125 Years Ago 1897
From The East Hampton Star, December 10
Quite an enthusiastic gathering was the annual meeting of the Ladies’ Village Improvement society on Monday evening. Twenty of the members were present and there seemed to be a marked determination to do something in the line of village improvement with the funds on hand.
The treasurer reported that the society since its organization had received from entertainments, donations, dues, etc., over $1,200, and that the funds on hand amounted to over $600.
The question of lighting the main street was taken up and voted upon, eleven voting for and eight against. Mrs. W.F. Muchmore, Mrs. E.H. Dayton and Miss Annie Sherrill were appointed a committee to ascertain the number of lamps needed and the cost of their erection and maintenance, and to report at a special meeting to be held Dec. 18.
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One of our business men recently read an advertisement which ran like this: “Phonograph sent three months on trial for twenty-five cents.” The wily merchant, thinking the talking machine would make a fine Christmas present for his wife, sent a quarter with his address for the phonograph. He now receives every seven days a copy of the Philips Phonograph, a weekly paper published in Maine.
100 Years Ago 1922
From The East Hampton Star, December 8
The expected has happened. Last Saturday George Schellinger and Harry Conklin, both of Amagansett, were hunting near Great Pond on the Montauk property which we have heard so much about of late. They had in their possession two ducks which they had shot, when they noticed Al Blowers, one of the five game wardens employed by the Montauk Company to keep hunters and trespassers from their property, ducking out of sight and following their trail.
It is the story that finally one of the hunters called to Blowers to quit trailing them and come out in the open and arrest them if he wanted to. The outcome of it was they were given a summons to appear before Justice C. Louis Edwards tomorrow afternoon at 2 o’clock.
It is reported that the hunters, who both firmly believe that they as well as anyone else in the town have the right to hunt on the ponds at Montauk, will plead not guilty and ask for a jury trial.
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An Ideal Christmas Gift — A Singer sewing machine. Come in and inspect our complete stock. Spitz Music Shoppe, Sag Harbor. — Advertisement
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The East Hampton public will be pleased to learn that it will not have to climb a long flight of stairs before they have the privilege of paying a year’s taxes. This year Tax Receiver Miller has engaged the room at the rear of the town clerk’s office in the Parson’s building, next to S. Spivak’s jewelry store.
75 Years Ago 1947
From The East Hampton Star, December 11
Mrs. William Carter Dickerman has purchased the Old Sheep Pound, one of East Hampton’s historic spots, from James M. Strong Jr., and has deeded it to the Village of East Hampton in perpetuity as a park, in memory of her husband, the late Mr. Dickerman, who loved East Hampton more than any other place except his birthplace in Pennsylvania and his University.
This triangular green, between the Montauk Highway, Egypt Lane, and Gay Lane, has been a source of anxiety for years on the part of the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society; at various times there has been talk of building there.
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How distressing it was, only twenty days before Christmas, to read in the papers that a school superintendent wanted to ban the singing of Christmas carols in twenty-three Brooklyn public schools. Such measures, promoting division and bad feeling in a time when amity and unity were never more needed, seem designed rather to do away with all religion, rather than to protect any one denomination from encroachments by another.
50 Years Ago 1972
From The East Hampton Star, December 7
East Hampton Town will have to wait until a suit brought against it in Suffolk Supreme Court by Bruce R. Bistrian, M.D., is settled before it can continue with the condemnation of Dr. Bistrian’s half acre of land near Pond of Pines, at Lazy Point, Amagansett.
At stake, in addition to the question of whether Dr. Bistrian will be permitted to build a house on his land or be forced to sell it to the Town, may be the wetlands provisions of the Town zoning ordinance themselves and the Zoning Board of Appeals’ interpretation of those provisions.
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The East Hampton Village Planning Board will meet on Dec. 15 at 7 p.m. to consider the application by Robert M. Barnes for preliminary approval of his proposed development, “Pondview.”
The proposed development would include 13 new houses on 17 acres behind Guild Hall and a new, 2,800-foot road running east from Main Street. The Board, said Mr. Dunn, will “hopefully” decide within a week of the hearing whether to approve it.
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Ian Marceau, the executive director of the Group for America’s South Fork, paid a call on the Sag Harbor Village Board Tuesday night and ruffled some feathers with a blast of criticism leveled at a State-financed engineering report on sewage treatment for the Village’s business district.
Since 1968, Sag Harbor has been under court order to cease polluting the waters of the harbor with wastes from two century-old sewers on Main Street and Division Streets, to which about two dozen businesses are connected.
25 Years Ago 1997
From The East Hampton Star, December 11
“When you get involved in a gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the most dangerous spot to be in is the middle,” Rob Peckham, the vice president of C&S Engineers, said to a crowded room at the American Legion Hall in Amagansett. His firm designed the proposed reconstruction of East Hampton Airport’s main runway, and was center stage at a heated public meeting on the project Friday.
More than 200 people attended to question, debate, and testify on the merits and drawbacks of the controversial runway improvements. In the end, those on both sides seem to have stood firm.
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Nearly 1,000 mourners crowded into Montauk’s St. Therese of Lisieux Catholic Church school building Tuesday morning to pay tribute to Carlos A. Hernandez, 17, who was killed late Friday night in an auto accident on Montauk Highway in Amagansett.
Many were students, teachers, and counselors from East Hampton High School, where Carlos, a senior, was a member of the band and the soccer and tennis teams. Among the nine who offered eulogies before the funeral Mass was Christopher Tracey, East Hampton’s athletic director, who called Carlos “a great kid who left a significant mark on those who had the privilege to know him.”
His parents, Mr. Tracey said, “raised a winner.”
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As of this week, Southampton Hospital owes close to $1 million in back payments for employees’ medical benefits, pensions, child care costs, and job security insurance.
Nearly two-thirds of the debt is for health insurance premiums and pension contributions covering 275 employees, said Steven Kramer, an executive vice president of Hospital and Health Care Employees Union Local 1199.
