125 Years Ago 1896
From The East Hampton Star, November 20
The auction sale of horses and other stock at Gardiner's Island yesterday did not prove a big success, there being only five horses sold. There were two hundred persons present.
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Our advertisers and correspondents are requested to get their copy in early next week, as we shall be short one day. Our sporting editor, while on a recent foraging expedition (for news), discovered an ancient turkey on a deserted farm in one of the outlying districts. The noble bird was perched on a grindstone handle just back of the spookish looking house, where it evidently intended spending its last moments in peace. Our sporting editor now has it confined under a soap box, and if any of our subscribers would like to join us on Thursday next between the hours of 4 a.m. and 10 p.m., we will show them how the powers of the world could "do up" Turkey in short order.
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The East Hampton Social club will give a dance in Clinton Hall on Thanksgiving night. It promises to be a brilliant affair. All former members of the club are invited to attend. First class music will be in attendance.
100 Years Ago 1921
From The East Hampton Star, November 18
Samuel Lester, who for thirty years has served as a member of the U.S. Life Saving service, was retired from that service at midnight last Thursday. Mr. Lester retires with pension. For the past few months he has acted as keeper at the Amagansett Coast Guard station, and his place is now being filled by Everett King, of the Mecox station. Mr. Lester is a son of the late Jeremiah Lester, of Pantigo.
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Many friends of the late Annie Phillips Osborne, of East Hampton, proprietor of the fashionable Osborne House for several years, are given costly diamond and other jewelry by her will, filed for probate at Riverhead. The estate to be settled is a large one. The petition uses the formal language and says it exceeds $20,000.
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The suppression of the press is in process of development by failure of the people to recognize the importance of protection and growing forests. A shortage in print paper has already caused the suspension of many publications which found it impossible to obtain deliveries or were unable to pay the price, according to a statement issued by the New York State College of Forestry.
75 Years Ago 1946
From The East Hampton Star, November 21
The public hearing held at the Court room in the East Hampton Post Office building on Newtown Lane, Friday night at eight o'clock, drew a small attendance; only 25 or 30 persons came to express their views on whether or not the Town of East Hampton should acquire the wartime Navy Seaplane Base at Rod's Valley, Montauk. The property has a paved right of way extending from the Torpedo Testing Base situated at the terminus of the Long Island Rail Road.
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There will be a preliminary meeting of the Guild Hall Art Class for the winter season on Tuesday, Nov. 26, at 8 p.m. This meeting will be to acquaint new members with the materials needed for work in either pastel or oils. The first regular work session will be held on the following Tuesday night, Dec. 2.
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The Hampton Choral Society will give its third East Hampton concert in the John Drew Memorial Theater at Guild Hall on Friday evening, Dec. 13. The society has secured as guest soloist for the concert Mary Gale Hafford, a very fine young violinist who has been heard throughout the country. The program will include something to suit every taste, with emphasis on Christmas music — some lovely old English carols will be sung. There will be a group of negro spirituals, a group of sacred songs, and some folk songs. The unofficial national song of Australia, "Waltzing Matilda," will be one number.
50 Years Ago 1971
From The East Hampton Star, November 18
The Wavecrest Motel, on Old Montauk Highway in Montauk, will be able to replace its existing coffee shop with a restaurant and bar as a result of a decision announced last week by the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals.
The Wavecrest application harks back to a variance that the Board granted the motel seven years ago that allowed the creation of a coffee shop for motel guests. The 1964 variance and the variances granted last week were necessary because the motel is a nonconforming multiple residence use of residential A property.
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"The Village Board took the old zoning ordinance, added a couple of paragraphs of their own, and now they're going to adopt it."
The somewhat bitter speaker was David Lee, former president of the Sag Harbor Zoning Commission, created early this year to draft a new zoning ordinance for that Village. Mr. Lee, who with about ten others attended a special meeting of the Village Board Tuesday night, continued to lash the Village Fathers for not following the Commission's zoning recommendations.
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The New York Ocean Science Laboratory touch-football squad, which bills itself as the Pollution Fighters, has challenged the Fire Fighters just down the road to a match, and the two teams will meet at 1 p.m. Sunday on the Montauk Public School field.
The trophy will be a half-keg of beer, to be shared among the players. The Lab squad, in issuing its "awesome and dangerous challenge" to the Montauk Fire Department, said it was "only fair to warn you of the great depth of talent" it possessed.
25 Years Ago 1996
From The East Hampton Star, November 21
After weeks of acrimony and last-minute compromise, the East Hampton Town Board on Friday approved a budget for 1997. It will raise taxes for most property owners about 11 percent and increase total spending by about $3 million over this year.
Supervisor Cathy Lester cast the lone vote against the $30.5 million budget proposed by the three-member Republican majority, saying it represented "a vast philosophical difference" from the one she had put forward in September.
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A memorial service will be held at noon on Thursday, Dec. 5, at St. George's Episcopal Church in Manhattan for Alger Hiss, who died at Lenox Hill Hospital on Friday at the age of 92.
Mr. Hiss was a resident of Manhattan and a longtime homeowner in East Hampton. He and Isabel Johnson began spending summers here about 1960, renting at first and buying a house in 1963.
Although the couple lived quietly, the recognition that this was <I>the<P> Mr. Hiss, the diplomat accused of being a spy and the defendant in two notorious trials that heightened the public's fear of Communist infiltration into government, astonished neighbors and tradespeople, at least on first encounter. More often than not, the East Hamptoners the couple met became friends.
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The A&P presented the Town of East Hampton with some food for thought Friday: a nine-count Federal lawsuit claiming, among other charges, that the municipality's new superstore law violates the corporation's civil rights. The supermarket seeks to invalidate the law and asks for at least $50,000 in damages.
