Villages

Dispatches from around the Fourth of July of years gone by included raising a new Liberty Pole in the village in 1949 and, of course, Puff Daddy’s noisy party 50 years later.

Standing outside the Newtown Lane store on Tuesday late in the morning, striking employees offered fliers to customers entering the store, urging them to reconsider their decision to shop there even at a time when people typically flock to grocery stores to get ready for Fourth of July celebrations.

Staff Sgt. Harold Chapman was at the helm of a rapidly descending B-17 Flying Fortress. He was not a pilot. In fact, Chappie, as he was known, had just watched the pilot jump from the plane, his parachute failing to open. Hoping to avoid the pilot’s fate, Chappie was attempting to land the plane himself, according to his son, Rick Chapman of East Hampton. He was the last man aboard.

Fighting Chance of Sag Harbor, in collaboration with the American Cancer Society, has published an updated cancer resource guide that includes details about medical and wellness facilities and practitioners, emergency services “along with a sprinkling of information and practical advice to ease each patient along their journey,” according to a release from the organizations.

This pamphlet was produced in memory of Roy Lee Mabery (1953-1972), a star East Hampton athlete who drowned in a swimming accident shortly before his 19th birthday.

Daniel Rose Marrow of Washington, D.C., and Julia Cuddihy Butz of New York City were married on Saturday in the rose garden at the groom’s family home on Ocean Avenue near East Hampton’s Main Beach.

This summer, the Fourth falls on a Thursday and skyline spectaculars are being held practically all month long across the South Fork.

A baby whale comes ashore in 1924. And much more from our pages of yore.

In the country of Georgia, citizens are standing up to the government in the wake of a new law they feel runs counter to democracy. At the center of the conflict in Georgia is an Amagansett woman, Tsisnami (Sissy) Sakvarlishvili, who has been a leader and organizer of protests for democracy and has even landed in court, facing sanctions for her work.

With the Palm Tree Music Festival set to rock the Shinnecock Indian Nation territory on Saturday, the Suffolk County Police Department released a statement on Friday strongly urging drivers to avoid Montauk Highway and County Road 39 in the vicinity of Shinnecock and the Stony Brook Southampton college campus while the festival is taking place.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the American flamingo that first appeared at Georgica Pond on May 31 continued to draw bird lovers to East Hampton. In just the last week, over 100 birders trekked down the beach to view the bird and submit lists to eBird.

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced in February that he would not be seeking re-election in November after nearly 30 years in state government. For those wondering what his next act would be, the suspense is over: Mr. Thiele has been named executive director of the Friends of the Georgica Pond Foundation.

This photo from The Star’s archive shows Fire Department Chief John Faulhaber leaping from the Susan Jane after searching it for two teenagers.

There were no surprises in the East Hampton Village election on Tuesday. Mayor Jerry Larsen, Chris Minardi, the deputy mayor, and Sandra Melendez, another village trustee, all ran unopposed and were re-elected to four-year terms.

Following the establishment of Juneteenth as a federal holiday in 2021, commemorating the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, education efforts have grown throughout the community. “At the end of the day, this is something that should be taught because this is American history,” said Georgette Grier-Key, executive director of the Eastville Community Historical Society in Sag Harbor.

Death on bicycle, death by telephone pole, death by drowning: Star dispatches from the past take a dark turn this week.

The Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee had a surprise guest Monday night, Natalie Mongan, a junior at East Hampton High School. Ms. Mongan presented her own independent research, done through an A.P. research seminar, showing the level of erosion at Atlantic Avenue Beach that can not only affect shoreline defense, but shift the coastline itself.

This tintype photo from the Fowler family photographs shows young Dorothy Horton seated in front of what is likely the Fowler House in East Hampton.

A beaver that likely arrived at Hither Hills State Park in the ocean surf last April and then built a lodge in a secluded part of Fresh Pond in Hither Woods was found dead on the side of Montauk Highway Tuesday morning. 

A corpse, well advanced in its decomposition, mysteriously washed up off Gardiner’s Island in 1899. And more ghastly stories ripped from the pages of Ye Olde Star.

The peripatetic American flamingo, first spotted in Georgica Pond in East Hampton on May 31 before leaving the next day, has returned to the pond. In the past 10 days, it is suspected the same bird has visited Cape Cod in Massachusetts and Cedar and Oak Beaches in western Suffolk.

An old elm tree thought to be lost after an intense storm roared through East Hampton two weeks ago is still standing thanks to the efforts of the village Highway Department and Jackson Dodds & Co., a tree care business.

“It’s the first in a very long time” to visit New York State, “if not the first ever,” said Shai Mitra, an assistant professor at the College of Staten Island, said of the American flamingo that visited Georgica Pond in East Hampton last week. The bird was last seen there Saturday at dusk.

The Rev. Samson Occom, one of the first Indigenous ministers to be ordained, was an educator and minister to the Montauketts and Shinnecocks and a proponent of land rights. 

If you’ve been to a high school basketball game, a tennis match, or a 5K on the South Fork any time in the last 45 years, you’ve probably seen The East Hampton Star’s sports editor, Jack Graves, on the sidelines, faithfully scribbling notes. But before Graves took over the sports desk back in 1979, he was The Star’s sole full-time reporter for about a decade and had begun his long-running column,“Point of View.”

The usually with-it Star was a little behind the curve with its 1924 comment on jazz music and musicians. And don’t miss the 1974 nudity-on-the-beach case.

A neighbor of Maidstone Park in Springs on Monday discovered an osprey hanging upside down from its nest, suspended by fishing line. Rescuers jumped into action.

The first ever American flamingo to visit New York State chose to touch down in East Hampton — Georgica Pond specifically — Friday afternoon. “As soon as the bird lifted its neck, I knew instantly it wasn’t a swan and realized it was a flamingo," said Cathy Blinken, who excitedly called The Star to report the sighting.

It’s mating season for the horseshoe crab, and last week, a group monitoring the crab for the Cornell Cooperative Extension dropped in on an all-night orgy repeated along bay beaches for 400 million to 500 million years.

Richard Sawyer, the man behind Treely Yours and the Salty Dog, once split a cord’s worth of hardwood in 32 minutes and 30 seconds.