In 1844, Brentwood began as Thompson Station and Suffolk Station, two new stations on the expansion of the mainline of the Long Island Rail Road. On March 21, 1851, it became the utopian community named Modern Times. The colony was established on 750 acres of land by Josiah Warren and Stephen Pearl Andrews. In 1864, it was renamed Brentwood after the town of Brentwood, Essex, in England.