In 1640, Lady Deborah Moody and a small group of persecuted Anabaptists left England, and in 1643, they settled at the extreme southwestern end of Long Island. The tract included Coney Island, a sandbar that lay to the south across a shallow tidal creek. The settlement became the town of Gravesend, the only English town in the Dutch province of New Netherland and the only colony in America founded by a woman.
