125 Years Ago 1898
From The East Hampton Star, March 25
The season is well advanced in East Hampton. Many of the farmers have land plowed, and some have crops in the ground. Several lawns in town already look as green as in June, while fruit and shade trees are all ready to burst their buds. It is to be hoped that no severe frost will overtake the early approach of spring.
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Treasurer C.E.C. Holman, of Clinton Cycle Club, recently sent circular letters to the summer residents of East Hampton, asking for subscriptions to the cycle path fund. He informs us he has already received answers to a number of the letters, accompanied by generous subscriptions, and that he hopes to hear from several more.
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Rev. E. Edwards, pastor of the English Baptist church at Minersville, Pa., when suffering with rheumatism, was advised to try Chamberlain’s Pain Balm. He says: “A few applications of this liniment proved of great service to me. It subdued the inflammation and relieved the pain. Should any sufferer profit by giving Pain Balm a trial it will please me.” For sale by John Mulligan.
100 Years Ago 1923
From The East Hampton Star, March 23
The effect of the past severe winter on the roads in the village of East Hampton should furnish conclusive proof to everyone that the thousands of dollars spent yearly in road maintenance is money absolutely thrown away. Last year the village roads were in better shape than ever before; everyone conceded this. But, what was the result of the freezing and thawing of all the roads during the past two months? To place the roads in as good a condition as they were last year will require the expenditure of several more thousand dollars of your money.
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James E. Waters, who carries the title of sachem of Montauk, and Aaron J. Cuffee, who is known as chief of Montauk Council, take exception to an article in the Brooklyn Daily Times of February 16, entitled “Montauk Indians Appeal to the United States for Tribal Rights Denied by the State,” in which the statement was made that a meeting was held last year “behind closed doors, and at its conclusion, James E. Waters announced his chieftainship, etc.”
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The Thames Line steamer Cape Cod, plying between New York, Norwich, New London and Greenport, struck a rock off Plum Island in the dense fog a week ago last Tuesday evening. Several holes were made in the steamer’s bottom. The captain succeeded in beaching the steamer on the inside of Orient Point, just as the water reached the fire room and extinguished the fires under the boilers. There is little doubt that if the steamer had not reached the point she would have sunk in the deep waters of Plum Gut.
75 Years Ago 1948
From The East Hampton Star, March 25
There has been considerable agitation among business people to start a local business organization, or Chamber of Commerce, for all men and women engaged in business of any kind or the professions. A meeting will be held Monday, March 29, at 8 o’clock in the Village Building, Main Street, for the purpose of organizing such a group. All who are interested are urged to attend by the committee arranging the meeting.
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Your Hospital has appealed to the community it serves for $70,000 to meet its operating deficit to place it once more in a sound financial condition.
To date, it has received $65,000 from 2,665 contributors. Only $5,000 remains to be raised to reach the goal and that should not be difficult.
Your Hospital, because of the generosity of its many friends, is now in a sound financial condition — bank loans have been paid off and all bills except current ones have been met.
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St. Luke’s Church is giving a party at Guild Hall on Friday evening, April 2nd, to which the community is invited. There will be bridge or pinochle in the Woodhouse Gallery, social and square dancing in the Moran Gallery and refreshments for all.
The arrangement and decoration of Guild Hall will be supervised by Mrs. Frank Conklin with the help of Mrs. E. Robert Anderson and Mrs. Samuel Davis.
50 Years Ago 1973
From The East Hampton Star, March 22
William T. Burke, the director of the division of natural sciences at Southampton College, who moved from Water Mill to Amagansett on Monday, was designated on Monday night as the Democratic candidate for East Hampton Town Supervisor, presenting voters here with what might be expected to be the biggest surprise in the 1973 election story.
The candidate, who holds a doctorate in biology, has held his post at Southampton since 1967 and is well-known as a liberal Democrat and conservationist.
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A proposal to upzone part of Montauk, on the south and east shores of Fort Pond Bay, was considered by the East Hampton Town Board at a public hearing last Friday morning. Nine speakers criticized it — five thought that the Board was not upzoning enough land, and the rest that it was upzoning too much — and one praised it.
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The giant hanger at the New York Ocean Science Laboratory, a Montauk landmark since it was built during World War Two for the Navy, burned to the ground last Thursday night despite the best efforts of the Montauk, Amagansett, and East Hampton Fire Departments. Four NYOSL small craft, a mobile laboratory, an antique fire engine, and two autos also went up in smoke.
The spectacular blaze was reported at 11:23 p.m., and the fire was fought until 3 a.m. Repeated explosions, from gasoline in the boat’s tanks, alarmed Montaukers, and towering flames carried debris high in the air, some of it coming down at Ditch Plains, three miles to the eastward.
25 Years Ago 1998
From The East Hampton Star, March 26
A long-contemplated medical office building, an 18,000-square-foot Southampton Hospital facility at Pantigo Place, East Hampton, moved closer to reality this week when the East Hampton Village Preservation Society offered to spearhead a $5 million capital fund-raising campaign to build and endow it.
Larry Munson of East Hampton, a management consultant who is chairman of the Preservation Society, said his board will meet with the hospital’s in coming weeks to plan details.
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The National Marine Fisheries Service has determined that the first semi-annual quota in the commercial large-coastal shark fishery will be filled by Tuesday. The fishery will close at 11:30 p.m. that day.
Fishing for, possessing, landing, or selling sandbar, blacktip, dusky, spinner, silky, bull, tiger, big-nose, nurse, lemon, narrowtooth, night, Galapagos, Caribbean reef, scalloped, great, and smooth hammerhead sharks will be illegal from that time for three months, unless the vessel is operating as a charter or party boat.
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Montauk is going all out this summer to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Camp Wikoff, the quarantine post where 22,000 Army troops were bivouacked upon their return from the Cuban campaign of the Spanish-American War.
They included Col. Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, and the all-black 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments, the Buffalo Soldiers.
