The East Hampton Historical Society’s annual winter lecture series, which will take place virtually this year, will launch Friday evening at 7 with “I Remember When: John Howard Payne’s Memories of Old East Hampton and His Life, 1791-1852.” Hugh King, the East Hampton town historian, and Kenneth Cullom, a code enforcement officer for the Village of East Hampton, will talk about the actor, poet, playwright, and writer famous for the song “Home Sweet Home,” which he composed for his 1823 operetta, “Clari, or the Maid of Milan.”
Payne’s relationship to East Hampton has undergone some reconsideration in recent years. While he was originally thought to have been born here in the saltbox now known as the Home, Sweet Home Museum, he was in fact born in New York City in 1791, a year after his father, who had been teaching at Clinton Academy in East Hampton, moved the family to the city.
While the saltbox was at one time thought to be the inspiration for “Home Sweet Home,” which was sung by Civil War soldiers longing for home and remains one of the most famous songs of the 19th century, Mr. King has dispelled that myth as well. “Payne wasn’t born here -- he never lived here,” he told The New York Times in 2016. “And this house was not the inspiration for the song.”
What is true is that after returning to the United States after almost two decades working abroad as an actor and writer, Payne did spend time in East Hampton, where his mother had grown up. When he wrote a syndicated series about the village and its people for Sag Harbor’s newspaper The Corrector in 1838, “it was seen as insulting by village residents,” according to the historical society. “All was forgotten," though, "by the time of the Civil War, when ‘Home Sweet Home’ became an anthem.”
Subsequent lectures will feature Richard Barons, the historical society’s chief curator, on “Life in a Small Town: Rev. Lyman Beecher’s Reflections on East Hampton from 1798-1810” (Feb. 26); Barbara Borsack and Mr. King on “When Neighbors Were Neighbors: Character Studies by Cornelia Huntington, 1803-1890, From Her Diary” (March 26), and Hilary Osborn-Malecki with “Turn-of-the-Century Tales From ‘Wainscott Dumplings,’ ” a collection of stories from 1879 to 1968 about the people and events that make up the hamlet’s history, written by Alice E. Osborn Hand and first published in 1954.
The Zoom talks are free, but pre-registration on the historical society’s website is required.
