Editing Miller Place, New York (section)

===Agricultural hamlet===
Miller Place has been inhabited since the 17th century and is named for the Miller family that included many of its initial settlers. For most of its history, the community functioned as an agriculture-based society.

The land that Miller Place occupies was purchased from the native Setalcott tribe in 1664 by settlers of [[Setauket, New York|Setauket]].  The parcel also included what would become [[Mount Sinai, New York|Mount Sinai]], an adjacent community of similar character with which Miller Place would share a variety of functions throughout its history.

The first known dwelling in the area was constructed in the 1660s by [[Captain John Scott]], an important figure in Long Island's early history.  This house was named ''Braebourne'' and features on a map of the New England region credited to Scott, who served as a royal advisor and cartographer among other occupations.  This abode, on the eastern side of Mount Sinai Harbor, was one of three houses John Scott commissioned, and the actual occupier is unknown.<ref name="Barstow">{{cite book|last=Barstow|first=Belle|title=Setauket, Alias Brookhaven|pages=110–291}}</ref>
[[File:Miller Place Duck Pond and John Woodhull House.jpg|thumb|left|The Miller Place Duck Pond on North Country Road]]
While the original settler of Miller Place is unknown, the settling of the region is largely credited to the original Miller family. In 1679, an [[East Hampton (town), New York|East Hampton]] settler named Andrew Miller purchased a {{convert|30|acre|m2|adj=on}} plot.  Miller was a [[cooper (profession)|cooper]] by profession, and records indicate that he had emigrated from either [[Maidstone|Maidstone, England]] or [[Craigmillar|Craigmillar, Scotland]].
[[File:William_miller_homestead.jpg|thumb|left|The William Miller House, with sections dating from 1720 to 1816]]
By the early 1700s, the community had become known as ''Miller's Place''.  The Miller family expanded well into the 18th 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.  Many roads in the present hamlet have been named after historical families.
[[File:Timothy_miller_house.jpg|thumb|left|The 1785 Timothy Miller house]]
The oldest extant house is the home of William Miller, Andrew Miller's grandson, composed in three sections between 1720 and 1816 at a prominent location on North Country Road.  The hamlet's many extant historical structures are centered on this thoroughfare, forming the core of the [[Miller Place Historic District]].  Listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1976,<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|2009a}}</ref> it became the first historic district in the [[Brookhaven, New York|Town of Brookhaven]]. Separately listed is the [[Samuel Hopkins House]].<ref name="nris"/>

The [[American Revolutionary War]] divided the town, with the majority siding with the Patriot cause but families being split across both lines. A number of midnight raids occurred, one of which resulted in the shooting of a teenage Miller who had peered out of his window to check on the commotion. The march of [[Benjamin Tallmadge]], who led eighty men to the victorious overthrow of a British stronghold at [[Manor St. George]], traversed along the town's western border.

In 1789, the neighboring communities of Miller Place and Mount Sinai organized a Congregational church on the town border. While the Mount Sinai Congregational Church building (an extant structure from 1807) is technically in Mount Sinai, the house for its minister was built in Miller Place and continues to be used for that purpose.

The first two public schools in the hamlet were established in 1813 and 1837. In 1834 the Miller Place Academy, a private school, was established under the leadership of a [[Yale University|Yale]] graduate.  Though the academy itself closed in 1868, it served as a public school from 1897 until the 1937 opening of what is now the North Country Road Middle School.  The Miller Place Academy structure remains as one of the community's symbols and currently houses a free library.