was thereafter known as “Bull” Smith. Almost all these English settlements were made by Presbyterians and from Jamaica east this was the prevailing denomination. During the war of Independence the battle of Long Island (see below) was fought within what is now the borough of Brooklyn.
Authorities.—Benj. F. Thompson, The History of Long Island (New York, 2nd ed. 1843); Nathaniel S. Prime, History of Long Island (New York, 1845), especially valuable for ecclesiastical history, particularly of the Presbyterian church; Martha B. Flint, Early Long Island (New York, 1896); Gabriel Furman, Antiquities of Long Island (New York, 1875), edited by Frank Moore; and the publications of the Long Island Historical Society (of Brooklyn) and of the Suffolk County Historical Society (of Riverhead). (R. We.)
Battle of Long Island, 1776.—The interest of this battle lies in the fact that it was the first engagement in the campaign of 1776 (see American War of Independence) and was expected in England to be decisive of the contest in the colonies. After the evacuation of Boston (March 1776), Lord Howe moved against New York City, which he thought would afford a better base of operations for the future. The Americans undertook its defence although recognizing the difficulties in the case, as the bay and rivers adjoining would enable the British fleet to co-operate effectively with the army. To protect his left flank Washington was forced to throw a portion of his troops over to the Long Island side of the East river; they fortified themselves there on the site of the present Borough of Brooklyn. Lord Howe, who had encamped on Staten Island at the entrance to the harbour, determined to attack this isolated left wing, and on the 22nd of August landed at Gravesend Bay, Long Island, with about 20,000 men. The Americans maintained strong outposts in the wooded hills in advance of their fortified lines. On the morning of the 27th Howe, after four days’ reconnaissance, attacked these posts with three columns, the left and centre delivering the holding attack, and the right and strongest column turning the enemy’s left by a détour. Howe himself, accompanied by Generals (Sir H.) Clinton and Lord Cornwallis, led the turning movement, which came upon the rear of the enemy at the moment when they were engaged with the two other columns. By noon the Americans had been driven back into the Brooklyn lines in considerable confusion, and with the loss of about half their number. This constituted the battle. The completeness of the English victory was due to the neglect of the Americans in guarding the left of their outposts. Howe has been criticized for not immediately assaulting the American works which he might have carried on the evening of the battle. In view of the fact that he had only defeated a small portion of the American forces, and that the works were of considerable strength, he decided to make a formal siege, and Washington took advantage of the delay in operations to retreat across the river to New York on the night of the 29th. This successful movement repaired to some extent the bad moral effect of the defeat of the 27th in the American camp. In the engagement of Long Island Washington lost about 1200 prisoners and 30 guns, and 400 killed and wounded; of the latter the British lost nearly the same number. (C. F. A.)
LONG ISLAND CITY, formerly a city of Queens county, New
York, U.S.A., and since the 1st of January 1898 the first ward
of the Borough of Queens, New York City. Pop. (1880) 17,129,
(1890) 30,506, (1900) 48,272, of whom 15,899 were foreign-born.
It has a river front, on East river and Long Island Sound, of
10 m., and is the eastern terminal and the headquarters of the
Long Island railway, having a large Y.M.C.A. building (the gift
of Mrs Russell Sage) for employees of this railway. Among
manufactures are chemicals, pottery, varnish, silk, &c., and there
are oil-storage warehouses. Most of the borough offices of
Queens borough are in Long Island City, which was formerly
the county-seat of Queens county. The first settlement within
the limits of what subsequently became Long Island City was
made in 1640 by a Dutch blacksmith, Hendrick Harmensen,
who soon afterward was murdered by an Indian. Other settlers,
both Dutch and English, soon followed, and established detached
villages, which became known as Hunter’s Point, Blissville,
Astoria, Ravenswood, Dutch Kills, Middleton and Steinway.
In 1853 this group of villages, by that time virtually one community,
was called Long Island City, and it was formally
incorporated under that name in 1870. In 1871–1872 the city
was laid out by a commission of which General W. B. Franklin
was president. Political convictions, economic considerations
and fear combined to make the residents in this region largely
loyalist in their attitude during the War of Independence.
From 1776 to 1783 British troops occupied Newtown, a village
to the S. E. In January 1776 the committee on the state of
New York in Congress reported a resolution that “Whereas a
majority of the inhabitants of Queens county, in the colony of
New York, being incapable of resolving to live and die free
men,... all such persons as voted against sending deputies
to the present convention in New York ... be put out of
the protection of the United Colonies,” &c., an action which
led to the arrest and imprisonment of many of the accused
persons.
See J. S. Kelsey, History of Long Island City (Long Island City, 1896).
LONGITUDE (from Lat. longitudo, “length”), the angle which the terrestrial meridian from the pole through a point on the earth’s surface makes with some standard meridian, commonly that of Greenwich. It is equal to the difference between local time on the standard meridian, and at the place defined, one hour of time corresponding to 15° difference of longitude. Formerly each nation took its own capital or principal observatory as the standard meridian from which longitudes were measured. Another system had a meridian passing through or near the island of Ferro, defined as 20° W. of Paris, as the standard. While the system of counting from the capital of the country is still used for local purposes, the tendency in recent years is to use the meridian of Greenwich for nautical and international purposes. France, however, uses the meridian of the Paris observatory as its standard for all nautical and astronomical purposes (see Time). In astronomy, the longitude of a celestial body is the distance of its projection upon the ecliptic from the vernal equinox, counted in the direction west to east from 0° to 360°.
LONGLEY, CHARLES THOMAS (1794–1868), archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Rochester, and educated at Westminster and Oxford. He was ordained in 1818, and was appointed vicar of Cowley, Oxford, in 1823. In 1827 he received the rectory of west Tytherley, Hampshire, and two years later he was elected headmaster of Harrow. This office he held until 1836, when he was consecrated bishop of the new see of Ripon. In 1856 he was translated to the see of Durham, and in 1860 he became archbishop of York. In 1862 he succeeded John Bird Sumner as archbishop of Canterbury. Soon afterwards the questions connected with the deposition of Bishop Colenso were referred to him, but, while regarding Colenso’s opinions as heretical and his deposition as justifiable, he refused to pronounce upon the legal difficulties of the case. The chief event of his primacy was the meeting at Lambeth, in 1867, of the first Pan-Anglican conference of British, colonial and foreign bishops (see Lambeth Conferences). His published works include numerous sermons and addresses. He died on the 27th of October 1868 at Addington Park, near Croydon.
LONGMANS, a firm of English publishers. The founder of the firm, Thomas Longman (1) (1699–1755), born in 1699, was the son of Ezekiel Longman (d. 1708), a gentleman of Bristol. Thomas was apprenticed in 1716 to John Osborn, a London bookseller. At the expiration of his apprenticeship he married Osborn’s daughter, and in August 1724 purchased the stock and household goods of William Taylor, the first publisher of Robinson Crusoe, for £2282 9s. 6d. Taylor’s two shops were known respectively as the Black Swan and the Ship, and occupied the ground in Paternoster Row upon which the present publishing house stands. Osborn, who afterwards entered into partnership with his son-in-law, held one-sixth of the shares in Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia of the Arts and Sciences, and Thomas Longman was one of the six booksellers who undertook the responsibility of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary. In 1754 Thomas
