Miller Place Rail Road Station, 1910. (Image from the Brookhaven Pictorial Collection of the Suffolk County Historical Society Library Archives [207.00.169]. Copyright © Suffolk County Historical Society. All rights reserved.)

The land that Miller Place occupies today was purchased from the Setalcott Indians in 1664 by settlers of Setauket. The parcel also included what would become Mount Sinai. The first known dwelling in the area was constructed in the 1660s by Captain John Scott, though we do not know who occupied the home. Located on the eastern side of Mount Sinai Harbor, the home was one of several dwellings commissioned by Scott.

While the original settler of Miller Place is unknown, the settling of the region is accredited to the original Miller family. In 1679, an East Hampton settler named Andrew Miller purchased a 30-acre plot. Miller was a cooper by profession, and records indicate that he had emigrated from either England or Scotland.

By the early 1700s, the community had become known as Miller’s Place. The Miller family expanded well into the eighteenth century and continually developed houses in the northern part of the hamlet. The Millers were in time joined by members of such families as the Helmes, Robinsons, Burnetts, Hawkins, Woodhulls, and Thomases, among others. Many roads in the present-day hamlet of Miller Place are named after the area’s historic families.