A Yearlong Party For The 350th Anniversary

Representatives of some 85 organizations turned out on the morning of April 30 to hear Bruce Collins, chairman of the East Hampton Town 350th Anniversary Committee, describe how the pieces of the yearlong celebration are falling into place.

At the committee's first public meeting, a breakfast at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett, Mr. Collins reported plans were afoot to hold a parade, strike a commemorative coin, sponsor an exhibit of historical documents, and publish a souvenir book and a comprehensive calendar of events.

The town will celebrate its tricent quinquagenary in 1998, and Mr. Collins, a former Town Supervisor and retired Village Highway Superintendent, heads the committee, which includes representatives from each hamlet and incorporated village. They have been working quietly for months.

Lawyer Volunteers

Mr. Collins told last week's gathering that the committee had thought to hire a professional fund-raiser to help raise money to pay for it all, but Thomas Twomey, a lawyer who heads the East Hampton Library's building drive, has volunteered for the job, and offered free legal help, too.

Mr. Twomey has led a campaign that raised nearly $3 million for the library's almost-completed expansion.

The anniversary committee has not yet put a budget together. Any money donated to the cause but unspent when the year is up will be turned over to the library's Long Island Collection.

The town, which seeded the effort with $15,000, is acting as the clearinghouse for donations until the committee is incorporated as a nonprofit charity. In that way, even the earliest donations will be tax-deductible, Mr. Collins explained.

The East Hampton Village Board agreed to make a $7,500 donation and gave the committee an office at Village Hall as well.

Community Effort

"There are few towns that can say they've reached their 350th anniversary," Supervisor Cathy Lester told the crowd, adding she hoped every organization in town would participate in some way.

East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. called the planning of the celebration "an exciting mission" for the entire community.

The East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society could adopt the anniversary as the theme of its 1998 fair, or the Sag Harbor Chamber of Commerce could dedicate its Whalers Festival to it, were just two of Mr. Collins's suggestions.

A representative of the Quilters Guild of the South Fork said an anniversary quilt depicting various scenes from East Hampton's history was well under way. She suggested it be used as the illustration for a commemorative poster.

Dongan Patent On View

The committee and Guild Hall are planning a two-month exhibit, possibly from September through November 1998, of historical documents and artifacts, including maps and other papers from the Morton Pennypacker Collection at the library, and the original Dongan Patent.

Kept in the Town Hall archives, the patent, signed by Gov. Thomas Dongan in 1686, conferred on the townspeople the right to manage their own affairs and created the Town Trustees as the proprietors of the common lands.

A professional curator, still to be named, will gather "documents that have seldom if ever been seen by the general public," said Mr. Collins.

He added that the exhibit was deliberately timed for the start of the school year. Teachers will be encouraged to bring their classes to Guild Hall instead of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and other such destinations.

Commemorative Coin

The Harbor for Boys and Girls will dedicate its 1998 annual fireworks dis play to the anniversary, Mr. Col lins reported.

Frank Borth of Montauk, an artist and former Town Councilman, has sent the committee a proposed logo and design for the commemorative coin. Richard Mamay, head of the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, suggested the committee contact the local schools about a design contest for students.

Hugh King, the town crier and a committee member, said he had been drumming up interest in the schools and would carry the suggestion with him from now on.

Mr. Collins said he also wanted to see the Hook Mill run again, sails and all. He said it hadn't been cranked up since Ronald Rioux was Mayor, "and we backed up the traffic for hours."

Mayor Rickenbach remarked that completion of the restoration of the Gardiner Mill was being timed to coincide with the anniversary, too.

LTV Documentary

Trail walks and house tours are also being planned, and Mr. Collins urged church leaders to find a way to take part as well.

LTV videotaped and broadcast last week's meeting. Genie Henderson, the LTV director, said LTV wanted to encourage organizations to help tape all the anniversary events.

LTV, which maintains a videotape archive of various community events and meetings, would also like to find someone to turn those tapes into a full-length documentary, said Ms. Henderson.

Eunice Meeker, president of the Eastern Gate Garden Club, recalled that in 1948 a grand pageant involving hundreds of costumed residents had been held to mark the town's 300th anniversary.

The spectacle was filmed, but the film has been lost, and a search is on to find a copy, said Mrs. Meeker.

"If there's a pageant this time, I am not going to tackle a pig on the village green," declared Trevor Kelsall, the village historian, who was a teenager then.

Mr. Collins said, though, that the committee had ruled out such an event this time. There is talk of something on a smaller scale instead, perhaps a stage play at Guild Hall.

Rough Riders, Too

An official from the Suffolk County Parks Department attended last week's breakfast meeting as well. The Parks Department is holding a celebration of its own next year, a parade and other activities in September 1998 that will mark the 100th anniversary of Col. Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders regiment's monthlong convalescence from yellow fever in Montauk, after the Spanish-American War.

The county has been searching for descendants of the Rough Riders, as well as artifacts and memorabilia to display at Third House, which was called Camp Wikoff at the time.

Others at the meeting included representatives of town and village governments, police departments, the Baymen's Association, the Town Trustees, the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association, various cham b ers of commerce, Girl and Boy Scouts, the Friends of Erin, and the L.V.I.S.

In Attendance

The Jimmy Ernst Artists Alliance was there, too, as were the Veterans of Foreign Wars, schools and churches, historical societies, the Devon Yacht Club, the Montauk Village Association, the Lions Club, the East Hampton Business Alliance, the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, and more.

Among the suggestions from the audience were bus tours of historic sites, a contest for a song about the anniversary, and garden tours.

Fifty years ago, said Mr. Collins, he could have "called everyone here by name," but no more. Newer residents, he said, "know they're in a nice place, but may not know why it's a nice place."

Celebrating the town's anniversary, he said, would be a fine way to teach residents, new and native, about its history.

Worth Celebrating

"Whether we've been here a long time or whether we're new, East Hampton, what it is and what it has been, has only been developed through hard work," said Mr. Collins. "And decisions have been made that not everybody's liked. Depends on who's ox was being gored at the time, I guess. But the fact remains that we have a town worth celebrating."

The committee has been meeting every other Thursday afternoon. Mike Finazzo, who organizes the Friends of Erin's annual St. Patrick's Day parade in Montauk, offered to produce the anniversary parade, too.

Mr. Collins said the committee will publish a newsletter containing articles of historical interest and a calendar of all the commemorative events. He asked that all organizations in town send in a list of their anniversary-related events by June 12.