125 Years Ago 1901
From The East Hampton Star, August 2
One of the blue fish nets owned by H. Chase Filer was taken up last week and found to have a hole in it about twelve feet in diameter. As fin-back whales had been seen off shore about that time, it is supposed that one of the big sea animals went through the net.
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Summer Visitors
Preston B. Spring has been the champion billiard player at the Maidstone Club for a number of summers, but this season he has met an opponent with whom he must divide the honors about evenly. If you chance to see Mr. Spring and Charles Drayton Burrill playing a game of billiards, you will have the pleasure of seeing a brilliant game.
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After all the doubts and fears expressed last spring, East Hampton seems to be enjoying a very prosperous season. The books of one local firm, distributors of general merchandise, show an increase of business for July of over $500 above that of July of last year.
100 Years Ago 1926
From The East Hampton Star, July 30
The Montauk Beach Athletic Club will conduct one of the largest swimming meets ever staged in eastern Long Island on Saturday afternoon, August 14. This aquatic carnival will be the largest athletic event that the Montauk Club has ever attempted.
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The electric lighting and power service was completely thrown out of kilter this week, due, in part, it is said, to the electrical storms a few nights ago, and the rain. The underground system was put out of commission on several of the streets. For two or three nights there were no lights on some streets and this week the power was off and on, mostly off, every day. At this season of the year, when everyone who uses electricity needs it most urgently, such trouble as occurred this week on the lines causes a great loss of money as well as valuable time. It is earnestly hoped by power users along the streets that the rumor that the Light Company has appropriated $30,000 for permanent improvements to be made this fall will prove true.
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A meeting was held on Saturday, July 24, of the members of the Devon Yacht Club who are interested in sailing. It was decided at this meeting to dispose of the present class of one design of sailboats, and to purchase a fleet of the popular Star Class boats to be used for sailing races next summer.
75 Years Ago 1951
From The East Hampton Star, August 2
A clever thief made a brazen daylight break at the home of Mrs. W. Stanton Barbour on Lily Pond Lane early Sunday afternoon. He escaped with an $11,000 diamond studded platinum bracelet.
Henry Selby, the Barbour’s butler, spotted the thief as he was disappearing through the hedge to the neighboring estate of Mrs. Lawrence Flynn.
Selby caught and challenged the stranger to ascertain why he had been on the Barbour property. The man answered that he was the Barbours’ neighbor, Mr. Nichols. Hesitant to embarrass the neighbor of his employer, the butler allowed the stranger to drive off.
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For the thirteenth successive year, Guild Hall’s artist members will combine for a showing of their most recent work in the Annual Members’ Exhibition slated for Aug. 10-28.
Guild Hall now has about 170 artist members, although the entire number does not show every year. Oil, watercolor, and sculpture will be included this year.
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The fire siren sounded five times at 7:15 this morning, and it was reported that there was a fire in a “house near the flagpole.” It turned out to be a fire in the James J. Devine house on Woods Lane. The Amagansett Fire Department was also called over, by whom nobody knows; East Hampton Fire Chief Nathan Conklin is investigating that. The damage done the house was only from smoke, but Richard Devine, who was alone in the house, was overcome by the smoke and but for passers-by who turned in the first alarm and entered the house, might have lost his life.
50 Years Ago 1976
From The East Hampton Star, July 29
Last December there was a big clams-and-cocktail benefit party at the Town Marine Museum in Amagansett. Hundreds of clams — 1,800, to be exact — were consumed. According to the baymen who co-hosted the event and opened the clams, hardly a one came from East Hampton Town waters.
Last May a New York couple gave a Memorial Day clambake to kick off the new season. The hostess called a Montauk seafood shop and ordered 18 dozen Little Necks. “They are local clams, aren’t they?” she inquired casually, almost as an afterthought. “That depends on what you mean by ‘local,’ ” said the shopkeeper.
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A process leading to State acquisition of a fragile 1,350-acre tract comprising most of Napeague Beach has been set in motion once again despite a freeze on such purchases last January by Governor Hugh Carey, and the project has been labeled “urgent priority.”
“We are working closely with the Governor’s office and the Division of the Budget and should have a more definitive word within a month,” a State Parks and Recreation spokesman, William Kiely of the land acquisition office, said this week.
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A “broken record” is being played again in the hearing, apparently, of East Hampton Town officials. It belongs to the environmentally Concerned Citizens of Montauk, who have charged many times over the years that certain businesses in their neighborhood have flouted zoning laws flagrantly and profitably, and that the Town has tried to stop them only belatedly after repeated persuasion.
25 Years Ago 2001
From The East Hampton Star, August 2
It was a cool Sunday close to midnight when, after surveying the grounds at a motel for any authority, two young women leaped quietly over a four-foot fence. Taking another quick look around, the first jumped into the pool. After surfacing, she took a breath and had begun her ascent when the second cannonballed into the deep end.
Outside their motel rooms, a few lingering weekend guests paid little attention. The swimmers left to invade two other off-limits pools that night.
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Former President Bill Clinton was to have returned to these parts on Wednesday for a $2,500-a-head fund-raiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee at Russell Simmons’s Jericho Road, East Hampton, house. Invitations went out more than a week ago.
But the event has been postponed. Mark Nevins, a campaign committee spokesman, said Tuesday. “The response from donors and members of Congress was so overwhelming” that the event grew beyond manageable proportions, Mr. Nevins said.
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The East Hampton Village Board will reconsider whether to use plastic that looks like wood, or real wood, to rehabilitate the bulkheading around Town Pond.
In June, Dunn Engineering, the village engineers, recommended replacing most of the pond’s decaying 1,800-foot bulkhead with Ecoboard, an ultraviolet light-resistant “wood alternative” made of recycled plastic bottles, for around $450,000. Finding the amount a little high, the village board asked for an estimate for bulkheading only the portions in immediate danger of collapsing.
