125 Years Ago 1898
From The East Hampton Star, January 21
The Ladies’ Village Improvement society will give another of their immensely popular New England suppers, in Clinton Hall, on Friday evening Jan. 28.
The ladies feel that they have undertaken a big task to put up street lamps and keep them lighted. The care of the lamps puts upon the society a permanent out-go of money, and in anticipation of the constant need of money in the future the coming New England supper is given. The people should patronize it well, as the proceeds are all to be used for public benefit, and it is certainly an agreeable way in which to pay the small contribution.
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One little East Hampton boy is struggling with a problem which he cannot satisfactorily solve. He puts it this way: When the Odd Fellows change their quarters from Clinton hall to Newtown lane, how are they going to move their goat without his being seen?
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We have repeatedly endeavored to arouse public interest in the coming 250th anniversary of the settlement of East Hampton. It seems to be a difficult matter to set the ball rolling. We trust the people will take up the subject soon, however, and carry it to a successful finish.
100 Years Ago 1923
From The East Hampton Star, January 19
One of the most terrible accidents of recent years occurred at Montauk on Saturday, at 5 p.m., when the two children of Mr. and Mrs. John Smith were burned to death, and their home at Fort Pond Bay, with all its contents, was burned to the ground.
The children, John, aged fourteen, and Hazel, aged six, were alone in the house at the time of the accident.
Mrs. Smith, who had been in poor health for sometime, had been persuaded about two hours before to go to her sister’s for a change, and Mr. Smith had gone to bring her home, and had been away not more than ten minutes.
The children were playing in the living room, and John, always thoughtful of his mother, decided that the room was not warm enough for her to come back to so put some wood on the fire. As this did not start at once he picked up the kerosene can and poured some on the wood. This immediately ignited the live coals in the stove and the flames were drawn to the can, which exploded, scattering burning oil all over the room. The children attempted to extinguish the flames, but finding their clothing on fire both rushed out-of-doors, the boy running onto the ice of the pond and the girl starting towards the home of a neighbor, Mr. Brooks.
75 Years Ago 1948
From The East Hampton Star, January 22
William Lloyd Fournier Jr., a 13-year old Sag Harbor boy, died in the Southampton Hospital Wednesday afternoon at four o’clock from injuries received when he was struck by an auto Tuesday night while sledding in front of his home. The accident occurred shortly after nine o’clock, and a few minutes earlier his mother had called to him and he assured her, “I’ll be right in, Mom.”
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The bountiful Atlantic in 1946 yielded a commercial catch of nearly 308 million pounds of fish and shellfish from New York State’s marine waters, the Conservation Department’s Bureau of Marine Fisheries has announced.
Shellfish, including oysters, clams, scallops, conches and mussels, provided more than half the poundage and $8,246,830 of the revenue. Of 46 species of fish concerned, the menhaden, or “mossbunker,” source of fertilizer and oil, led the list with 123,627,404 pounds.
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Just what this portends, we wouldn’t know. But early last Friday morning, January 16, the day after the cold snap, John Johnson was driving into the Frank P. Shepard estate with his men and remarked, “It looks like snow.” Another man said, “It looks like robins, to me.” And the big elm tree there was seen to be filled with birds. Mr. Johnson got some oatmeal and breadcrumbs and fed the birds. They flew down in a flock, like chickens, and he counted between fifty and sixty.
Miss Mary Eldredge and Frank Eldredge told me last week that they had seen bluebirds on their lawn on David Lane, and so has Mrs. Charles Juckett. David Dakers had bluebirds on his lawn. His cat noticed one too, but he reached the scene just in time.
50 Years Ago 1973
From The East Hampton Star, January 18
Marijuana was alleged to be involved in five of the eight arrests made last week by the East Hampton Town Police Department.
As of Tuesday afternoon, police in the Southampton-Sag Harbor-East Hampton area were looking for two youths who escaped from a parked car in Amagansett on Monday as detectives approached to question them concerning a recent theft in East Hampton Village.
The Town police said that Seventh Squad Detective Joseph Intermaggio and Detective Bruce Cotter of the East Hampton Village Police Department found three youths in the car, at about 3:30 p.m., and subsequently discovered marijuana in their possession. The youths fled, said police.
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Mrs. Warren J. Gurney died in Santa Monica, Cal., on Jan. 6, at the age of 95. She and her husband bought shore-front property from Carl Fisher’s Montauk Beach Development Corporation in 1926, and founded what is now Nick Monte’s Gurney’s Inn. Mr. Monte bought the property from Mrs. Gurney on Feb. 1, 1956. Mr. Gurney had died in Orlando, Fla., in 1942; his wife carried on alone for the next 14 years.
25 Years Ago 1998
From The East Hampton Star, January 22
A high level of acetone found in the water of a Springs house has prompted the Suffolk Health Department to test the water of five neighboring houses as well as the Springs School, Barnes Country Store, and Kromer’s Auto and Marine.
Results of the samples are incomplete, but initial testing found a level of 3,300 parts per billion of acetone in the water at David and Jane Barton’s Fireplace Road residence.
The state standard for drinking water is 50 parts per billion. Levels in the neighboring locations were all beneath that figure.
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A bridge that doesn’t reach the other side ought to be called, by definition, a dock. That’s how Gordon Vorpahl, an East Hampton Town Trustee, summed up a proposal before the panel last week.
The Trustees, having decided years ago against the construction of any new docks in the waters they manage for the public, agreed that the partial reconstruction of the historic Gardiner bridge across Hook Pond, proposed by the East Hampton Village Board and several pondfront property owners, will not, for the moment, fly.
Mr. Vorpahl and other Trustees posed the philosophical question of what to call a bridge when it’s to nowhere, after hearing from Richard Shilowich, whose construction company would do the work.
