125 Years Ago 1900
From The East Hampton Star, December 21
Here's wishing a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and Century (and a large share of the latter) to all our friends and enemies, and a hope that the dawn of the new century will usher in a new order of things which will banish all foreign wars from this happy land of ours and work for the cultivation of peace among men.
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PEKING, Dec. 19. — Count von Waldersee has issued an order assigning various districts in the neighborhood of Peking for supervision to the military representatives of the various powers. The order says that the extent to which the co-operation of the French and American troops can be depended upon is a matter to be determined by agreements made with the generals commanding those forces. Under the plan the United States troops will supervise the district southeast of Peking.
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Death carried away another of East Hampton's old residents on Tuesday night, when Hiram L. Sherrill died at the age of ninety years and twenty-four days. Mr. Sherrill had been a man of remarkably strong constitution, never having experienced illness and even a few hours before his death, when his voice had left him, he greeted a neighbor who entered his room with a smile and extended his right hand in welcome.
100 Years Ago 1925
From The East Hampton Star, December 18
Christmas
Chill air, the brilliance of encrusted snow, carols, evergreens and feasting. These constitute Christmas to the senses. But deep within man there is something which the brightest of carols cannot, in itself, awaken — a sense of kinship with all the world, that expands and blossoms into a spirit of real brotherhood — and this is Christmas.
W.D. Pennypacker
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The village of East Hampton has a population of 1,848, according to the 1925 census figures, as announced this week for Suffolk County by Florence E.S. Knapp, New York Secretary of State. These figures show that the village has made a substantial gain, for at the time of its incorporation in 1920, the papers as filed in Albany gave the village a population of 1,615.
Suffolk County generally has made wonderful strides from a population standpoint during the last five years, and today has a population of 143,208.
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Extension of telephone cables from Quogue central to Montauk has started. One feature of this addition to the New York Telephone Company system is that these cables are being laid underneath ground. Work of extending this line has been speeded up since application made by Carl Graham Fisher for provision for adequate service at Montauk, where he plans Montauk City.
75 Years Ago 1950
From The East Hampton Star, December 21
The East Hampton Community Council will distribute, this Christmas, dinners and gifts of toys or clothing to thirty-six local families, including 115 children. The Christmas dinners will be distributed by the Council in general, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary and the Fire Department will take care of collecting and repairing toys. Toys have been assembled in the former Otto Simmons building and have presented a very attractive sight there for some weeks.
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First Lieutenant Melvin N. Hulse of East Hampton, who was given a battlefield commission in North Africa during World War II, has again distinguished himself in Korea. An Associated Press report dated last Friday told how Lieut. Hulse, in the tank corps, attempting to rescue a platoon cut off from the United Nations beachhead, escaped with his group of Sherman tanks after Chinese communists clambered aboard the tanks and tried to pry the hatches open with rifle butts and their bare hands.
The New York State Legislature will be asked to vote for a minimum of $500,000 for erosion-arresting work on the shorelines of Eastern Long Island during 1951. Provided the state money is forthcoming, matching appropriations by the localities will provide a total war chest of $1,000,000 to check the incursions of the Atlantic Ocean in Long Island Sound, County Highway Superintendent Harry T. Tuthill told the Board of Supervisors Monday.
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The residence of Mr. and Mrs. Homer Smith on Apaquogue Road was almost completely destroyed by fire on Saturday evening, Dec. 16.
50 Years Ago 1975
From The East Hampton Star, December 18
By a fiscal tradition which goes back as far as anyone can remember, and which was conceived presumably in the spirit of Puritanism, or else of irony, property tax bills are sent out during the Christmas season. This year, in East Hampton Town, the jovial Tax Receiver and his band of industrious clerks are collecting $11,463,430.39. Last year they collected $10,399,193.58. Ten years ago the figure was about $3 million.
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The East Hampton Baymen's Association joined forces this week with the East Hampton Historical Society to plan a holiday party at the Town Marine Museum on Bluff Road, Amagansett, and at the same time announced that it has been awarded a $2,700 grant to continue publishing its newsletter and begin related workshops and historical projects.
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The Hampton Hawks Chapter of the Academy of Model Aeronautics has asked that local youngsters needing help in flying those model planes they get for Christmas get in touch with them for instruction.
The Club, which has grown from three to 25 members since it was formed last May, meets the first Friday of each month at the John M. Marshall Elementary School, at 8 p.m. One of its members, Thomas Ambrose, said this week that Club members can be found flying model planes every fair Saturday and Sunday behind East Hampton High School.
25 Years Ago 2000
From The East Hampton Star, December 21
An unlikely pair of former supervisors — Judith Hope, a Democrat who is the chair of the state Democratic Party, and Mary Fallon, a Republican — have teamed up in opposition to an East Hampton School District proposal to create sports fields on 42 acres of Long Lane, East Hampton, farmland.
Mrs. Fallon and Ms. Hope said the Long Lane parcel, owned by the Schwenk family, was integral to the town and county's decades-old farmland protection plans and should be preserved as farmland.
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There were times in his 23 years as the East Hampton Village police chief when Glen Stonemetz knew more than most people would ever want to know about East Hampton. He knew about domestic fights and crack houses, about the kids who'd gone bad and the parents whose hearts were breaking over them.
"There are observations you make in the course of your duties that have nothing to do with your police work, that are none of your damn business," he reflected, sitting behind his desk at village police headquarters a week before his retirement.
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A plan to condemn 32 acres east of Stephen Hand's Path in East Hampton for affordable housing received a decidedly divided response from a standing-room-only crowd last Thursday night.
Neighbors of the project, which is north of Blue Jay Way and south of Towhee Trail, panned the town's plans to build up to 59 houses there as a threat both to the environment and to their nest eggs.
