(From the NY City Landmarks Preservation Commission Study that Designated the Tottenville Branch a NY City Landmark, 1995) [Section 1 of 8] 

History of Tottenville

The southwestern tip of Staten Island (Richmond County), once an important Native American habitation site and burial ground, has a recorded history which dates to the 1670s, when Captain Christopher Billopp built a stone manor house (the Billopp or Conference House, a designated New York City Landmark) and initiated ferry service to Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Billopp’s plantation, later enlarged and given the title “Manor of Bentley,” was the largest holding in the West Division (later renamed Westfield Township), one of the four precincts into which the county was divided. Following the Revolution, the Billopp property was confiscated by the State of New York, partitioned, and sold; it continued to be used largely for farming and as a base for fishing and associated maritime trades. Gradually the land was subdivided into smaller lots and by the 1840s a hamlet began to form around the ferry landing and the nearby sections of Amboy Road, the path leading to it. The slow-growing settlement soon came to be known as Tottenville, after the prominent family who had erected a wharf, Totten’s Landing. Many local residents were engaged in the oyster business and ship-building, which remained leading occupations and mainstays of the area economy into the 1920s, while the waterfront setting and frequent steamer and ferry connections prompted the development of small summer resorts, restaurants, hotels, and other recreation businesess.

The completion in 1860 of the Staten Island Railroad, which ran from Vanderbilt’s Landing on the island’s east shore to a depot near the hamlet’s ferry landing, establishing an important link between the developing village and the rest of the island, spurred the growth of an adjacent commercial area. During the subsequent decade, a post office was begun and soon named Tottenville, and the hamlet was officially incorporated as a village–the only one to be chartered on the island’s southern and western sections. The village, re-incorporated in 1894, reached a peak of development at the close of the nineteenth century, when many commercial and civic institutions–such as the Tottenville Free Library, several weekly newspapers, the Atlantic Terra Cotta works, and Tottenville Copper Company–were established. From the 1870s through much of the present century, Tottenville has been the largest, most populous, and most cohesive settlement in the southern section of Staten Island and has retained its individuality as a suburban village.

PDF of report available at: www.neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org