Baldwin is a hamlet located in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, in Long Island, New York, United States.

[1] The original inhabitants of this area between Parsonage Creek near Oceanside and Milburn Creek near Freeport were Native Americans known as the Meroke, or Merrick, a band of Lenape people who were indigenous to most of the South Shore of Long Island.

The grist mill built by John Pine in 1686 on Milburn Creek attracted more English settlers.

[6] Shortly after Hempstead separated from Queens County in 1899, people began to move to "Beautiful Baldwin", as it was called by Charles Luerssen, a village realtor.

By 1939, ten years after the opening of Sunrise Highway, Baldwin became the largest unincorporated village in New York State—a title that was lost to Levittown by 1960.

[6] In the 1990 US Census, the area south of Atlantic Avenue was designated as Baldwin Harbor, a hamlet and census-designated place.

The first all-American monoplane was designed, built, and successfully flown at this location by brothers Arthur and Albert Heinrich.

The project was developed at the site now occupied by the Plaza Elementary School on Seaman Avenue and Rockville Drive.

[8] According to the United States Census Bureau, the hamlet has a total area of 3.0 square miles (7.8 km2), of which 0.34% is water.

Additionally, a portion of the Freeport UFSD crosses into the hamlet, but the area only includes Milburn Pond Park.

[16][18] The soldiers who were posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor: First Lieutenant Bernard J. Ray deliberately gave his life to spare his men of Company F, 8th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division on November 17, 1944, in the Hurtgen Forest.

Specialist Five John J. Kedenburg (BHS '64) was serving with a long-range reconnaissance team of South Vietnamese irregular troops while a member of the U.S. Army 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

While in the landing zone, Kedenberg directed the defense of the L-Z and ultimately gave up the last chance of evacuation to one of his Vietnamese comrades.