125 Years Ago 1900
From The East Hampton Star, July 6
People are used to seeing all sorts of things carried on bicycles, but sometimes the license to use the wheelpath is abused. A few days ago we saw a boy pedaling along at a rapid clip carrying a four-tine pitchfork, the prongs projecting over the handle bar. A head-on collision with that turnout would have been a serious matter.
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The commission appointed by Governor Roosevelt to manage the State fair are actively at work, and the outlook is extremely flattering for the largest and best agricultural exposition ever held in New York State. The half mile track is being converted into a mile track at an expense of over $12,000. New buildings are being erected; the present buildings are being repaired, repainted and renovated. A new and attractive main entrance is being built; the grounds are being leveled; new walks and roads made, and in fact everything is being done in a thorough and substantial manner.
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The county fathers have decided that the hoboes in the Riverhead jail shall spend the “heated term” breaking stone in the jail yard. Instead of breaking mothers’ and wives’ hearts they can now break, break, break stone to their hearts’ content, and no one’s feelings will be hurt. It seems to be the destiny of some people to be breaking something all their lives.
100 Years Ago 1925
From The East Hampton Star, July 3
Fireworks have been associated with the Fourth of July from the beginning. At the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Adams, in a letter to his wife, says the following: “It (Independence Day) ought to be solemnized with pomp and parades, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.”
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There is every evidence at the present writing that this holiday week-end will find more people in East Hampton, seeking its comfort and charms, than ever before on the Fourth of July. All of the local summer hotels and boarding houses are booked to capacity and the hotel keepers are engaging rooms in nearby private homes to take care of their guests.
Although no special celebration has been planned for the day, the formal opening of the Devon Yacht Club and the Maidstone Club, with special luncheon, dinners and dancing, the baseball game at 3:30 o’clock in the afternoon, and the $1,000 fireworks display at the bathing beach in the evening, it is believed, will furnish sufficient diversion for all.
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The Suffolk Board of Supervisors, at its meeting at the almshouse in Yaphank, adopted a resolution approving in principle the establishment of State Parks, but disapproving of the manner “in which it has been attempted to establish public parks in Suffolk County.”
The resolution also states “that this board approves the establishment of public parks in Suffolk County, but not without the approval and consent of the Board of Supervisors of Suffolk County.”
75 Years Ago 1950
From The East Hampton Star, July 6
The ceremony for the dedication of Amagansett’s new Liberty Pole was held under clear skies on the morning of the Fourth of July on the village green. A crowd of about three hundred witnessed the ceremony. Among the audience, young America was well represented by many Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Brownies. The invocation was given by the Rev. Arnold G. Fredricksen of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church.
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With Glenda Farrell, well-loved star of stage and screen, in the leading role, the John Drew Theatre opens its second season under the management of Forrest C. Haring on July 10. Miss Farrell will play the part of Mrs. Paul Espenshade in George Kelly’s comedy “The Fatal Weakness,” first produced in 1946.
Best known for the more than sixty pictures she has made in Hollywood, Glenda Farrell started her stage career at the age of seven in a touring revival of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Her Broadway successes in “Skidding,” “Recapture,” “On the Spot,” and “Life Begins” led to a motion picture contract.
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A near record for traffic on the highways of East Hampton was set during Fourth of July week-end; but only four accidents were recorded by the Town Police, and one by Village Police, and only one of these was of a serious nature. All took place during the foggy night of July 1-2.
50 Years Ago 1975
From The East Hampton Star, July 3
“I will be forced to make unpopular decisions,” Judith Hope warned her supporters when she was elected East Hampton Town Supervisor in 1973, “and that I will do.”
Perhaps the most unpopular decision the Democratic Supervisor has yet had to make as far as those supporters is concerned is the one she made last week not to seek re-election as Supervisor in opposition to Eugene Haas, the Republican candidate.
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Hail to Independence Day! Hail to Guild Hall who brought the Phoenix Theatre to East Hampton again for this summer season! Hail to the Phoenix Theatre for coming here; it opened the summer Tuesday with S.N. Behrman’s “End of Summer” and will play it here Independence Day and all other days through July 12, including matinees on Wednesdays and a 5:30 “twilight” show on Saturdays in addition to a late 9:30 night show on Saturdays.
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For years East Hampton fishermen have been turning over their catches, and much of their profits, to middlemen, those vague go-betweens often cited as the real villains of inflation. Now the fishermen have come up with a seafood cooperative that, in theory, should cut the middlemen’s take to the bone.
Some 100 local fishermen have taken out shares in a cooperative that not long ago, but after much delay, opened its own retail store on Cross Highway in Amagansett: The East Hampton Town Seafood Producers Cooperative, Inc., Retail Store.
25 Years Ago 2000
From The East Hampton Star, July 6
When Len Bernard became East Hampton Town’s chief budget officer in January, he expected to have his work cut out for him.
Faced with responding to the last town audit and figuring out how to fund dozens of capital projects, he rolled up his sleeves to put a “corrective action plan” into the works and set about creating files for about 32 projects.
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After months of preparation aimed at warding off a bumper crop of mosquitoes that could spread diseases such as West Nile encephalitis, Suffolk County health officials are going on high alert.
Saturday’s new moon and partial lunar eclipse are expected to give rise to high tides, which will flood local marshlands.
“Lots of breeding of salt-marsh mosquitoes” at places like Napeague and Accabonac Harbor is expected to follow, according to Dominick Ninivaggi, the county’s vector control director.
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For some people, the weekend trip to the South Fork does not mean bumper-to-bumper traffic jams.
They are the fliers, the small portion of visitors who take to the air each weekend to make the 100-mile journey across Long Island. For them, the trip is a little easier, a lot more relaxing, and infinitely more expensive.
