Last Updated on October 18, 2013 by Dennis
Matinecoc Indians. An Algonquian tribe which formerly inhabited the northwest coast of Long Island, New York, from Newtown, Queens county, to Smithtown, Suffolk county. They had villages at Flushing, Glen Cove, Cold Spring, Huntington, and Cow Harbor, but even before the intrusion of the whites they had become greatly reduced, probably through wars with the Iroquois, to whom they paid tribute. In 1650 Secretary Van Tienhoven reported but 50 families left of this once important tribe. Ruttenber includes them in his Montauk group, which is about equivalent to Metoac; but the interrelationship of the tribes in the western part of Long Island has not been definitely determined.