125 Years Ago
1897
From The East Hampton Star, June 25
Bathing-master Culver informs us that the Maidstone bath houses will open for the season on Thursday next, July 1st.
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At the M.E. Church on Sunday night, Children’s Day exercises were held. The exercises consisted of singing and recitations by members of the Sabbath school, who represented various flowers. The young people, without an exception, showed the effect of their previous drill, and creditably performed their parts.
The platform was prettily decorated with flowers and greens, and presented a very pleasing effect.
The people began to arrive when the doors were opened, and long before the time for commencing came every available foot of floor space was filled, and a number of those who desired to enter were compelled to turn away. The exercises were eminently successful, and many were the words of satisfaction and pleasure uttered by the departing congregation.
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A train expressly for fish now leaves Montauk at 7:30 o’clock p.m., and East Hampton about 8 o’clock, following the west-bound express.
100 Years Ago
1922
From The East Hampton Star, June 23
The village budget was adopted and the tax rate computed at a recent meeting of the East Hampton village board of trustees. The budget totals $62,827.79, an increase of $6,844.96 over last year’s budget. Each fund has been increased from $1,000 to $10,000, the health fund being the only one reduced, the amount being $500 instead of $1,000. The road fund has been increased from $20,000 to $30,000.
The total assessed valuation of the village of East Hampton is $4,053,386, a total increase of $1,027,365 over that of last year.
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Sag Harbor
Gilbert A. Halsey was awarded the $50 refrigerator at the formal opening of R.C. Barry & Son’s new Winchester store last Saturday.
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A smart new summer shop has been added to the many summer attractions of Southampton by the L.P. Hollander Company of New York and Boston, which has leased a small but well situated store in Monument Square, affording the residents of this locality every opportunity to keep abreast of the vogue by weekly exhibitions of all that is smartest in the world of femininity.
The decorative color scheme of pigeon breast gray and delft blue is charmingly suggestive of the store itself, in which one is tempted to linger in the atmosphere of hospitality pervading this delightful shop.
75 Years Ago
1947
From The East Hampton Star, June 26
The ten official candidates for the title of queen of the first Long Island potato and vegetable harvest festival to be held July 5 at Riverhead have been announced by the Long Island Farmers’ Institute Festival committee. Miss Jean Filer was elected to represent East Hampton town. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Filer. She is a graduate of East Hampton High School and the New York State Technical Institute at Morrisville, and is now a dietitian at Hunter College.
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A meeting of chairmen of committees for the annual Ladies’ Village Improvement Society Fair was held on Thursday afternoon at the home of the general chairman, Mrs. Juan T. Trippe. Another meeting will be held there on Thursday afternoon, July 10, at 2:30.
Most of the fair chairman are now well along with plans for the event, which will take place on the Village Green on Friday afternoon, July 25. Mrs. John Lord Boatwright is the new chairman for the Farm Booth, which will be the only booth open for business in the morning; farm products will go on sale at 11 a.m., while other booths open at 2 p.m. The Farm Booth will arrange to have cornmeal and flour sold at the replica of an old East Hampton windmill, which will be a central point in Fair decorations as usual.
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On Tuesday, July 1, from 4 to 6 p.m., two new art exhibitions, arranged by Edward Moran, chairman of the Guild Hall art committee, will open with a reception and preview in the Guild Hall galleries. Pierpont will show “Portraits of People You Know” in the Woodhouse Gallery, and the Moran will be devoted to Sporting Prints and Water Colors by a group of British and American artists.
50 Years Ago
1972
From The East Hampton Star, June 22
Commencement ceremonies for East Hampton High School’s class of 1972 will be held this Sunday at 5 p.m. in the school auditorium. They will begin with the customary processional to the sound of “Pomp and Circumstance,” as performed by the school band under the direction of Stafford W. Ezzard, following which the Rev. Christopher Huntington will deliver the invocation, and John D’Andrea the introductions.
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About half a mile of shore on the west side of Lake Montauk Harbor has been coated with oil, which appeared Monday morning, drifting swiftly before a northeast wind. “Someone’s been pumping bilge,” suggested a Coast Guard officer, one of two investigating the scene early Tuesday afternoon. There were “less than 100 gallons” of the oil, he said, and it was mostly bilge waste, with a small amount of fuel oil in addition.
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About 40 persons surrounded a rock from the moon last Thursday evening and, sipping an eerily flavored lemonade, discussed Howard Hughes, themselves, and their friends. They did not appear to relish the rock, in honor of which they had gathered at Southampton’s Parrish Museum. Nor did they shun it, but its blindness inspired neither trust nor enthusiasm.
25 Years Ago
1997
From The East Hampton Star, June 26
District Attorney James M. Catterson Jr. has decided that in selling raffle tickets outside the Montauk Post Office last month the Tuthill Road Association was in violation of state gambling laws.
The decision was based on State Municipal Law, which narrowly defines the type of organizations, such as churches and nonprofit entities, that are exempt from state gambling regulations. The Tuthill Road Association is a homeowners association and has no tax-exempt status.
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The East Hampton Town Independence Party Committee, which has had limited success fielding candidates in the two years since its formation and no success so far at getting any elected, announced last week that it will jump feet first into the 1997 campaign by forcing a three-way race for Town Supervisor.
Capt. Milton L. Miller Sr., a 10th-generation resident and founding member of the East Hampton Baymen’s Association, will face off against the Democratic incumbent, Supervisor Cathy Lester, and Councilman Thomas Knobel, chosen by the Republicans to challenge her bid for a second term.
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Tom Wolkner, a mason who drives from Yaphank to work construction on the South Fork, summed up his daily commute. “It sucks,” he said, smiling, a trace of the German he spoke as a child lingering in his accent. “If you’re not past the Shinnecock Canal by 7:30, you’re really stuck.”
But Mr. Wolkner is one of the legions of contractors who put up with the inconvenience of the “trade parade” of pickups and vans that clogs Route 27 each day for the opportunity to take advantage of the lucrative building boom that is in full swing here.
