125 Years Ago 1901
From The East Hampton Star, September 13
Mr. Editor: Many men who use liquor will not only deny having bought it, but are willing to take a false oath to that effect. They deceive no one but themselves, and are branded as liars before the public.
Reader.
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The Presbyterian Sunday School held a picnic at Fresh Pond yesterday. About two hundred attended. Boating, bathing, and a sumptuous spread on tables under the trees were enjoyable features of the day. Rev. Dr. Stokes was present and made a brief address to the children, during which he referred to the attempt on the life of the president.
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The Charleston Orphan Big Sensational Concert Company of twenty-six boys and girls from the Jenkins Orphan Home, of Charleston, will appear at Clinton Hall on Wednesday evening, Sept. 18, and give one of their wonderful concerts. Persons who have seen this company perform say the entertainment is most excellent. Reserved seat tickets will go on sale at Gregory’s store tomorrow morning.
100 Years Ago 1926
From The East Hampton Star, September 10
The annual Father vs. Son baseball game of the Boys’ Club was won by the Fathers’ team by a score of 16-14. The game was hotly contested and furnished much excitement and fun for the large crowd that witnessed the affair. The game was followed by the presentation of prizes to the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs.
The cup and medal for the highest number of points scored during the season in the Girls’ Club was won by Sarah Lee Perot; in the Boys’ Club this honor was won by Burton Russell.
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The dooryard gardens of East Hampton are a feast for the eyes. It seems as if everyone was competing for the prizes offered by the Garden Club. The Roadside Committee found it difficult to select the winners from such a wealth of material and had to look hard and look again for good and bad points to turn the scales.
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East Hampton High School will resume its sessions next Monday at 9 o’clock. Pupils who are new to the school will be registered in the kindergarten room on the first floor tomorrow morning at 9.
Pupils entering the high school from other schools should register tomorrow. All pupils of the junior and senior high school departments will assemble in the auditorium on Monday morning and receive assignments to homerooms. Pupils of the grades should go to the grade room to which they were promoted last June.
75 Years Ago 1951
From The East Hampton Star, September 13
Developments this week following the fishing boat Pelican disaster off Montauk on September 1 were the disclosure that the ill-fated craft carried at least ten more passengers than first reported, bringing the list of dead to 46, and the Coast Guard inquiry that will undoubtedly result in speedy legislation to protect lives of passengers on small boats.
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The annual meeting of the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society was held on Monday afternoon at the home of Mrs. Shepard Krech. Mrs. Juan Trippe presided at that meeting, which was followed by the regular monthly meeting, Mrs. Hamilton King, first vice president, taking charge in the absence of the newly elected president, Mrs. Donald R. Carse.
Annual reports were read by the secretary, treasurer, and the chairman of each committee. Mrs. Norman Quarty, secretary, reported 431 members in the society; of them 97 life members and 390 regular, in good standing.
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The annual Metropolitan Air Tour came into East Hampton Airport last Saturday, bringing some 250 people in about 65 planes to spend the weekend at Montauk Manor. The tour, sponsored this year by the Civil Aeronautics Administration, is for private pilots flying their own or rented planes, and their families.
The tour started at Westchester Airport for luncheon on Saturday, then arrived in the afternoon in East Hampton. Buses transported the visitors to Montauk Manor. They spent the afternoon in various activities, ending with a cocktail dance at the Manor and a clambake in the evening. They returned home on Sunday.
50 Years Ago 1976
From The East Hampton Star, September 9
Patrick F. Noonan, of Potomac, Md., president of the national organization of the Nature Conservancy, will speak at the meeting of the Conservancy’s South Fork-Shelter Island chapter at the Bridgehampton Community House Sept 18.
The meeting, which will include a party, will be from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Mr. Noonan’s talk, on land preservation efforts throughout the country, will be illustrated. Members and friends have been invited.
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Variety was the rule at the fourth East Hampton Dance Festival, held at the John Drew Theater of Guild Hall Saturday and Sunday nights.
John Goldman, who produced the two evenings, offered classical and modern ballet, a hybrid between ballet and modern, straight modern, Broadway form modern, and of all things, and most appropriate, tap dance, since that form is solely an American creation and this is the Bicentennial year.
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In an attempt to discover when and where the weakfish population of eastern Long Island is spawning, and to determine whether or not fishing ought to be restricted at that time and in that place, a scientist from the State Department of Environmental Conservation has been making weekly visits to Amagansett this summer.
Samuel Finkelstein, an aquatic biologist with the Division of Marine and Coastal Resources, may be seen at the East Hampton Seafood Producers’ Cooperative on Cross Highway, usually on Thursdays, taking samples of weakfish ovaries for study at the D.E.C.’s Stony Brook laboratories.
25 Years Ago 2001
From The East Hampton Star, September 13
The gate in the high fence that surrounds the Montauk Coast Guard Station was shut tight on Tuesday morning — the station’s people and the crew of the 87-foot cutter Ridley on high alert like all of this nation’s military.
Without radio and television, the closed fence would have been about the only indication that something terrible had happened 118 miles to the west. Tuesday was crystal clear and beautiful on the East End. Surfers found the waves near perfect from the hurricane passing far at sea. Surfcasters had striped bass within reach.
Word that the shining day had a dark and terrifying center spread slowly at first. Then, stories of local people who were witness to, or affected directly by, the horrible events were passed from mouth to mouth in a frightening blur of words.
Few people are likely to forget where they were on Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001.
Connie Keller was at work at the East Deck Motel in Montauk when a surfer, who had been in the water at the nearby Ditch Plain break, came running into the office. “He said, ‘It’s really an emergency, I’ve got to make a call.’ “
Ms. Keller said it turned out that the man normally worked in the World Trade Center, but had skipped work and driven to Montauk because he knew the surf was going to be good. His wife thought he was at work. According to another witness, the surfer literally fell to the floor as he watched events unfold on a television in one of the East Deck’s rooms.
