125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, November 24
An experiment in road-making is to be tried in Southampton by the village trustees. One hundred tons of coarse gravel and stones are to be furnished by Capt. Jehiel Raynor, of North Sea, for the sum of $75, and are to be applied to a particularly bad stretch of road on Main street, on the way to the railroad station. Similar material has been furnished by Capt. Raynor to several Connecticut shore towns, where it has been used for road-making with good results. A large number of progressive people in Southampton are desirous of making a move for good roads, but nevertheless are reluctant to bond the town to engage an expensive experiment in road-building.
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Oliver Colt Wagstaff, the fourteen-year-old son of C. DuBois Wagstaff, of New York, accidentally shot himself on Wednesday afternoon while quail shooting at West Islip. In dragging the gun through a thicket both barrels were discharged and the contents entered young Wagstaff’s hip. The discharge of the gun aroused the Wagstaff family, who are constantly on the lookout for poachers, and several servants who started in the direction of the sound of the shots found the lad lying on the ground unconscious. His condition is critical.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, November 21
The town officials in Southampton are opposing a claim for relief through the Workmen’s Compensation Act, asked for in the death of Officer Ferdinand Downs, who was shot to death by somebody while he was pursuing an alleged bootlegger’s car last May. Several hearings already have been held, and yet no determination has yet been reached whether any compensation at all is allowable under the peculiar circumstances through which Downs met his death.
Town Clerk Edward P. White and Supervisor Benjamin F. Halsey have both been called before the commission to give testimony. It is understood that the attitude of the town is that as Downs was engaged by the Town Board as a special officer only — and to regulate traffic at that — he was not actually in the employ of the town when he met his death.
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Although no lives were reported lost from the record cold for this season, which came suddenly upon everyone late last Sunday night, the property damage, such as frozen automobile radiators and engines, water connections, bursting of plumbing in homes, especially the summer homes where the water had not been turned off, will run into thousands of dollars. Few are the wise ones who were prepared for the cold wave. In some of the summer residences, which had not been completely closed and water turned off and drained from the plumbing, the damage was severe.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, November 24
Grace Phelan, renowned speed typist and former holder of the World’s Amateur Typing Championship, will demonstrate her extraordinary typing next week at the various high schools throughout the county.
Miss Phelan has hit the amazing speed of 133 words per minute for 30 minutes, a record which shattered her own previous record of 129 words per minute. It was at the World’s Fair that Miss Phelan established a world amateur record for speed and accuracy.
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Arnold Bayley and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Bayley returned to the Sea Spray Inn on Sunday after a six weeks’ airplane trip to Alaska and California in Arnold Bayley’s plane, a 13,000 mile trip in all.
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Robert W. Dowling, president of the City Investing Company, has purchased a 12 acre ocean front tract just east of the Maidstone Club from Russell Hopkinson.
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Speaking at the First Presbyterian Church on Wednesday, November 30th, at 8:00 p.m., will be the Reverend Dr. John C. Corbin, who has just returned from an assignment in East Asia, where he was on a special mission to the Protestant churches of Japan and Korea. In East China, just a short time before the transition of that area to Communist rule, he conferred with the leaders of the United Church of Christ in China.
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All manner of ingenious dodges designed to postpone eviction from a Broadway hotel due to non-payment of a long-overdue bill will be cleverly and humorously portrayed on Friday and Saturday evenings, December 2 and 3, when the Guild Hall Players present John Murray and Allen Boretz’s 3-act comedy “Room Service” at Guild Hall.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, November 21
A hand grenade was found Monday in a house on Montauk Highway, near Cove Hollow Road, East Hampton, the former home of a man whom Town Police described as an “associate” of Arthur Needles, the clandestine weapon-peddler who was shot in Noyac Friday.
Police said they had received “information” — a “tip” whose source they declined to reveal — that John Hiscock, aged about 40, a native of Bridgehampton who lived in East Hampton for “a number of years” and moved away six or eight months ago, “had buried large quantities of guns and ammo in his cellar and had not told his wife.”
Detectives searched the cellar with the permission of the house’s occupant. They found a buried four-foot box, police reported, “but whatever it contained had been removed.” They also found a live “pineapple” grenade in a hole in the wall. The weapon was taken to Police Headquarters and turned over later to the County Bomb Squad, which plans to destroy it.
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When Village Trustee Joseph F.X. Dunn proposed at the East Hampton Village Board’s brief meeting last Friday that “letters of recognition” be attached to the files of three Village police officers, Mayor Ronald Rioux tabled the motion. Trustee Dunn appeared puzzled but consented.
“I have a reason,” whispered the Mayor between puffs of his pipe.
Whatever the Mayor’s reason was could not immediately be learned, though later Mr. Dunn reported that the Mayor had been mistaken: “He thought,” said Mr. Dunn, “that it had something to do with the P.B.A.”
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In an unscheduled presentation Wednesday last at Town Hall, representatives of a developer dropped a surprise in the laps of the East Hampton Town Planning Board.
The team proposed a seven-story, 156-unit hotel that promises “everything a modern hotel would require” to be erected on a seven-acre parcel situated at a favorite surfers’ spot east of Gurney’s Inn. It was referred to as the Montauk Beach Hotel.
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, November 25
Despite the presence of a dozen fire trucks parked outside, there was no fire at East Hampton Town Hall Friday. But there was plenty of heat.
Angered by the Town Board’s failure to adopt new subdivision requirements they say are necessary to ensure the safety of firefighters and other emergency workers, a dozen firemen representing departments from Montauk to Bridgehampton converged on Town Hall Friday.
“We send our people out at night,” Larry Franzone, a Montauk Fire Commissioner, told the board to hearty applause. “We want them to return to their families.”
The proposed changes would require wider subdivision roads and common driveways and require minimum widths for single driveways for the first time. Design requirements for fire wells, cisterns, and pumps would also be added.
