This postcard from 1920 shows the north side of Trout Pond off Noyac Road in Noyac, near Bell and Anchor restaurant. The pond has a rich history, detailed by Dorothy Zaykowski in “Sag Harbor: The Story of an American Beauty.”
Southampton Town records indicate that Obadiah Rogers built the first mill at the pond in 1686, although many others built and operated mills there later. The north side of the pond and mill site changed hands many times after 1738, with owners including members of the Budd, Rogers, and Ruggs families who lent their names to the pond and mill. The mill site and area north of the pond were last acquired by the Eldridge family and remained with them for generations.
The name Trout Pond came into use in 1876, when George Thompson (1830-1895) began construction of the Oak Grove Trout Ponds resort on the south end of the pond. He and his wife, Fannie Pratt Thompson (1841-1936), continued to develop the property. After he died, she ran the resort independently, until she remarried Charles M. Edwards (1850-1936), who assisted her.
Fannie sold the land in 1905 to Francis E. Mellinger, who transformed the resort into a squab (pigeon) ranch and duck farm. When the farm went bankrupt, the property was listed for sale again in 1909, and William C. Yecker bought it the following year. Ownership of the pond transitioned a few times between 1910 and 1916, but the pigeons and ducks remained, albeit unprofitably. The farm was listed for sale again in 1917.
This image was taken just before Charles Jundt (1880-1945) bought the property in 1925. He added the dam that makes the waterfall visible from the road. In 1982, Trout Pond became a Southampton Town park and is now a preserved recreation area.
The area looks a little different today — the trees are a lot bigger and the trails a little narrower — but most of what is shown in this postcard remains.
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Hannah Kaminski is a librarian and archivist in the Long Island Collection.
