Manhasset Bay, New York, is an
embayment
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a ...
in western
Long Island off
Long Island Sound.
Description
Manhasset Bay forms the northeastern boundary of the
Great Neck Peninsula and the southwestern boundary of Cow Neck (Port Washington Peninsula or Manhasset Neck). On the north side of the bay there are three points, Barkers Point at the entrance, Plum Point coming the furthest into the Bay, and Tom's Point in the back bay. On the other side, Hewlett Point forms the entrance nearly a mile from
Barkers Point. Hart Island lies in the Sound just outside the mouth of Manhasset Bay.
The Manhasset Bay area was likely first inhabited in the 17th century by the Matinecook tribe of
Algonquin Indians
Indian or Indians may refer to:
Peoples South Asia
* Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor
** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country
* South Asia ...
. However, that view has been challenged. Then the
Dutch and the
English settled around the bay in the 17th century because of the proximity of
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% ...
. The Bay was called Schout's Bay by the Dutch, and then Howe's Bay by the English.
Subsequently, due to the presence of cattle raising, it came to be called Cow Bay, and the local neck, to the northeast, "Cow Neck". It finally became Manhasset Bay in 1907.
In the 1920s it began to switch from the cow-and-fish industry to support services for commercial boating,
as it is considered to be one of the best harbors on Long Island Sound with little tidal current except at the entrance and average tidal displacement of only six feet. By the 1980s it was full of marinas and yacht clubs. The
Sands Point Seaplane Base on Manhasset Bay was at one time the main airport for passenger service between New York and Europe. At the beginning of the 21st century, it had about 16% of all the marinas and yacht clubs in the whole of
Long Island Sound.
Sub-watersheds
Manhasset Bay's
watershed
Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to:
Hydrology
* Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins
* Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...
consists of many smaller sub-water sheds. These sub-watersheds are:
* Barkers Point
* Baxter and Mill Pond
* Eastern Shore
* Kings Point Pond
* Leeds Pond
* Mitchell Creek
* Sheets Creek
* Southeastern Shore
* Southwestern Shore
* Toms and Plum Points
* Whitney Pond
Gallery
File:Manhasset Bay West Side Sunset Fishing.jpg
File:Manhasset Bay East Side Easte by Leeds Pond.jpg
File:Manhasset Bay Moored Boat at Sunset 4.jpg
File:Manhasset Bay Moored Boat at Sunset 2.jpg
Notes
{{Commons category, Manhasset Bay
Bays of New York (state)
Bodies of water of Nassau County, New York
Long Island Sound
Town of North Hempstead, New York