Villages

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.

The news came not by formal announcement, but rather in Guild Hall’s recent online publication of its 2024 seasonal program guide. Its historic John Drew Theater will reopen in July with a new name, the Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan Theater.

From a hair-raising double drowning in Plum Gut to a second-story deck collapsing under the weight of too many partyers in Sagaponack, The Star reported it all.

It may be losing its iconic Main Street storefront in September, but until then Canio's Books is open for business. There is a new groundswell of support for the shop, including a GoFundMe campaign launched on May 19 and dedicated to helping the business thrive in whatever location it ends up in next.

When Eric Butte ditched his car for months on end, it wasn’t one of those official car-free pledges or hyped-up social media challenges. It wasn’t because gas prices are kind of insane again. Rather, he was really just curious. “It turned into a seven-month project that highlighted how many problems there are for alternative transport on the East End,” he said.

As East Hamptoners gathered under gray skies to honor and celebrate Memorial Day, people were reminded to take time to recognize the meaning of the holiday.

Last month a poem was discovered inside a children’s book in the East Hampton Library titled “Para mi hija Samantha.” With no other information to go on besides the name of the mother-daughter duo, Carmen and Samantha, the library turned to social media to get the word out and find them. On Sunday that search came to an end.

Competing protests over the Israel-Hamas war on Sunday afternoon on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor were peaceful, if loud, when East End for Ceasefire encountered Long Island MAGA Patriots and the Setauket Patriots.

Dressed in his Army uniform, Theodore Patrick Gould (1830-1862) posed for this photograph early in the Civil War. The photograph was taken at H. Terry’s Sag Harbor studio, between the war’s outbreak in April 1861 and Theodore’s death on Oct. 21, 1862.

The mighty storm that blew through East Hampton Thursday morning felled a large limb from a historic elm tree — one of a dwindling number of such trees that help give East Hampton Village its character.

Last week parishioners of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork in Bridgehampton received text messages from an imposter claiming to be their pastor, the Rev. Kimberly Quinn Johnson. “They take advantage of people’s wanting to help and trust that we’ve built up,” she said.

The local chapter of Whiskey Bravo, a nationwide youth organization that raises awareness of the kinds of support needed by veterans and active military personnel, took on the somber task this year of placing flags at the gravesites of East Hampton soldiers, and also walked a symbolic lap around the field at the American Legion to show their support.

In the May 26, 1949, Star, it was recorded that rain and wind did some tree damage here, and broke off two arms of the Old Hook Mill. And much more.

Thanks to the efforts of Hamptons Pride volunteers and elected officials here, those attending the third annual Pride Parade in East Hampton on June 1 will have another way to travel here for the noontime step-off: the Long Island Rail Road has added a special train to East Hampton that day.