Richard Cornell was an English Quaker ironmaster and resident of Long Island who is generally considered the first European settler on the Rockaway Peninsula in the present-day Borough of Queens, New York City. Cornell purchased the Rockaway land from another Englishman, Captain John Palmer, in 1687, and settled there in 1690. Cornell was a direct ancestor of Ezra Cornell, who founded Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Wikipedia
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