125 Years Ago 1897
From The East Hampton Star, January 15
C.E.C. Homan, having so many inquiries about real estate in and about East Hampton, has decided to issue a descriptive real estate catalogue to forward to parties making such inquiries, thus giving a better idea of what there is that can well be done by letter in each individual case. See his advertisement in this issue and send along what you have in the market.
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We have received from W.W. Steel, who is sojourning in Cairo, Egypt, a copy of Le Journal Egyptien. We have not read very much of it yet, but imagine, from its appearance, that it is quite interesting, and have laid it away with President Cleveland's last message for future reference.
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About twenty-five little tots gathered at the house of A.O. Jones on Saturday afternoon last in response to invitations sent out by Mr. Jones' little daughter, Amy. They all enjoyed three hours of jolly fun, and departed in high glee.
100 Years Ago 1922
From The East Hampton Star, January 13
The 1922 pool and billiards tournament, in which the members of the East Hampton Fire Department are contesting for the Dominy Cup, has been started and already posted on the bulletin board. The committee appointed by Chief Dominy to manage the tournament is as follows: Town Clerk Ketcham, James McGuirk, and Alex. Dayton. Lawyer Raymond A. Smith, of the Fulton Hook and Ladder Company, has won the Dominy Cup twice in succession and unless he is defeated this year he will be the possessor, as the rules state that the possessor must have won three games in succession.
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E.J. Edwards is advertising fish scrap fertilizer for sale in another column of this issue of the Star. This scrap is made only about six miles distance from here, at the Triton Oil and Fish factory at Promised Land. It would seem that there would be a big market.
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The valuable collection of Indian books, writings and researches of the late William Wallace Tooker, presented by his executors to the John Jermain Memorial Library, Sag Harbor, has been listed by Eugene La Manna, and Mrs. Olive Pratt Young, librarian, is to have it printed in pamphlet form and distributed to New York State and New England libraries. Included in the collection are many early Sag Harbor imprints from the David Frothingham Press, established in 1790. Sag Harbor's best claim for fame was the first printing press on Long Island, set up by Frothingham, who had come to Sag Harbor from New York and started a printery, book store and bindery, where he also published the first newspaper on Long Island, Frothingham's Long Island Herald, the first number appearing May 10, 1791.
75 Years Ago 1947
From The East Hampton Star, January 16
On Friday evening, in Odd Fellows' Hall here, about fifty fishermen of the township met at eight o'clock in response to an invitation from Richard Granville, representing the Fishermen and Seafood Workers of the Atlantic Coast, which is an affiliate of the Seafarers' International Union of the American Federation of Labor. Mr. Granville, who is living at Westhampton Beach, had advertised in The Star and had circulated among the fishermen prior to the meeting. This was one of a series of such meetings for the purpose of getting Long Island fishermen to join the union. No action was taken on Friday night.
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According to tax collections made to Town Clerk Courtland Schenck there seems to be plenty of money in circulation, for at the close of business on January 10, $511,136.12, representing 88% of the town warrant of $579,299.53, had been collected. The biggest day for collections was January 10, when $80,000 was paid in taxes.
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The Rev. Walter E. Bentley, founder of the Actors' Church Alliance, former president of the National Shakespeare Federation, will conduct the services at St. Luke's Episcopal Church for the next four Sundays commencing Jan. 19th. The Rev. Mr. Bentley was born and educated in England. Emigrating to America, he entered the dramatic profession and acted for many years from the Atlantic to the Pacific with leading stars in Shakespearean repertoires.
50 Years Ago 1972
From The East Hampton Star, January 13
East Hampton Village is down to one barber shop, now that Augie Dragotta has "temporarily" closed his place on Newtown Lane.
Old-timers remember when there used to be as many as eight tonsorial parlors in the Village, but for some reason — inflation, long hair, quickened pace of life — the number has dwindled dramatically.
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A month of silence which has followed a threat by the Suffolk Health Department to evict Mrs. Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edie, from their East Hampton home was broken this week when the Beales' attorney filed papers in County Supreme Court to prohibit eviction proceedings.
The threat to evict the aunt and first cousin of Mrs. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis stemmed from an inspection of the ramble-down Apaquogue Road home by officials of East Hampton Village, the Health Department and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals last Oct. 22. The inspectors pronounced "Grey Gardens" unfit for human habitation and said they found violations of the State building code, the County sanitary code, the Village electrical code, and the State Agriculture and Markets Law.
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Wainscott
Our first snow fall last week changed the local stark winter scene to a countryside of beauty. Pine trees were covered with snowballs which clung to the needles in round clusters. Bare tree branches were layered with snow and ice and a beautiful white blanket of snow carpeted the land.
25 Years Ago 1997
From The East Hampton Star, January 16
After almost a quarter-century of providing prenatal care to low-income East End women and delivering their babies at Southampton Hospital, the physicians at Hamptons Gynecology and Obstetrics in Southampton have refused to renew their contract with the Suffolk County satellite clinic next door.
Some 150 pregnant patients have been told they will have to travel to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in Patchogue instead, where the doctors who now provide the clinic's prenatal care are on staff.
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Paul Peterson, a Montauk resident, could have won a million dollars in a Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes in the early 1980s, but he threw away the envelope without opening it. Like most of the garbage thrown out in those days, it was buried in one of the East Hampton Town landfills, presumably forever.
It resurfaced last fall, though, intact. Mr. Peterson, now a payloader operator, uncovered it himself during an archeological-type dig at the landfills.
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A number of South Fork residents — particularly Democrats — will travel to Washington this weekend for the 53rd presidential inauguration. Although the swearing-in ceremony is intended to be more patriotic than partisan, the Democrats will have a larger presence and reason to celebrate: Bill Clinton is the first Democrat since Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be elected to two terms.
Indeed, said Judith Hope, the State Democratic Committee chairwoman and an East Hampton resident, "there's a keen sense of history."