125 Years Ago 1898
From The East Hampton Star, November 25
The first dance of the season given by the young people of East Hampton, at Clinton Hall, was a complete success socially. There was a select though not a large company present, and the music furnished by Messrs. Koerner, Gerard and Mills, of Patchogue, was exceptionally fine. Refreshments were served in the hall at eleven o’clock, and all present spent an enjoyable evening.
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It will be seen by an advertisement in another column that the well-known firm of Van Scoy, Dayton & Stratton will be dissolved on January 1st next. We have not been able to learn who will be the proprietors of the business next year, but it is certain that at least one member of the present firm, and perhaps two, will withdraw on January 1st.
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J.E. Bates, of Brooklyn, who has purchased the cottage of Mrs. R.S. Bowne, on the ocean side of Ocean avenue, was in town last Saturday. While here he made arrangements with J.O. Hopping to move his house back and gave a contract to George A. Eldredge to have an addition built on the front and the cottage otherwise considerably improved.
100 Years Ago 1923
From The East Hampton Star, November 23
Three revenue officers were in town the early part of the week and on Tuesday afternoon stopped Sam Jaffe on the Montauk Highway, as he was returning from Montauk in his Buick touring car with his helper, Louis Bennett. In the rear of his car was a case of liquor, which he explained to the officers he had just bought at Montauk for his personal use. Mr. Jaffe has been in poor health lately, it is said, and wanted the liquor for medicinal purposes.
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Standing in the doorway of a little old-fashioned house built on the lawn of the White House, President Harding dedicated last spring to the American people a modern adaptation of the Long Island home of John Howard Payne, author of “Home, Sweet Home.” The house was built by many trades.
In a recent meeting of the concrete house and cement products committee of the sixth annual Own Your Home Exposition, to be held in the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory on April 19-26, it was decided to build a full size duplicate of the Payne house.
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The new concrete road, approximately three-quarters of a mile in length, on the west end of the Napeague road, which has been under construction the past three months, was completed last week and opened to traffic Sunday. The road begins near the Devon railroad bridge and connects with the state road. This new highway cost about $28,000, which was East Hampton’s share of the returned motor vehicle fees.
75 Years Ago 1948
From The East Hampton Star, November 25
Proclamation
On this Thanksgiving Day, the bins of our storerooms and the shelves of our cupboards are heaped with the fruits of the harvest. We have labored this year in peace. The hours of hard toil now shrink into the past and the joys of the holiday loom ahead. In this fortunate moment, we give thanks that we have been free to work and to gather a fair reward for our endeavors.
In a world struggling to repair the ravages of war, our country is still a land of plenty. We recognize the sound and strong American economy is the cornerstone of world peace. And we know that we can achieve national and individual economic strength if we conserve and save.
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Mrs. William A. Taylor, chairman of the East Hampton Hand Craft group, which is planning an exhibition for early April, announces that her committee, in conjunction with the Guild Hall winter committee, is attempting, as a first step, to get a list of all people in East Hampton Township who are interested in the crafts.
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Since early April in 1947 motorists traveling Long Lane to or from Sag Harbor or the Northwest woods have gazed with more than a little interest at the miniature flying field and cluster of small private planes nestling around the ground-hugging T-shaped hangar and shop set in the midst of acres of potatoes and cabbage which border the highway. Old timers may well have remarked, “Why I can remember when Sam Field used to have a truck garden there!”
50 Years Ago 1973
From The East Hampton Star, November 22
A permit system under which the State Department of Environmental Conservation would be empowered to grant exceptions to the moratorium on the alteration of tidal wetlands that went into effect on Sept. 1 under the Tidal Wetlands Act was criticized at a hearing in Hauppauge last Friday by representatives of the East Hampton Town Trustees and its Association of Marine Industries, who joined a chorus of other concerned voices.
The system, a temporary one, is designed to last only until such time as the Statewide inventory of wetlands and subsequent land-use regulations can be completed.
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A computer in western Suffolk is calculating East Hampton Town’s tax bills this year, for the first time, and the people in the Town Clerk’s office are not quite sure how long it will take. They hope, however, that it will have finished by the first week of December, and they hope to mail the bills out then. The bills, contrary to their nature, will sometimes be slightly lower than they were last year.
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Heinrich Schutz’s “The Christmas Story,” performed as it might have been 300 years ago, will open this year’s Christmas concert of the Choral Society of the Hamptons and the South Fork Chamber Orchestra, at 4 p.m. Dec. 2 in the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church. The soprano, tenor, bass, and chorus will stand around a harpsichord, which will be played by their conductor, Dr. Hugh Ross, and strings, bassoons, flutes, recorders, and brass will be grouped behind them in the chancel.
25 Years Ago 1998
From The East Hampton Star, November 26
Spike Lee has agreed to join the committee. That was the good news that Linda Shapiro, a professional fund-raiser who lives on Hardscrabble Close in East Hampton, had recently. Ms. Shapiro has been planning a celebrity basketball game to benefit the Bridgehampton School for several months. The event is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 7.
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Tuesday is AIDS Awareness Day, but on Monday, the East End AIDS Wellness Project, a nonprofit organization that has attracted services for those infected and affected by H.I.V./AIDS to the East End since 1992, will close its doors.
“The epidemic has changed,” Matthew Grady, who has been the group’s executive director, told The Star this week. Because of early diagnoses, new treatments, and greater AIDS awareness, he said, “the urgency for crisis intervention” has passed.
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Mabel D’Amico, an artist and educator, died at home on Shore Road, Amagansett, on Sunday. She was 89, and had lived at Lazy Point for over 40 years.
Mrs. D’Amico was the widow of Victor D’Amico, director of education at the Museum of Modern Art and the founder of the Art Barge in Amagansett.
