125 Years Ago 1901
From The East Hampton Star, August 16
Weather permitting, the Band will play on the green next Monday evening.
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Joseph and Jonathan Osborne are owners of a large farm on Newtown lane. Naturally one expects to see all sorts of livestock on a farm such as theirs, but we believe they can go the ordinary farmer one better, for in their hennery they have a brood of six quail. While mowing one of their fields, a quail's nest containing a number of eggs was uncovered and then it was abandoned by the mother quail. The eggs were carefully carried to the hennery and placed under a bantam hen. In due course of time the eggs were hatched, and now Mrs. Bantam clucks proudly about among her fowl friends followed by six little quail.
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Arrangements are being made for a ball game between the Maidstone nine and the Amagansett Club team.
100 Years Ago 1926
From The East Hampton Star, August 13
The elms of Main Street, which have been the joy of East Hampton folk for so many years, are almost as near to the hearts of our summer visitors if we can judge from the sentiment and comment that some of them express at different times. Surely their co-operation with the members of the L.V.I.S., in doing what they do to preserve and protect the trees, is worthy of note.
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It is with regret I have to announce another defeat for our team last Saturday, when they, deliberately and with malice aforethought, handed over the game on a platter to Greenport.
There was no earthly reason East Hampton should not have won the game hands down, they made twelve safe wallops to their opponents' seven, but such foolish base running and the rankest kind of errors in the field were enough to defeat the best teams living. Greenport made three home runs, only one of which was earned, the other two were gifts pure and simple.
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The second annual Horse Show of the Riding Club of East Hampton, which will be held at the Club Grounds on Saturday, August 21, beginning at 10 o'clock, will be the first Horse Show put on by the local club since joining the Association of American Horse Shows, Inc. This association has donated for the Show a very handsome medal to be awarded the best horse in the show and other trophies have been donated by the Club to make this year's show a great success.
75 Years Ago 1951
From The East Hampton Star, August 16
Eddie Dowling, one of the theatre's most beloved personalities, will be featured in the Special Variety Show to be presented Sunday, Aug. 19, at 8:40 p.m. in the John Drew Theatre as a benefit for the Guild Hall Maintenance Fund.
Drawing on his rich and varied career as actor, playwright, and producer of some of the best plays seen in recent years, Mr. Dowling will recount humorous theatrical anecdotes having to do with his association with William Saroyan, whose "Time of Your Life" he produced, with the Theatre Guild, in 1939; Tennessee Williams, whose "Glass Menagerie" he produced, directed, and played in; and other great personalities of the theatre.
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The 55th Anniversary of the East Hampton Free Library will be celebrated on Friday afternoon, August 24, from four to six o'clock with a Silver Tea, proceeds of which will go toward new shelving for the circulating department of the library. A special exhibition is being planned for the occasion — a comparison of periodicals of 1896 with those of the present day.
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When a summer day is done and gray shadows fill the valleys, peace broods on the land. Earth turns from its sun and our part of the planet grows quiet. Sounds of day diminuendo into the soft questionings of twilight while dark lines crawl down the eastern slants of hills, overflow the meadows and climb the west sides of slopes. Afterglow lingers in the sky and mountain peaks flame briefly with colored lights. Valley woodlands darken first; minute by minute the sky changes through a dozen shades of blue; dusk grows thicker and night draws near.
50 Years Ago 1976
From The East Hampton Star, August 12
Hurricane Belle, the Bicentennial Blast, uprooted hundreds of trees, flowers and East Hampton residents from their accustomed beds on Monday night, but the consensus seems to be that the big storm was far worse in the anticipation than in the actual event.
Belle had been expected to hit land somewhere between Islip and Montauk. Early reports warned that the landfall would occur at about 5 p.m. on Aug. 9. As it turned out, the brunt of the storm struck farther up the Island, at Freeport in Nassau County, and not until midnight.
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Over 300 persons evacuated from the low-lying areas of Amagansett calmly but anxiously sat out the hurricane at the Amagansett School Monday night. Many arrived with bedrolls and transistors. Some were carrying picnic baskets, books, cards, and cameras. Others had small children and dogs in their arms.
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It happened in the hurricane:
Campers from a group that shall remain nameless were instructed by their counselor, going home on the bus after camp Monday, to sing "God Bless America," the National Anthem, and "Nearer My God to Thee," "in case we don't see each other again." Parents who met the bus were not amused.
A Springs woman, who had gone to stay with a friend in Wainscott, left in a huff, after her friend bawled her out for taking a bath in the water that had been carefully saved for drinking.
25 Years Ago 2001
From The East Hampton Star, August 16
One of the most serious threats to the purity of groundwater in East Hampton and Springs, a 1,000-foot-wide plume of a potentially carcinogenic solvent emanating from the town dump on Springs-Fireplace Road, East Hampton, is not discussed in the latest chapter of the town's comprehensive plan update.
Lee E. Koppelman, who is writing the plan, reviewed the chapter, called "Water Protection Plan," on Tuesday afternoon at a town board meeting. It was to have been completed in April.
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The record number of automobile accidents from July 29 to Aug. 5 did not stand for long. In the seven days that followed, Aug. 6 to Aug. 13, police were called to 61 incidents on East Hampton Town and Village roads, surpassing the previous mark by three.
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Those who advocate the reclosing of the Turtle Cove parking lot next to the Montauk Lighthouse and the road to it say they see victory, in the words of a National Park Service official whose visit there on July 31 coincided with good surf and a muddy, overflow lot.
Much of Turtle Cove and its access road were once owned by the federal government. When it was deeded to the Town of East Hampton in the 1980s, the transfer came with conditions and a "program of utilization" that would seem to preclude a parking lot, according to Elyse LaForest, a National Park Service program manager with the federal land-to-parks program.
