125 Years Ago 1901
From The East Hampton Star, January 4
J.O. Hopping, the enterprising building mover, is now engaged moving A.H. Culver's five large bath houses into new positions on the beach. The buildings will be placed side by side and facing the ocean. Mr. Hopping also has engaged to move some buildings on E.D. Terbell's place.
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The regular monthly meeting of the Ladies' Village Improvement Society will be held in the home of Mrs. E.H. Dayton on the evening of January 7. A large attendance is desired, and it is hoped that most of the dues for the year 1901 will then be paid.
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The dance in Clinton Hall on Friday evening last was not so largely attended as was the Thanksgiving dance, but the company was sufficiently large for all to have a good time. Some very handsome gowns were seen on the floor.
100 Years Ago 1926
From The East Hampton Star, January 1
The man had spent twenty-two years in Florida. He has returned to Long Island and retires with a comfortable competency at the age of fifty. He owns land, much land on Long Island. With what he has accumulated and with what he expects his Long Island land to bring him, he is not worrying. This man saw Miami when it was a little settlement of a few hundred; when everybody was acquainted with most everybody else. He expects to live to see Montauk City as great a resort place as Florida, and he says the advantages at hand on Long Island, so close to New York, are better than the artificial resorts of the South.
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Last Saturday evening Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Disley entertained about eighty guests at a supper and dance at Odd Fellows' hall, in honor of their twenty-first wedding anniversary.
The ballroom was cheerfully decorated with Christmas trimmings and evergreen. The guests assembled at the hall about 8:30, and were welcomed by the host and hostess.
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Not every holiday season has brought good cheer to Long Island. Storms and wrecks and loss of life have taken their toll. Old people still tell of being told by grandparents of the great Christmas storm of 1811. It destroyed sixty vessels and took many lives. Whole crews were lost. Capt. Conkling of Amagansett and his vessel were lost in Long Island Sound. Cattle and domestic fowl were frozen to death. There were thirty-six bilged vessels to be seen Christmas week at the north side of Long Island and Gardiner's Island.
75 Years Ago 1951
From The East Hampton Star, January 4
Farmers in Suffolk County can expect to pay higher prices for the things they buy in 1951, says Suffolk County agricultural agent Walter G. Been, reporting on a farm outlook conference held recently on the Cornell University campus. Stepped up defense programs will draw heavily on materials such as steel, copper and aluminum. Efforts will be made to provide farmers with necessary items, but a tight supply or even shortages in some items farmers buy are likely for the year ahead.
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The New Year's Eve party at Guild Hall, for members and their guests, was a gay event, planned around the Circus theme in decoration and entertainment.
Reservations were restricted to 200, to avoid overcrowding, and the two galleries were set up in night club fashion. Both rooms were decorated like "big tops" with red and white streamers forming an almost solid "tent" top. From the center hung hundreds of multi-colored balloons and trapezes with acrobats (stuffed dummies) in typical acrobatic formations. The walls were covered with huge posters of typical circus and sideshow characters.
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With surprise and great regret, the congregation of St. Philomena's R.C. Church here heard, on Sunday morning, the announcement that their pastor, Rev. William J. Osborne, would leave on Wednesday to take up his new duties as pastor of St. Lawrence's Church in Sayville, L.I. Father Osborne left at noon yesterday, and his successor here, Rev. Francis J. Brennan, who has been at St. Edmund's Church in Brooklyn, arrived at the same time.
50 Years Ago 1976
From The East Hampton Star, January 1
Supervisor Judith Hope's sudden elevation to a post in Governor Hugh Carey's Albany administration appears to have heartened her political enemies and dismayed at least some of her supporters. The Democratic Councilwoman-elect leaves on Jan. 12 for her new post as the Governor's appointed secretary.
In the $44,000-a-year post, she will oversee the filling of some 16,000 non-civil-service or patronage positions in the State government.
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Nick Monte, who likes to call himself "Keeper of the Inn" called Gurney's, a 50-year-old hostelry perched on the bluffs at Montauk, was in the news this week as the Gurney's Corporation became the first business in Suffolk to be approved for funding by the County's new Industrial Development Agency.
The Agency was formed in December with the goal of promoting employment and stimulating the County's economy.
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Proposals to acquire hundreds of acres here for parklands that many East Hamptoners had eagerly anticipated now appear to be threatened, if not quashed, by the tight-money economy.
These proposals include 1,200 acres at Napeague; 1,100 acres just over the Town line, in Sagaponack; 844 acres, including the Grace Estate, that were to be added to Cedar Point County Park; the 589-acre Barcelona Neck property on the west side of Northwest Creek; 50 acres of wetlands at the southerly side of Accabonac Harbor, and, possibly, some Town projects.
25 Years Ago 2001
From The East Hampton Star, January 4
By mid-January, 10,000 randomly selected East Hampton and Southampton Town households will receive a professionally developed, 150-question confidential survey asking residents how they take care of their health.
The results, its sponsors say, will help chart a route toward better health care delivery here, including preventive care, through tighter collaboration among public and nonprofit health and social service agencies and doctors.
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In a "state of the town" address Tuesday, Supervisor Jay Schneiderman made the preservation of East Hampton Town's year-round population and its natural resources equal priorities.
"When we use the word 'preservation,' we seem to always be referring to things and places and not to the people that comprise our community," he said, adding that failure to protect both would mean "we will have saved the body and lost the soul."
The town is now "at risk of becoming an elite Manhattan suburb, a boring monoculture where the workers all commute in from points west, a playground for the rich and famous with no playgrounds for the children," said Mr. Schneiderman.
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Despite a show of bipartisanship that marked most of the East Hampton Town Board's organizational meeting on Tuesday, it is becoming abundantly clear that 2001 is an election year.
Larry Cantwell is apparently out after one year as an East Hampton Town Planning Board member, in what Democrats this week charged, and Republicans agreed, is a political move.
"He would like to continue to serve, but he understands the politics here," said Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, who was joined by Councilwomen Pat Mansir and Diana Weir, the two Republicans on the board, in blocking the appointment.
