Located in the Town of Oyster Bay, Jericho was part of the Robert Williams Plantation in 1648. The English families who settled in Jericho were, or soon became,
Quakers, members of the
Society of Friends. Many fled from persecution in England and in the New England Colonies. They sought a peaceful existence as
farmers. The name of the area was changed in 1692 from
Lusum to Jericho after the town in the Middle East near the Jordan River mentioned in the Bible as part of the Promised Land. The
Census of slaves, conducted in the
Province of New York in 1755, contains a long list of enslaved individuals in Oyster Bay, including the hamlets of Jericho and what is now
North Hempstead. It is followed by a remarkable additional list of "free Negroes Melattoes [people of Afro-European ancestry] and Mustees [people of Afro-Indigenous ancestry] Resideing within ye Township of Oysterbay that may probably Be Likely In case of Insurrections To be as Mischevious as ye Slaves." (Free individuals were not supposed to be reported for the Census; a local militia captain supplied it on his own initiative, with the expectation "that ye Other Captains in Oysterbay will acquaint Your Honour [governor of New York] of those Resideing in ye Other parts of ye Township.") Slavery was abolished locally in 1817, with the help of
Elias Hicks. (A Hempstead carpenter, Hicks had moved to his wife’s family's farm in Jericho in 1771, where he became a noted preacher of Quaker doctrine.) 's Log Seminary in Jericho, New York A post office was established in 1802, a
cider mill in the mid-19th century, and the first public elementary school (known as the Cedar Swamp School) in 1905. Improvements to infrastructure were made with the founding of the Jericho Water District in 1923. As the population increased, a Volunteer Fire Department established in 1938, and a new elementary school was built in 1953 (Robert Seaman School). The population kept increasing until the last elementary schools in Jericho were built, the George A. Jackson Elementary School in 1957, the now closed Robert Williams School in 1961 and the Cantiague School in 1963. After World War II, in the 1950s Phebe Underhill Seaman sold a large piece of her land to real estate developers. This property was developed for new suburban housing. The water tower was erected in 1952. In 1958 the NY Department of Transportation demolished "Old Jericho" to widen Broadway, Routes 106/107, and to put in a cloverleaf access to
Jericho Turnpike. New grade schools and a high school were added to the community along with a shopping center, a new post office, new fire department and a public library. Also in Jericho is the New York Community Bank Theatre, originally established in 1956 as the
Westbury Music Fair. The main entrance to
SUNY Old Westbury is located in Jericho.
Underground Railroad The building now known as One North was built in 1789 as the home for the prominent Quaker and abolitionist Valentine Hicks, his wife Abigail, and their children. Hicks' father-in-law Elias Hicks "had been the spark that helped convince Quakers and other like-minded people after the Revolutionary War that all men were created equal—including people of color who were enslaved". Valentine Hicks was also an
Underground Railroad station master; in his home—a key
way station—a removable panel behind an upstairs linen closet (that is still there today) concealed a staircase to the attic where Hicks hid runaways until the coast was clear. The
Town of Oyster Bay designated the site as a historic town landmark in 2012. In 2015 partial demolition of the Maine Maid Inn took place without the approval of the Oyster Bay landmark commission, which outraged many preservationists. ==Geography==