The East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, in partnership with the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference, will celebrate America’s semiquincentennial, or 250th anniversary, with outdoor activities in Montauk this weekend. The two-day hiking series will retrace Montauk’s historic cattle keepers’ route, linking First House, Second House, and Third House and taking hikers through some of the hamlet’s storied landscapes.
“Montauk was a 10,000-acre pastureland with thousands of cattle and sheep roaming the peninsula’s grassy hills each summer,” according to the greenbelt conference website. The hamlet’s “cattle days lasted almost as long as the United States has existed: approximately 240 years, or from roughly 1655 to 1895.”
The first hike is on Saturday at 10 a.m., from First House to Second House and covering approximately five miles at a moderate pace. Participants will travel from the site of First House, the westernmost herdsman’s house that was built in 1744, rebuilt in 1798, and destroyed by fire in 1909, to Second House through Hither Woods, passing Split Rock, Devil’s Cradle, Ram Level, and Panorama.
The hike will last approximately three and a half hours, ending with a Montauk Historical Society tour of Second House. Hikers will be treated to lunch following a colonial cooking demonstration. Hikers have been asked to gather at 10 a.m. at the Kirk Park Beach parking lot, from which a bus will take them to the starting point. Car-pooling has been encouraged.
A hike from Second House, “through downtown Montauk, then eastward on the Paumanok Path to Third House, also known as the Further Field House,” happens on Sunday, also at 10 a.m. “The present Third House was erected in 1806, replacing a dwelling built in 1747. It is owned and maintained by Suffolk County.”
This is another five-mile hike at a moderate pace, and it will explore local history along the way, including a detour “to the remains of part of the Old Stone Wall, a 1.4-mile-long cattle barricade built between 1823 and 1833” and “the only rock wall of its kind in Montauk,” and Steppingstones Pond. As with Saturday’s hike, it will last approximately three and a half hours, ending with a tour of Third House given by Third House Nature Center officials. Refreshments will be available. Participants will meet at 10 a.m. at Third House Nature Center. Bus transportation will be provided.
“I have to credit three board members in particular for being the impetus for this entire event,” Irwin Levy, the society’s president, told The Star. They are Rick Whalen, “who is in charge of trails planning, devised the route, and conceptualized exactly what we’re going to do,” Tom Ruhle, who manages trails maintenance, and Aimee Lusty of the Montauk Library. “She works very closely with the Montauk Historical Society,” Mr. Levy said, and with Mia Certic, its director.
Hikers have been advised to take water, light snacks, and tick protection, and donations to defray transportation costs will be welcomed. Advance registration is required at historicmontaukhike.eventbrite.com. Questions or requests for additional information can be emailed to [email protected].
