What's In A Name?: Herrick Park

Herrick Park on Newtown Lane was known only as "the playground" for years, until the identity of the donor was revealed. He was James B. Ford, who bought the property in 1917 anonymously and donated it in memory of his sister, Harriet F. Herrick, an early supporter of the East Hampton Free Library and a member of its board of managers from its formation until her death in 1912.

Mrs. Herrick and two others gave a considerable gift of books and money in the mid-1890s to establish the library in its first home, at what is now the Hedges Inn on James Lane. Not long after, in August 1897, it moved to Clinton Hall.

Mrs. Herrick and her husband, Dr. Everett Herrick, lived at Pudding Hill on Ocean Road. Her father, John R. Ford, bought the property in 1887, razed the dilapidated Revolutionary War-era cottage that gave the site its name, cut down the lot's steep hill, and built the mansion that was presented to his daughter and son-in-law as a wedding gift.

Dr. and Mrs. Herrick - "the Maharajah and Maharanee," as they were sometimes called - lived at Pudding Hill for 27 years. Dr. Herrick was an ultra-conservative, much concerned with propriety. He is recalled in "The Maidstone Club: The First Fifty Years" as "a big, handsome, powerfully built man who wore a tam-o'-shanter and knickerbockers, and was generally smoking a big cigar . . . the 'Pooh-Bah' of his day; his word was law."

In the same volume, Harry Jefferys (of Jefferys Lane) described Mrs. Herrick as "a dear, but not a too-energetic person. She once said to me, 'Do you know, Harry, every morning I walk down to the beach, take my ocean bath, and walk home again; then I feel that the rest of the day is my own.' "

Dr. Herrick was a founder of the Maidstone Club and its first president, from 1891 until his death in 1914, and had been president as well of the club's predecessor, the East Hampton Lawn Tennis Club. He was an enthusiastic ocean-swimmer and bicyclist, and kept a pug, Belle - who was an exception, apparently, to his own rule prohibiting dogs from the club's grounds.

He also banned gambling there, as well as alcohol and Sunday sports. (Members soon rebelled over the no-golf-on-Sunday rule, and in June 1906 it was revised to permit play after 12:30 p.m. Sunday-morning golf was not allowed until after Dr. Herrick's death.)

In his will, he left the $7,500 balance of a mortgage on club property to the Maidstone, with conditions. Among them, the Herrick Cup for men's singles tennis was to be awarded in perpetuity, the "character" of the club was to be maintained, and liquor was never to be sold on the premises.

As the repeal of Prohibition approached, however, a member wrote the club a check to replace Dr. Herrick's $7,500 gift, triggering a provision in his will that awarded the bequest instead to the East Hampton Free Library.

Herrick Park is owned today by the Incorporated Village of East Hampton.