This page is from the newly digitized Village of East Hampton Board of Trustees meeting minutes for March 17, 1925. During the meeting, the board resolved to lobby against the Montauk Steamboat Company’s schedule reduction.
The resolution highlighted concerns about access between Montauk and Sag Harbor for seasonal visitors. Nothing indicates that the company reversed any schedule cuts before ceasing operations in 1935, but the concerns feel relatable today with the summer traffic.
The Montauk Steamboat Company, founded by 1859, was “a thorn in the side” of the Long Island Rail Road before the Fahys family sold their controlling shares to the railroad in 1899. Advertisements in the 1880s refer to two service lines, one operating from New London to Sag Harbor, and a second connecting the North Fork, Shelter Island, Sag Harbor, and Manhattan.
By 1894, the company’s daily schedules offered departures around 4:30 to 6 p.m., with an afternoon trip on Sundays. Around 1910, service cuts reflected profits lost to automobiles and railroad ridership. By 1915, departures were reduced to three days a week. In 1918, the federal government took control of the company.
In its heyday, the company provided mail service to New London, the East End, Fishers Island, Plum Island, and Block Island. It also owned Sag Harbor’s Long Wharf from 1881 and undertook repairs to it in 1923.
In November of 1925, Carl Fisher announced plans to add a fast steamboat between New York City and Montauk, and The East Hampton Star implied that the Montauk Steamboat Company had not run regular local routes in over a decade. By 1935, the last of the company’s steamers was sold to Massachusetts.
(East Hampton Village Board meeting minutes are now available to the public as searchable records on Digital Long Island at easthamptonlibrary.org. This is an effort to advance public access to history and accountability. By making a century of minutes available, Mayor Jerry Larsen and the village board have shown their commitment to records access and transparency previously unseen.)
Andrea Meyer, a librarian and archivist, is the head of collection for the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
