HUGH KING A FLAIR FOR DRAMA

Hugh King cuts a head-turning figure striding along Main Street in cap and cape, pointing with his cane as flocks of followers peer.

In full regalia as a resident of times past, Mr. King, East Hampton's official town crier, tells tales of the past to all who venture out with him for a deeper look at the venerable houses, burying grounds, and other village sights.

The tours - cemetery tours and an evening lantern tour this time of year, replaced by a Main Street tour when days lengthen - are offered every three weeks under the aegis of the East Hampton Historical Society.

Mr. King trolls through East Hampton Town records and the East Hampton Library's extensive Pennypacker-Long Island Collection for fodder, and says he finds "something new every time." He practically shivered as he described looking at early copies of the first Long Island newspaper, the Long Island Herald, published in Sag Harbor by David Frothingham in 1791, and reading through ancient town records "written in Thomas Talmage's hand."

Discovering that an accepted tale, usually stitched together from a variety of sources, is not at all what it seemed is one of history's most exciting rewards, in Mr. King's opinion.

After telling people "for years" that Lion Gardiner was buried on Gardiner's Island until his remains were moved to East Hampton's South End Burying Ground in 1886, he found an article in an 1886 copy of The Star describing the family's dismay at how the cedar posts on Gardiner's mainland grave were rotting. Logic dictated that he revise his dates.

Another reward, he said, is watching the faces of his listeners as the wider significance of East Hampton's history, brimming with figures such as Aaron Burr, Julia Gardiner Tyler, and John Howard Payne, sinks in.

Though Mr. King's paternal ancestors have deep local roots, he has not investigated his own genealogy much. "In fact, I've avoided it," he said. A member of the Lost Tribe of Accabonac, native East Hamptoners who meet informally once or twice a year, Mr. King, as this year's annual "roastee," was the target of a "big expose."

"They found out that I wasn't born here," he said. Raised in Amagansett, he was actually born in Brooklyn, where his parents were living at the time. "It's too late to kick me out now, though."

As town crier, Mr. King is paid by the Town Board to make 20 appearances a year, speaking about local history before civic groups or clubs. Actually, he makes many more, and drops in at board meetings, too. "I don't think any other Town Board has made this kind of commitment as far as history," he said. He is hoping the board will decide to spend the money to reprint old Trustee and town records, and republish some of the many long-out-of-print treatises documenting local history.

A few years ago, with his wife, Loretta Orion, who teaches French at the Springs School and anthropology at Hofstra University, Mr. King wrote a play about the 17th-century Goody Garlick witchcraft trial. The couple presents a stripped-down account to students in the local schools, while the adults' version drafts the audience as judge and jury. "Of course, everyone votes guilty," said Mr. King, who has also appeared in community theater group productions.

"And you know," he added in reverential tones, "all the depositions are in the case records."

As town crier and Main Street tour guide, Mr. King's flair for drama and his talent for holding the attention of an audience - a skill honed during a 31-year teaching career at the Springs School - are put to good use. "I'm doing kind of both now, without the pressure," he said.

In October, on the day of the big anniversary parade, Mr. King provided commentary for the crowd as the floats went by the grandstand.

He has always been interested in history, but did not become a serious student of the subject until 1989, "the 200th anniversary of the Constitution being adopted. I somehow picked upon myself to become Rufus King [a signer of the Constitution]. I got this little costume and I started doing research."

Then came an occasion when the Historical Society requested his services as an 1840s schoolmaster, and he was off. The tours began a few years later, with information "generously" supplied by Sherrill Foster as a start.

A member of the tricentquinquagenary executive committee, Mr. King has served as its liaison to schools, and is now busy compiling scrapbooks for posterity, documenting all the celebratory events of the anniversary year now drawing to an end. They will eventually become part of the Long Island Collection.

Retired as of three years ago, the historian resists deadlines and schedules, reveling in the luxury of having time enough to read what he wants, when he wants. He devotes an hour a week to old copies of The Star, he said, and has read all through the records of the East Hampton Town Trustee records, "once thoroughly, and sifted through them a couple more times. It's not something you can blithely go through."

JOANNE PILGRIM