What's In A Name? Pudding Hill

The story of Pudding Hill, a Revolutionary War tale, took place at what today is Jackson Peddy's house at 4 Ocean Avenue in East Hampton, where Woods Lane, Main Street, and Ocean Avenue converge. Pudding Hill Lane, between Ocean Avenue and Georgica Road, is a bit south of there.

There are several versions of the tale, but the most complete was written by an East Hampton High School student, Janet Nida, in 1931. It was published by The Star a year later, on Nov. 4, 1932.

According to this account, "a hardy pioneer family, Jeremiah Miller and his wife, Mary Sanford Miller" lived in a cottage on the site at the time, 1776. British officers stationed in the area took many of their meals in Sag Harbor and Southampton, but "frequently cantered over the road to Nathaniel Huntting's Inn at East Hampton, to make merry and seek relaxation from duty in cards and foaming drink."

One summer day, Redcoats were passing the hill when an aroma emanating from the Miller kitchen caught their attention.

"Before her hearth stove, the good housewife Miller busied herself in making a pudding, stuffed with plums to the King's taste. . . ."

Not King George, though. Mrs. Miller was a dyed-in-the-wool patriot who "would never permit the enemy food."

The British soldiers hurried up the hill, cheering in search of the pudding they smelled, and startled Mrs. Miller.

"Immediately she grasped the situation, and quickly seizing the boiling pot, she ran to the door, and threw it, pudding and pot, down the hill, offering a spilled feast to the disappointed Redcoats who, angrily blaspheming their ill luck, turned away. When the brave housewife's daring deed was heralded about the town, her home became known as Pudding Hill, and since that day has retained its unique name."

"The old iron pot in which the pudding was made now swings between two trees," according to the 1931 account, "filled with ivy and bright growing flowers. The path over which the pudding and pot rolled down the hill, paved with red brick used as ballast on sailing vessels during the Revolutionary War, still remains and leads to a picturesque gateway through a rambling honeysuckle hedge shaded over by silver willows."

The red brick path and gateway look much the same today, and a plaque stands at the end commemorating Pudding Hill. The plaque, however, names the pudding-thrower as an Osborn woman, and says she made "suet" pudding. A skit written by Robert J. Gibson, "How Pudding Hill Got Its Name," identifies the woman of the house as a Mrs. Jeremiah Osborne.

"Up and Down Main Street" gives two versions of the Pudding Hill legend, one recalled in a poem by Fannie (or Fanny) Elkins and a second taken from Thomas Edwards's reminiscences, compiled at the behest of East Hampton's first librarian.

Mr. Edwards quotes his "Grandmother Hedges" (Mrs. Mary G. Osborn Hedges) in asserting that the maker of the pudding fled when the Redcoats came up the hill. As for the pudding, it was "Injun," or cornmeal, he writes - unknown in England and probably scorned by the British soldiers. According to Grandmother Hedges, it was the soldiers who threw the pudding down the hill.

Jeannette Edwards Rattray wrote that she thought the pudding was "Montauk blackberry duff."

The Miss Elkins who penned "The Ballad of Pudding Hill" in the 1880s was a relative of George Elkins, a land broker who bought Pudding Hill shortly after 1870 (the original cottage had been replaced by then). In 1948, on the occasion of East Hampton's 300th anniversary, Louise Mulford set the long poem to music.

An excerpt:

"Oh no, you're not," she made reply,

Then seized the boiling pot -

Ran with it through another door

And threw it, blazing hot,

Pudding and all, adown the hills,

And lent it in the sand,

Amid the curses, loud and deep,

Of all the hungry band.

This thing was naught, perhaps, beside

What patriots daily do,

And yet the spirit that inspired

Was Freedom's spirit, too. The place and tale are widely known,

Fresh is the legend still;

And all East Hampton villagers

Are proud of Pudding Hill.

Correction

The first cottage to be built on Pudding Hill was still there shortly after 1870, when George Elkins bought the property. It was not torn down until after he sold it in1887.