125 Years Ago 1901
From The East Hampton Star, May 24
The “Cannonball” will make its first arrival in town for the season on Tuesday evening next. The train is scheduled to make the run of 101 miles in two hours and forty-five minutes, making eleven stops. Allowing forty minutes for stops, the train’s running time is 101 miles in 125 minutes.
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A visitor in East Hampton said the other day that East Hampton Main street was never in such good condition as it is now. He spoke the truth. But that is not all. East Hampton is picking up all along the line, and the day is not far distant when it will be the leading summer resort on eastern Long Island.
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It is expected that the opening services in the new Methodist Episcopal church will be held either the last Sunday in June or the first Sunday in July. The interior of the building will not be entirely finished by that time, but an effort will be made to complete it during the summer.
100 Years Ago 1926
From The East Hampton Star, May 21
Saturday evening’s severe thunderstorm struck the village Liberty Pole on the green, splitting it down the center for almost its entire length. A great piece fell and had to be carted away.
The Liberty Pole was erected twenty-seven years ago, being paid for by popular village subscription. The Ladies’ Village Improvement Society has cared for it and the flag through the years. The late Rev. Dr. John R. Paxton gave the village a flag, and some time ago his daughter, Mrs. Harry Hamlin, created a fund for that purpose, in memory of her father.
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United States Attorney William A. DeGroot directed his assistant, Harry Chiert, who has general charge of all criminal prosecutions in the Federal attorney’s office, to re-open the famous Montauk rum-running hijacking case of a year ago and press the liquor conspiracy indictments found May 7, 1925, to a speedy conclusion.
Four men were indicted at that time by the Federal Grand Jury after a sensational after-dark gun battle between bootleggers and hijackers (one of them, a State Trooper) revealed more than $200,000 worth of liquor stored in the old Benson estate at Montauk.
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The advertising of East Hampton through New York press and also several magazines is being carried on with excellent results. Different ads which have appeared in Country Life, Arts & Decoration, and Town and Country have all attracted comment from visitors and out-of-town people. Two women were overheard to say at one of the local hotels, in glancing over an ad in Country Life, “I didn’t know that East Hampton is the home of Home, Sweet Home. Did you?” “I didn’t either until just the other day,” her friend replied, “but it is — Home, Sweet Home is just up the street.”
75 Years Ago 1951
From The East Hampton Star, May 24
A special feature of the annual East Hampton Photographic Exhibition at Guild Hall from June 1 to June 19 will be a collection of photos of typical East Hampton scenes made during the past year by the members of the Guild Hall Camera Club. These prints, which will be on exhibit in the Woodhouse Gallery, will cover such historic landmarks as the Mulford Farm, Home, Sweet Home and Clinton Academy, as well as familiar and not so familiar scenes around the village, including Town Pond and the Nature Trail, beach and farm scenes and aerial views.
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For the first time, the East Hampton High School Music Department, as a whole, entered the New York State solo auditions, held on April 27 and 28 at Riverhead High School. Over 500 students from Nassau and Suffolk Counties took part in the Spring Festival of vocal and instrumental music sponsored by the New York State Music Association. Judging of voice, piano, woodwinds, strings, percussion, brasses, choirs, bands, orchestras, and baton twirling was done by thirteen experts from various parts of the state.
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About the most interesting and instructive meeting of the Conservation Club was held on May 14, when the Superintendent of Marine Fisheries, Alfred Tucker, and his coworkers, Dr. Edward Bevelander and Alfred Perlmutter, spoke on shellfish.
Mr. Tucker confined his part of the talk to the general operation and personnel of the Department, the most striking part of which is as follows — only $46,000 is allowed for eighteen workers to cover the enormous amount of work expected of them throughout the State of New York.
50 Years Ago 1976
From The East Hampton Star, May 20
After a year’s wait, a special audit by New York State auditors of the East Hampton Town Justice Court has been released.
The audit, a page and a half long and written in what apparently is the auditors’ customary, matter-of-fact language, makes some singular findings, which, taken together, imply that during the audit period — Jan. 1, 1971, through April 28, 1975 — Justice Court bookkeeping, especially when it came to receiving bail money, was poor, if not chaotic.
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The Town of East Hampton has been offered the Montauk Golf and Racquet Club — that is, its 6,860-yard, 18-hole golf course, its striking pyramidal-shaped clubhouse that was badly damaged by fire last August, its six tennis courts, its swimming pools, other buildings, and parking areas — for $850,000.
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Whether in glee or with tongue in cheek, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to camp they go” will be the undoubted refrain of scores of East End parents this summer. Despite the amenities of beach, harbor, and woodland, children of year-round and summer parents alike will go elsewhere for their summer’s pleasure. But even before the great Bicentennial July Fourth weekend heaves into view, local day camps and summer activities will be getting organized, and, after the Fourth, parents will be able to choose from among a plethora of private classes, lessons, tutors, workshops, and playgroups.
25 Years Ago 2001
From The East Hampton Star, May 24
When the century-old organization charged with keeping East Hampton Village’s legendary trees healthy actually takes trees down, people sit up and take notice.
Indeed, almost three dozen people, who had noticed that the East Hampton Ladies Village Improvement Society had cut down several some time in February on its Gardiner-Brown property at 95 Main Street, showed up at a May 16 meeting of the East Hampton Village Design Review Board.
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Don’t tell anyone, but when she was a kid East Hampton Town Councilwoman Pat Mansir used to slip onto Suffolk County Water Authority property, where she and her friends would play an innocent game or two of sandlot softball.
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A bill that would force East Hampton and Southampton Towns to draft a regional groundwater protection plan and submit it to the State Department of Environmental Conservation for approval, and that would impose a moratorium on development within groundwater areas until the plan’s adoption, is being sponsored by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who was among a coalition that tried and failed to place a South Fork Drinking Water Protection Act requiring virtually the same thing on last November’s ballot.
