Melville, NY 11775

Melville, NY

The hamlet of Melville is a well-to-do community that sits in the town of Huntington and Suffolk County, New York. The population of this census-designated place is approximately 18,985.

Herman Melville was 20 when he made his first voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. He was a cabin boy on the merchant ship St. Lawrence, and spent a year exploring the West. In 1841, he joined the crew on the whaling vessel Acushnet. The three years on the ship provided him with material for his first three novels. However, none of his novels were successful, except for The Seafarer (1851).

Melville is similar to Long Island's climate. The Koppen climate classification places the city in a transition zone between humid continental and humid subtropical climates. This means that the temperature is typically hot and sunny during the summer, and cool and damp during the winter. Melville has a fairly uniform amount of precipitation throughout the year. Despite the mild winters, it is still cold enough to enjoy outdoor activities during the colder months of January and February.

Typee: A Look at Polynesian Life by Herman Melville was Herman Melville’s first novel. It was published 1846. The book combined real stories and imagined events. The book's wild plot and descriptions of the sealife attracted attention. Later, he would write Omoo: An Adventure Narrative in the South Seas. It was published 1859. In 1850, Melville and his wife settled in Massachusetts. They had four children.

In the 17th century, the area was populated by thirteen Native American tribes, including the Sunsquams. The area was named Samuel Ketcham's Valley by the English settlers in 1600. Samuel Ketcham was Edward Ketcham's oldest child, who hails from Connecticut. He published short stories in several magazines and wrote the novel Moby-Dick. He toured England and the Near East in 1857. In 1863, he became a United States customs inspector.