New Town Board Plays Dress-up

Town officials, at the suggestion of Supervisor Cathy Lester, kicked off East Hampton's 350th year by playing dress-up at Friday's Town Board organizational meeting.

The costumes, replicas of clothing worn from the early colonial period to the early 1800s, came from the East Hampton Historical Society collection. The society also supplied the board with quill pens, lanterns, several early tools and implements, and dried herbs - a 17th century remedy to ward off evil spirits.

Supervisor Lester made her entrance in a black woolen cape and white bonnet worn over a full-length, floral print dress. Councilwoman Pat Mansir, Cynthia Shea, the town attorney, and Carol Brennan, an assistant town clerk, wore similar costumes.

Councilmen Len Bernard and Job Potter and the Town Clerk, Fred Yardley, dressed in frock coats. Justice Catherine Cahill wore a white wig over her black robe.

In a bold fashion departure, Councilman Peter Hammerle showed up in a suede colonial-era militia costume, complete with three-corner hat and musket, which he borrowed from Christopher Stress, who works for McLean and Associates, the town's engineers, and is a member of the Long Island Company of the Third New York Regiment. Members of the group stage Revolutionary War-era re-enactments at Mulford Farm each year and took part in Sunday's anniversary kick-off celebration.

"I seem to have been the wrong size," said Mr. Hammerle. "I came away from the Historical Society with a night shirt, and I didn't want to wear that."

Although he said it "felt great" to commemorate the anniversary in costume, Mr. Hammerle confided that he was not that comfortable wearing knickers with knee socks that were tied tight around his calves.

"Those socks were cutting off my circulation," he said.

"I was happy when I saw the costumes because I thought they would all be drab gray," Ms. Mansir said. "They finally made a woman out of me by getting me in a dress. And there were no sneakers or dungarees under it."

Karen Hensel, the Historical Society's director, said it would be safe to assume that East Hampton's first settlers dressed in "more somber and severe" clothing. "One would not look at their costumes as the last word," she said. "We went not for authenticity but for fit. We tried to present a feeling of times gone by."

The costumes are stored in a climate-controlled room at Clinton Academy and worn during the society's "Living History" programs at the academy, the Osborn-Jackson House, one-room school, and Mulford Farm, she said.

Among the artifacts the society brought out from its collection were a water clock dating from the mid-17th century, candle molds, mortars and pestles, wig curlers, foot warmers, Native American brooms, and a blubber spade.

While most town officials took the dress-up session light-heartedly, Mr. Potter said it made him reflect on the past. "Sitting up there, it made me think of what they went through," he said.