125 Years Ago 1897
From The East Hampton Star, January 29
George A. Eldredge has the contract to build a large summer cottage, stable and laundry for Mr. H.O. Wood of New York, upon land recently purchased of S.C.M. Talmage at Georgica. The work is to be completed June 1st.
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As a result of the public meeting held at Clinton Hall on Friday night last, General Superintendent Potter, Traffic Manager Smith and Train Master Jarvis came to East Hampton on Tuesday to confer with the committee appointed at the meeting in relation to the recent change of terminus.
The officials were met by the committee at the station and driven about the village. They were taken through the cottage settlement at the south end and to the beach, and expressed themselves as surprised to find so many summer cottages here.
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The icemen were busy all day Wednesday, and several hundred loads were carted through the street. Frank Cartwright stored a large quantity in his Main street ice house, and David Gardiner and Chase Filer nearly filled their homes. Herman Hallock also filled the house at the LaForest place.
100 Years Ago 1922
From The East Hampton Star, January 27
Hampton Bays is the new name by which the quaint and pretty village of Good Ground will hereafter be known. It was officially christened Hampton Bays last week when the Post Office Department at Washington announced that Howard T. Meschutt had been appointed postmaster at Hampton Bays.
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Edwin Schenck, chauffeur for the East Hampton Bakery, had an exciting time Tuesday afternoon, about 2 o’clock. He was delivering some bakery products to a resident on Buell lane, and, upon starting his Ford delivery car, the engine backfired, igniting the oil and gas on the underside of the car. Edwin saw the sheet of fire and smoke coming from under his car and ran as fast as he could go into a nearby residence and telephoned to the I.Y. Halsey Automobile Company Garage, stating that his car was on fire and to rush two Pyrene fire extinguishers to him.
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From up in the Nome country of Alaska word comes that a Sag Harbor boy, long thought to be among the missing, or dead, is living and a well-to-do hotel proprietor. Way back in 1890, before discoveries in the Klondike country, Thomas Mulligan, oldest son of a respected family of Sag Harbor, went west in quest of fortune. He settled in San Francisco, where some other Long Island boys had located about the same time. Subsequently it is said he went to Australia and then to Alaska, at the time of gold discoveries.
75 Years Ago 1947
From The East Hampton Star, January 30
The beautiful Gardiner’s Island Manor House, built 1774, nine miles from this village and three miles across Gardiner’s Bay from the mainland at Fire Place, was completely destroyed by fire early last Friday morning. The historic house was owned by Miss Sarah Diodati Gardiner of 3 East 82nd St., New York, and White House, East Hampton, but had long been leased, together with the hunting privileges on the 3,300-acre island, for a term of years by Winston Guest, well known polo player and sportsman.
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The Senior class on the evening of February 1st will present a circus in the auditorium of East Hampton High. There will be a variety of side shows, candy, balloons, and other attractions found at any regular circus. Two main shows are to be held in the “big tent.” One at 7:30 p.m., the other at 9:00.
Among the side shows there are a freak show, a snake charmer, a fortune teller and many others.
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Under the terms of the Emergency Teachers’ Salary Bill, which was signed by Governor Thomas E. Dewey on January 23, any teacher receiving an annual salary of less than $2,000 as of Sept. 1, 1946 must be raised to that figure effective Jan. 1, 1947. The law further provides that the salaries of any teacher who has not received a salary increase of at least $300 over and above the contract salary in force on June 30, 1945, plus required increments, shall be given an increase of at least that amount effective Jan. 1, 1947.
50 Years Ago 1972
From The East Hampton Star, January 27
The Rev. Thomas Skinner, a black author and evangelist, the founder of Tom Skinner Associates Inc. of Brooklyn, will speak at St. Luke’s Church on Sunday, Feb. 6, at 8 p.m., under the auspices of the East Hampton Town Clericus, a clergymen’s association.
Rev. Skinner, who is 29 and was converted while a gang leader, will conduct a “rap session” at 3:30 p.m. that Sunday in the Amagansett Presbyterian Church. The public meeting, to which local officials have been invited, “will be of special interest to youth and youth leaders,” according to the Clericus.
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The Bridgehampton Historical Society has begun a fund-raising campaign to purchase for $35,000 the Augustus Corwith homestead, which it has leased for the past ten years as a museum.
A letter of appeal for funds was mailed this week to residents of Bridgehampton and the surrounding area by the chairmen of the drive, Hildreth Rogers and Bruce F.E. Harvey.
The homestead, part of which was built in 1775, has been rented by the Historical Society from the Bridgehampton Library trustees.
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The life and culture of the American Indian, especially that of the 13 tribes that lived on Long Island at the time of the first settlers, will be the theme of two exhibitions and three programs at Guild Hall next month.
The exhibitions will include a display on the Long Island Indian in the Woodhouse Gallery and a photographic exhibition, “Indian Images,” lent by the Smithsonian Institution, which studies American Indians from 1847 to 1928.
25 Years Ago 1997
From The East Hampton Star, January 30
Judith Hope, the chairwoman of the New York State Democratic Committee and a former East Hampton Town Supervisor, was elected last week to the executive board of the Democratic National Committee, joining Bill Lynch, a part-time resident of Sag Harbor, who was elected at the same time to the even more powerful position of vice chairman of the National Committee.
Local Democrats said this week they were dumbfounded by the news that East Hampton would have two members concentrated in the top spots on the National Committee joining other leaders from all over the country.
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Twenty-five acres of wetlands near the Soak Hides dreen, off Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, may be the first purchase made from the $5 million open space bond approved by local voters in November.
A price of $667,500 has been negotiated for the parcel, and a public hearing on the proposed purchase will be held on Friday, Feb. 7.
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United States Representative Michael Forbes and Senator Alphonse D’Amato, declaring that they were “fed up” by contamination of groundwater at Brookhaven National Laboratory, called last week for investigations by the Federal Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency into lab operations following the finding of high levels of radioactive tritium less than 100 feet from B.N.L.’s main nuclear reactor.
