thirty years in the 1800s the hamlet was known as Youngsport, after the Youngs family, who built and repaired boats on the west shore of the Connetquot River; the name was changed to Great River around the start of the Oakdale estate era and the arrival of the railroad in neighboring Oakdale in 1868.

Great River grew into a mansion enclave for wealthy New York families, including the Vanderbilts, before most of the land was rezoned for ordinary homes.

The hamlet is home to the Bayard Cutting Arboretum, the former 931-acre estate of William Bayard Cutting, which his widow and daughter donated to the State of New York as an arboretum with plantings of some 1,200 varieties.

The 1,600-acre Heckscher State Park, built on land that was part of William Nicoll's original estate, lies within the Great River CDP on Great South Bay.

Timber Point, a public 27-hole golf course, sits in Great River where the Connetquot River meets Great South Bay.

Great River's children attend the East Islip Union Free School District, and its Timber Point Elementary School was named a National Blue Ribbon School in 2012.

The Great River Fire Department, founded in 1916, began with a hand cart pulled by rope by two men; the hamlet's post office dates to November 26, 1889, and Emmanuel Episcopal Church is its only house of worship.