[2] The population rises to about 2,000 during peak summer weekends, as throngs disembark on the island from Connecticut.

Adriaen Block was the first recorded European visitor, and he named it Vischer's Island in 1614 after one of his companions.

[citation needed] John Winthrop the Younger obtained a grant of Fisher's Island in 1640 from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, "reserving the right of Connecticut if it should be decided to be theirs.

"[3] He simultaneously applied to the Connecticut General Court for a similar grant in order that there might be no flaw in his title.

The title was given to him in the following words, which are copied from the records of a General Court held at Hartford, Connecticut, April 9, 1641: Winthrop lived only one winter on the island.

He was named governor of the Connecticut Colony 1657–58 and 1659–76, and he used the island to raise sheep for food and wool.

He died in 1676 and his son Fitz-John installed a lessee farmer from England on the island named William Walworth.

Settlers throughout Suffolk County pressed to stay under Connecticut's jurisdiction, but Governor Sir Edmund Andros threatened to eliminate their rights to land if they did not yield, which they did by 1676.

Wright, which was named after the Civil War Union commander who was born in Clinton, Connecticut.

The 1890s brought a growing summer population and the construction of the Fishers Island Yacht Club.

& W. Ferguson business was established to manage the Mansion House Hotel and Cottages, a ferry service, and the electricity, water, and telephone enterprises.

As of 2022, the firm still owns and operates the water, telephone service (area code 631, exchange 788), and electrical utilities.

The town has contracts with the Ferry District to operate Elizabeth Field airport and to manage other structures that were part of Fort Wright.

During the late phase of the Wisconsin glaciation, glacial Lake Connecticut formed at the retreating fore edge of the ice sheet, over what now is Long Island Sound; it formed an outlet in its moraine dam at The Race, famous for rip currents, which still separates Fishers Island from the North Fork.

Fishers Island is essentially a long barrow of rocky till scoured from the surface of southern Connecticut.

The climate is one of only a few locations on an east coast in the Northern Hemisphere that is oceanic (Koppen Cfb).

[10] The island is the only point in Suffolk County to which telephone calls placed from the New York City area are classified as long distance rather than regional; any telephone call placed from Fishers Island to anywhere else is treated as long distance.

The only way for New York state troopers to get to Fishers Island is to travel through Connecticut and take the ferry from New London.

The island offers all the necessities for small-town life, including a K-12 school (Fishers Island School), bowling alley, movie theater, liquor store, grocery store, two gas stations, volunteer fire department, and post office.

The west end also has a small air strip (Elizabeth Field), a museum, an ice cream shop, two boutiques, a hardware store, and a restaurant-bar.

Fishers Island Club features tennis courts, a beachfront, clubhouse, employee housing, and a golf course which President Dwight D. Eisenhower called a "real course".

[21] The seaside scenes in the movie The World According to Garp were shot on Fishers Island around the grounds of the mansion built by Bethlehem Steel heir Robert Linderman.