The Way It Was for November 27, 2025

The dance given in Clinton Hall last evening was a social success. There were about fifty couples present, many of whom were from Southampton and Bridge Hampton. Excellent music was furnished by Koerner’s Orchestra.

—

Mrs. A.O. Jones has in her door yard a remarkable rose bush. It now has over two hundred buds upon it and a great many full bloom roses. The blossoms form in large clusters and are of rare beauty. This bush has a bit of history. A ship from France came ashore on our coast many years ago and amongst its cargo was a great variety of shrubs, one of which was the handsome rose bush now owned by Mrs. Jones. It begins to bloom in June and continues in flower until severe frost comes.

—

The oil painting of Talk House, king of the Montauks, deceased, owned by Dr. Abel Huntington, which has been much admired since it was placed on exhibition at the library, is now to be taken to Sag Harbor, and placed on exhibition at the store of William R. Reiman.

100 Years Ago    1925

From The East Hampton Star, November 27

An announcement made at Miami, November 21, that when Carl Fisher, pioneer developer of Miami Beach, bought 9,000 acres at Montauk, he planned to arrange a fast steamboat service between New York City and Montauk, will not be the first boat service between Fort Pond Bay and the Metropolis.

The Montauk Steamboat Company, more than a decade ago, ran the steamboats Shinnecock and the Montauk on the route between New York, Orient Point, Greenport, Shelter Island Heights, Block Island and Montauk.

—

Charles Shoemaker, who has purchased the Cassidy farm at Georgica, is planning to build a large summer home on the place. It is expected that building operations will begin in the spring. Mrs. Shoemaker is a daughter of David B. Oliver, and the family have spent their summers here for some time.

Ground has been broken and work commenced on a new summer home for Lawrence Oakley, on his recently acquired property on the dunes, next to Edward Perot’s house.

—

Two large trees are being removed from the Edwards lot on Main street to make room for the new Edwards theatre. One of these trees was an ailanthus and measured nearly twenty feet around the trunk, and the cross-section, which is now exposed to view, shows the tree to have been in a perfectly healthy condition. It is a cause of deep regret to tree lovers when building operations make necessary the removal of these beautiful old trees.

75 Years Ago    1950

From The East Hampton Star, November 30

On Thanksgiving Eve, Wednesday of last week at 6:26 p.m., an eastbound Long Island Rail Road express crashed into the rear of another heavily loaded and halted passenger train in Richmond Hill, Queens. Seventy-seven persons were killed, and 352 injured, in the worst railroad train wreck in New York State’s history, and the second tragic disaster on the Long Island within a year’s time. On Feb. 17 last, at Rockville Centre, 11 miles from this accident, a train crash took 32 lives, and 100 were injured.

—

A freak storm of great severity hit eastern Long Island on Friday night. The wind, blowing from eastward, increased in violence all day Saturday, and reached its peak between 6 and 8:30 Saturday evening, then subsiding suddenly. Winds reaching a velocity of between 75 and 80 miles an hour uprooted three of Main Street’s fine old elms, veterans of the 1938 hurricane; scores of lesser trees here went down; the eagle went off the flagpole on the Village Green; fences and light structures toppled over, tar-paper roofs flew off and streets were littered with debris. Rowboats were piled up on local beaches, some roads were washed out and sand strewn over gardens near the ocean.

—

W. Kingsland Macy launched, last Friday, a legal battle to attempt to regain the seat in Congress which Ernest Greenwood apparently won from him in the neck-and-neck Nov. 7 election.

Mr. Macy filed a plea in Supreme Court in Brooklyn demanding a judicial review of the recounted and rechecked ballots. He claimed “irregularities and fraud.” Justice Meier Steinbrink set the case down for a hearing on Dec. 4 before Justice L. Barron Hill in Supreme Court at Riverhead.

The East Hampton Town Board is planning to pay Town employees to tell it how to save money. Under legislation proposed at its meeting Friday, employees will be “encouraged to submit suggestions that they believe will bring financial savings and/or increased efficiency in service to the public.” These suggestions will be pondered by a Merit Award Board, whose members will be the Town Board members, and employees whose suggestions are accepted may be given cash awards of anywhere from $100 to $300 per suggestion.

—

Hitherto, a burglary in East Hampton generally meant the theft of a stereo, speakers, and other electronic whatnot. Lately, however, in a series that investigators feel is linked, good taste has entered in. In this grouping of five burglaries — two of local museums, and three of vacation homes — antiques have been taken.

Antiques burglaries are apparently common in New England, with helicopters swooping down to snitch weathervanes from steeples and barns, but have been rarer here.

—

The South Fork Concert Association’s 1975-76 season will open with a performance by the pianist Ruth Laredo on Monday at 8:15 at the East Hampton High School.

A soloist with the Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., orchestras, Ms. Laredo is a noted interpreter of Scriabin’s works. She has most recently recorded his Preludes.

The Sag Harbor School Board has seen its share of dark clouds recently, especially with cost overruns of the Pierson High School expansion project. But on Monday, a silver lining arrived in the form of a $1.8 million gift to endow a program in the visual arts.

The Donald E. Reutershan Educational Trust has been established by Hobart Betts, a retired architect who lives in the village, to develop a curriculum that will be integrated throughout the district and emphasize American art and architecture.

—

A group that for the first time would bring East Hampton Town and Village planners together on matters affecting life in both municipalities could take shape in coming months if all concerned agree to it.

Creating a “joint village-town general planning coordination committee” is among the proposals surfacing from months of work by volunteers, officials, and consultants on the East Hampton Village Comprehensive Plan.

—

A plan to build school athletic fields on a tract of East Hampton farmland where a multi-field public recreational complex had been proposed is creating a buzz this week.

The East Hampton School Board authorized Superintendent Jan Furman on Nov. 21 to discuss a lease-purchase agreement with the Schwenk family, the owners of the 42-acre Long Lane tract, that would allow the district to put a number of playing fields on the property.