Legends of Fire Island Beach and the South Side (eBook), Edward Richard Shaw
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This edition restores the complete 1895 text, accompanied by acknowledgments to photographer R. Eickemeyer, Jr., whose evocative images of the South Shore were once praised by the Royal Photographic Society. A rare blend of folklore, natural history, and ghost story, Legends of Fire Island Beach stands among the earliest literary records of New York’s maritime mythos.
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This work is in the public domain in the United States.
Description
First published in 1895, Legends of Fire Island Beach and the South Side gathers the salt-swept folklore of Long Island’s Great South Bay—a vanished world of whalers, baymen, and beachcombers who spun their tales by firelight and surf.
Drawing from oral tradition and regional superstition, Edward Richard Shaw preserves the voices of an older, wind-beaten generation: men who told of buried treasure, haunted dunes, phantom mowers, and ghostly cries rising from the breakers. Each story blends fact, fear, and imagination, turning Fire Island’s twenty miles of shifting sand into a stage for mystery and maritime magic.
Among these legends are:
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“The Pot of Gold,” where a storm-tossed sea reveals a pirate’s long-hidden treasure.
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“The Bogy of the Beach,” a tale of eerie calls and spectral warnings along the coast.
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“The Mowers’ Phantom,” in which a fogbound day on the marsh turns into something far stranger.
Shaw, a Long Island native and educator, captures the texture of local dialect and the restless beauty of the coast itself—its salt air, its isolation, and its deep, uncanny charm.
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