125 Years Ago 1901
From The East Hampton Star, September 20
The library has received from Charles G. Thompson one copy each of “The Crisis” and “Richard Carvel,” by Winston Churchill.
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Three fishermen, Charles and Henry Dominy and Charles Baker, caught a shark in the ocean about two miles from shore on Tuesday. The shark had become entangled in a bluefish net and when the fishermen attacked him he made a fierce fight, lashing the sea into a frightful commotion, and it was a job requiring considerable strength and skill in the handling of the boat and the lance to kill him.
After being towed to shore the shark was measured, and it was found that he was nine feet long and his mouth when open measured thirteen inches between the two jaws.
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Architect J.G. Thorp is working upon sets of plans for five new cottages to be built in East Hampton this winter. W.M. Benjamin has bought two acres of land from the Elkins estate and will build thereon. We understand, also, that Mrs. George P. Cammann’s brother will build a cottage on Wood’s lane.
100 Years Ago 1926
From The East Hampton Star, September 17
Last week’s Star told something of the campaign that the New York State Department of Health is carrying on, against diphtheria. A five-year fight is planned; it began the first of this year in earnest, and it is expected that the dread throat disease will be as unknown here as cholera, by the end of that time. The State is distributing a mixture known as toxin-antitoxin, which gives immunization to the disease.
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Now that summer is coming to a close and our visitors are leaving, after spending three or four happy months, I am wondering how many of you will agree with me that it is a privilege to be able to live here the year round. Not everyone will. Several times in the last week or so someone has asked me in shocked tones, “But you don’t stay here all WINTER?” Smilingly I assured them that I expect to, from now on, “as long as I’m spared,” to use a Scotch Presbyterianism. And the inquirer would say: “But what do you DO?”
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School opened on Monday, September 13, with 700 pupils, the largest registration our High School has ever known in the opening week. Last year the total registration eventually amounted to 733, and no doubt that figure will be topped this year. Of those starting school Monday, 413 were in the first six grades and kindergarten. The Junior-Senior High School totaled 285, with more to come; that is also larger than ever.
75 Years Ago 1951
From The East Hampton Star, September 20
While inquiry continued into the causes of the fishing excursion boat Pelican sinking off Montauk Point September 1, Rear Admiral Louis B. Olson, Commandant of the Third Coast Guard District, said in New York last Friday that the tragedy was caused by extreme overloading and “because it was not handled by the skipper in a skillful manner.” The skipper, Capt. Edward Carroll of Great Kills, Staten Island, was drowned after his boat capsized.
The bodies recovered totaled 28, the last washing in at the beach at Bridgehampton. A total of 46 persons were lost, according to police records, while there were 19 survivors.
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E.T. Dayton will go to his Three Mile Harbor island on Monday for a week’s vacation. Fred Glover will be his guest there, and perhaps Dr. Arthur Soper. Mrs. Dayton will spend the week in Kings Park, L.I., with Mrs. Soper.
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Reports of the most successful year in the history of Guild Hall were presented by officers and committee chairmen at the Annual Meeting of Members of Guild Hall, Inc., on Friday, Sept. 14.
In an introductory talk to the members, Edward E. Bartlett, chairman of the Board of Trustees, pointed out that there is no similar institution in this part of the country that has so large a percentage of the community paying dues (nearly 800 adult couples and over 300 juniors). This, he said, is evidence that the people of the community are coming to appreciate, more and more, the cultural advantages offered — a fulfillment of the goal set by Mr. and Mrs. Lorenzo E. Woodhouse when Guild Hall was built in 1931.
50 Years Ago 1976
From The East Hampton Star, September 16
As the Supervisor opened a can of Yoo-Hoo chocolate drink and the Town attorney proffered a pickle to wipe the grin off a reporter who had remarked on his venerable lunch box, the tumult surrounding the East Hampton Town Police Department seemed far away Tuesday as an informal “brown bag” executive session got underway.
There was a little mention while Town Board members munched their sandwiches of the Suffolk District Attorney’s van down by the East Hampton Fire House, in which investigators for the Anti-Corruption Bureau have been conducting interviews, other than the relayed street joke that the entourage might also have included a van for the grand jury, one for the judge, and a portable cage for any convicted.
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Montauk
A new film, “Baymen — Our Waters Are Dying,” by Anne Stagg Belle will be shown at a meeting of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk on Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. in the Fire House. Edwin S. Furman and other Southampton Town baymen who appear in the film will attend the meeting.
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The composition of the audience at the East Hampton Town Trustees’ meeting Tuesday night telegraphed the main subject. Present were representatives of the Town Baymen’s Association, a small contingent of scuba divers and their lawyer, the Town Bay Constables, and one or two others. Most of the meeting was focused on the shellfishing conflict between the baymen and the scuba divers, with the Trustees appearing to list slightly to one side of center.
25 Years Ago 2001
From The East Hampton Star, September 20
As they did in communities large and small all over the United States, people on the South Fork — residents and visitors from every walk of life — looked to their clergy this week.
Every day since terror found its targets in New York and Washington and was intercepted by heroism in Pennsylvania, worship services here have drawn hundreds of people, some in business dress, some in beach sandals, parents carrying infants, a few elderly in wheelchairs, and almost all with tears welling.
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South Fork residents have responded to the attacks on the World Trade Center with an outpouring of patriotism and support. Almost $65,000 has been contributed to relief funds in the days since the disaster, and truckloads of equipment and supplies for rescue workers have headed west.
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A forum to air concerns about East Hampton’s growing immigrant and Hispanic population went on Thursday night, despite shock over last week’s events, in an attempt to stem misunderstanding and intolerance.
That evening Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman said he had at first thought the meeting should be canceled in light of the terrorist attacks, but that “the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea.”
