The peninsula separating Accabonac Harbor and Gardiner’s Bay is known as Gerard Drive today, but over the years it has had many different names. This map, showing parts of the peninsula, was drawn by Wallace H. Halsey (1881-1940) for the purpose of dividing parts of the land into 250 waterfront lots for auction in 1935 after the death of Thomas A. Clarke (1878-1935), who owned it.
The auction was held on the weekend of Aug. 24, 1935, with J. Edward Breuer as auctioneer. Breuer is credited with dubbing the area Cape Gardiner.
The earliest known name for the land was Fireplace Beach, given by the first settlers of Springs for its proximity to Fireplace, an area used to send fire signals to people on Gardiner’s Island. A reference to this property by that name can be seen in the East Hampton Town Records from the 1770 sale of the parcel by the East Hampton Town Trustees to Benjamin Leek. The parcel thus became known as Ben Leek’s Beach, and the public could access it for fishing and hunting.
More than 100 years later, the property became known as Deep Hole, which presumably reflected the depth of Accabonac Harbor on the west side of the peninsula. Around this time, in 1873, a firm named Higgins & Payne owned a fishing factory at Deep
Hole. It burned down in 1895. The only other resident was Peter Koppleman, foreman at the factory, who owned a small farm there.
In 1932, the Gerard brothers, including Daniel Gerard, deeded 105 acres at Deep Hole to the town for a public park in memory of their mother, Caroline Bentley Gerard. This public park can also be seen on the subdivision map, which the Springs Historical Society lent to the Long Island Collection for digitizing.
—
Mayra Scanlon is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.
