Fireplace is the name of town that was located at the mouth of the Carman River, on the west bank. Directly opposite it on the east bank was Fort St. George and St. Georges Manor.

The section of map below (D.W. Beers map of 1873, reproduction form Compass Ventures 1971, Jamaica, NY) show the mouth of the Carman River at its outlet to the Great South Bay.  As indicated by the map a lot of the mouth opening was marsh but shortly inland was solid ground and small tree cover.  Fireplace was in it's time around the west bank probably where the road first meets the river just above the marsh.  It is hard to read but you can see the names of C. Carman and H. Carman just on the upper section of the map slightly left of middle, and J. Carman's house at the end of the road on the river.

Fireplace got it's name from whaling days, and I have heard two stories. The simpler of the two is it was the place that they would light a fire to guide the ships with into the mouth of the Carman River, kind of a make shift light house.  The other was that it was the place that they would set up the fires to render the whales when they were brought in when the Whaling Ships came back into port. In the days this was used whales could still be caught of Long Island and they weren't the large ships that would go out for a year at a time, as we are familiar with from Moby Dick. These were smaller, local whalers. A time long in the past when whales could e spotted off Long Island.

 07/21/2007