Maidstone Park Memories
Born in 1898 at Franklin Farm, now known as Maidstone Park or Maidstone Beach, Abigail Edwards Field, before her death in 2006 at age 108, wrote a history of the property where she grew up. By her account, her Edwards family relatives lived on the land, with only a few brief interruptions, going back to Isaac Edwards, a Revolutionary War veteran.
For today’s visitors enjoying the magnificent views of Gardiner’s Bay and the beachfront, it’s hard to envision a working farm with oxen grazing in the middle of the dunes or parking areas, but that’s how Maidstone Park was when Abigail was a little girl in Springs.
Abigail’s childhood memories of family reunions at Maidstone Beach recall the men digging for clams to be cooked in a stone fire pit and the women swimming in stockings and long dresses, the bathing suits of the day. Her description of the house at Franklin Farm being moved from the property to Amagansett indicates that her notes were written after 1949, but there’s no other way to date these recollections.
Abigail’s father sold the land she knew as the family ox pasture to Frederic and Albert Gallatin. The Gallatins already owned houses on Georgica Pond, but Abigail remembered that they were attracted to the land overlooking Gardiner’s Bay for the same reason many young families prefer the spot today — the quiet waters were better for swimming.
In 1911, the Gallatins gave that land to the Town of East Hampton with the provision that no concessions be allowed in Maidstone Park. An adjoining section of the Edwards family property overlooking Gardiner’s Bay would be sold to the Girl Scout Council of Nassau County, becoming Camp Blue Bay beginning in 1947.
Today, Maidstone Park lends its name to the surrounding neighborhoods. While Franklin Farm no longer operates, families can still be seen relaxing as the Edwards family once did — swimming, clamming, and picnicking at Maidstone Beach.
Andrea Meyer is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.