Part 1 - Princess Ronkonkoma, was an Long Island Indian princess who died at the lake with her name in the mid-1600s. One story is that she was walking across the ice one winter when she met and fell in love with an English woodcutter named Hugh Birdsall, who lived across the lake, but their union was forbidden by her father.
Every night, they would sneak out to send messages of love to one another. Ronkonkoma would paddle her canoe out to the middle of the lake, where she would then float a message the rest of the way to her lover waiting on the opposite shore. This continued for years, until one day the princess was unable to deal with this arrangement and snapped.
She sent a final farewell note to her lover. He received it on the shore and minutes later, the canoe washed up in front of him as well. Inside it was the princess’s body––she had committed suicide in the middle of the lake. He too committed suicide out of anguish over the death of his one true love.
Since that day, Ronkonkoma has haunted the lake, becoming known to many as the "Lady of the Lake". Angered because she wasn’t allowed to love in her lifetime, she now drags one young man into the lake each year. People say that at least one person has drowned each year in Lake Ronkonkoma for the past 200 years, the large majority of them male.
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