ROUND SWAMP FARM: A FAMILY AFFAIR

Carolyn Snyder, a seventh-generation member of the Round Swamp Lester family (and the sister of Dianna Lester Catozzi, who writes about the family this week elsewhere on this page), lives in the circa-1740 Lester homestead at Round Swamp Farm on Three Mile Harbor Road, which was built of lumber probably brought from Gardiner's Island.

Determined to keep the family farm going after her father's death, Ms. Snyder planted crops, "rode tractor," and developed the Round Swamp farmstand, which had its beginnings in a card table where she and her brother would sell vegetables on Sunday afternoons.

The business, now owned by Ms. Snyder and her husband, Harold, is still a family affair. Four generations work at the farm, making baked goods, jams, and relishes, as well as growing the vegetables and harvesting the fresh fish sold there.

"I take a lot of pride in tradition, and in my family," said Ms. Snyder. "The fishing and the farming . . . it's born in you, part of your genes, part of your traits. Not everyone could fit into that lifestyle, but I'm proud to be a part of it."

She is committed to the larger community as well, as is apparent in a quick glance around the Snyders' living room. On one table is a stack of 350th anniversary lecture programs; Ms. Snyder serves on the executive and finance committees for the tricentquinquagenary celebration. Part of the floor is devoted to posters and pamphlets promoting the recent "People Who Make a Difference" walk, a fund-raiser for the East Hampton Day Care Center, and A Program Planned for Life Enrichment, the substance-abuse treatment center.

"I'm just an organized person. I don't find excuses not to do it," Ms. Snyder said. "I always told my kids, 'Don't say you can't do it. If you want to do it, you can.' "

For the past weeks, she has been readying the Round Swamp Farm market for its season opening tomorrow. Next on the list is a June fund-raiser for the Podell House youth shelter, which she is helping to organize.

As a member of the 350th anniversary committee, Ms. Snyder has had a hand in just about every aspect of the celebration's plans, she said, especially fund-raising. She had previously headed the capital fund drive at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in East Hampton that raised almost $1 million for building restoration. She recently became the first female senior warden there.

The 350th Society was Ms. Snyder's brainstorm. She thought it up at a meeting of the general committee one day last fall: a group of 350 people who would donate $350 each for the cause. In return, the members of the society will receive a signed, numbered copy of Averill Geus's official history of the town when it is published; admission to the lectures and other events, and various other perks. So far there are 250 members of the society, which Ms. Snyder heads.

She is having fun with the job. "Normally," she said, "fund-raising is such an arduous task - you know, you hate asking for money. But this is a celebration!"

With butter paddles used by her great-great-grandparents on the kitchen counter, and powder horns that belonged to Jonathan T. Lester, her great-grandfather, hung over the fireplace, Ms. Snyder's house is a celebration of the past. Artifacts come to her from friends and neighbors who know that she will value them for their history. Inside a teapot on a shelf, for example, is a record of who handed it down to whom, just as a scrap of paper in a pair of hand-knit mittens tells their tale.

Though keenly aware of changes since she was a child growing up here, Ms. Snyder is optimistic about the future. The real meaning of the anniversary celebration, she said, was to "move forward without losing sight of the roots of the community."

"The Lesters, the Bennetts, the Paynes, the Millers, and other old families - they're only going to be in the archives," she said. "The people that are here now - they're going to be the East Hampton of tomorrow."

JOANNE PILGRIM