125 Years Ago 1897
From The East Hampton Star, February 19
Jacob Meyer, of Riverhead, was in town on Monday. “Jake” is a keen observer, and he said among other things: “East Hampton is growing; ‘Ike’ carries too large a stock for a place of this size; I hear The Star well spoken of everywhere, and it is a paper no one need feel ashamed of.”
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It may seem strange to some of our readers, but it is a sad fact that our honorable body of U.S. senators were recently engaged in a discussion as to whether the selling of liquor in the National capital should not be abolished.
A rum shop at the doors of our halls of Congress! What an example for the supreme law-making bodies of this great government to set before the people of the country!
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There were only four members present at the meeting of the village improvement society on Monday evening last. No business was done. The next meeting of the society will be held on Monday evening, March 1st, and it is important that every member be present.
100 Years Ago 1922
From The East Hampton Star, February 17
Albany, Feb. 6. One hundred and twenty plantations with a total of 389,900 trees have been set out in Suffolk County since the beginning of the movement for the reforesting of idle lands, according to figures compiled by the Conservation Commission. The Industrial School at Kings Park has a plantation of 2,000; the Long Island Home at Amityville, one of 1,500; the Long Island Railroad Company at Medford one of 9,500, and the Brooklyn Home for Children at Port Jefferson, one of 900; Setauket Board of Education, 1,500; Southampton Water Works, 6,000; Suffolk County Farm, 5,000; U.S. Engineer’s Office, 4,000.
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A population of 3,261 for Sag Harbor is shown by the report of John C. Battle and Myron A. Meyer, who have just completed s census of the village by authority of the board of trustees. When the names of several persons now out of town who maintain residence here and of others, some of whom return to vote at elections [are counted], it is believed the census will show somewhat more than 3,300.
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The entertainment committee of Edwin C. Halsey Post, No. 700, American Legion, including John Turner, commander, Charles Swanson, Harry Steele and Antony Field, has all arrangements made to make the reception tonight one to be enjoyed by all members and their lady friends.
John Turner, commander, issued a notice the first of the week to all of the members of the Post which read as follows: “In order to stimulate the interest of the members and former members of Edwin C. Halsey Post, it has been decided to hold ‘Ladies Night’ entertainment at Odd Fellow’s hall, Friday evening, February 17.”
75 Years Ago 1947
From The East Hampton Star, February 20
John Kelly, a 92-year-old resident at the Suffolk Home, Yaphank, who lived in East Hampton nearly thirty years, is thinking of moving back to East Hampton since hearing the good news that he will inherit about $8,000 from the estate of his sister, who died in Connecticut last year. Kelly worked in East Hampton on the farm of Abram Sherrill and is well remembered here.
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The Star received greetings and snapshots, this week, from Miami Beach, Florida, where a group of our friends and neighbors were enjoying a cocktail party at Anthony Marasco’s on February 9. “East Hampton at top of the world,” the pictures were captioned. Unfortunately, they were not clear enough for newspaper reproduction.
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About fifty persons were injured, eight of them hospitalized on Sunday, when a Long Island train was derailed at Kings Park, L.I., after hitting an open switch. Five of the injured were in a serious condition.
The accident disrupted traffic on the line between Kings Park and Port Jefferson for the rest of that day. The derailment sent the steam locomotive hurtling into an embankment, and five cars of the eleven-car train were straddling the tracks about a quarter-mile west of the Kings Park station. Three hundred feet of rails were torn up. Several cars were overturned.
50 Years Ago 1972
From The East Hampton Star, February 17
A group of scientists who are experts on the osprey or fish hawk have signed a petition opposing Congressman Otis G. Pike’s bill which would establish a Gardiner’s Island National Monument. The scientists fear that a Federal take-over of Gardiner’s Island would endanger the osprey colony there, one of the largest in existence among the diminishing species.
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“This is the best audience we’ve had at these meetings since I’ve been on this Board,” was the way Frank R. Brill, president of the East Hampton School Board, opened that Board’s public meeting in the Middle School cafeteria on Tuesday night. He was addressing some 50 students, a few teachers, and a few interested citizens.
Reportedly, the heavy turn-out of students was in response to an invitation from the Board to attend the meeting for an exchange of views. Most particularly, it was an invitation to the staff and contributors of the “Student Voice,” an “underground” paper founded this year by students for East Hampton High School students independently of the school’s academic program, to establish the paper’s policy publicly.
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The first coalition of women interested in working in the women’s liberation movement on the South Fork was formed Tuesday night at a meeting at Southampton College. More than 150 women, who came from the area from Amagansett to Quogue, attended the session. It was held, by coincidence, on the anniversary of Susan B. Anthony’s birth on Feb. 15, 1820.
25 Years Ago 1997
From The East Hampton Star, February 20
One of the nation’s leading authorities on beach erosion told South Fork officials Friday morning that rather than trying to halt erosion with sea walls, bulkheads, and jetties, people and their dwellings should retreat a safe distance.
“In the long term, you can have beaches or you can have buildings, but you can’t have both. . . . Moving houses back should be given serious consideration,” Dr. Orrin Pilkey concluded after a well-attended two-hour presentation in the Southampton High School auditorium.
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Legislation that would allow a binding referendum on the creation of Peconic County from the five East End towns was filed last week in the State Assembly by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. of Noyac. Mr. Thiele said the bill was a “comprehensive” measure on the establishment of new counties drafted “not only by myself but by numerous municipal attorneys and bond counsels.”
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Two groups interested in creatures of and from the sea are vying to assume responsibility for New York’s stranded marine mammals and sea turtles program. On one hand, officials of the newly formed Coastal Research and Education Society, which has set up shop at Southampton College, believe the stage has been set for it to do so. On the other, directors of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation, which has the contract now, say they expect their contract to be renewed.
