Bill Bleyer was a prizewinning staff writer for Newsday for 33 years specializing in history and maritime issues before retiring in 2014 to write books and freelance for the newspaper and magazines. He is co-author, with Harrison Hunt, of Long Island and the Civil War (The History Press, 2015). He is the author of Sagamore Hill: Theodore Roosevelt’s Summer White House (The History Press, 2016); Fire Island Lighthouse: Long Island’s Welcoming Beacon (The History Press, 2017), and Long Island and the Sea: A Maritime History, (The History Press 2019); George Washington’s Long Island Spy Ring: A History and Tour Guide (The History Press, 2021), and The Sinking of the Steamboat Lexington on Long Island Sound (History Press, May 2023). The Hofstra University graduate has taught economics and journalism there and history at Webb Institute, the naval architecture college in Glen Cove.