125 Years Ago 1898
From The East Hampton Star, March 4
For a great many years East Hampton has not been so free from drunkenness as in the past two years. Drunk cases are almost unknown to our justices and our lock-up remains unused. The claim made two years ago that a no-license vote would ruin our town as a summer resort has proved groundless. No, East Hampton does not begrudge the [liquor] license revenue going to other towns; it can afford to do without it.
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Horses for sale. I will arrive at Southampton on Monday, March 7th, with a car-load of good horses. C.R. Fitz. — Classified Advertisement
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Work has progressed on the bicycle path on Main street in a satisfactory manner this week. Hundreds of loads have already been carted gratuitously, and although the cycle club well knows that it has undertaken a big job, it feels greatly encouraged by the hearty support being given by the citizens. The commissioners have granted the club permission to extend the path north of Newtown lane to connect with the Amagansett path, also to construct a path on the north side of Newtown lane to the depot, all of which the club hopes to finish before the summer visitors arrive.
100 Years Ago 1923
From The East Hampton Star, March 2
In tracing the history of the Hampton settlements, one finds that the pioneers were known as “undertakers.” The East Hampton conquerors of the wilderness, after affiliation and expansion, are referred to as “proprietors.” The term is appropriate as distinguishing property owners from persons who did not own “town” property. The original proprietors were for more than a hundred years “the town.” If kept in mind, “proprietor” aids in understanding to whom belonged “commonality” in contradistinction to a citizen, a freeman or a laborer, who often owned no property and therefore had no “rights” in common lands of the town.
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The Southampton Dog Show, a feature of the American Kennel Club’s “Show Calendar” in recent years, will this summer be representative of the entire East End of Long Island. At a meeting of the Governors of the Southampton Kennel Club last week it was decided to invite the participation of East Hampton, Water Mill, Westhampton, Hay Ground, Hampton Park, Hampton Bays and Bridgehampton in putting over the coming show.
75 Years Ago 1948
From The East Hampton Star, March 4
“I wish to urge at this time that the Board of Supervisors take such steps as are necessary to make the Mosquito Extermination Commission effective this coming summer,” said Mr. Bond, rector of St. Ann’s Episcopal Church at Sayville. “All the usual alibis and excuses could not be used last summer — war, man shortage, lack of oil, etc. — and yet last summer was the worst summer we have had in the 25 years I have been here. I am urging that either mosquitoes be at least greatly diminished or the commission be abolished. $150,000 is a lot to spend for nothing or worse than nothing, for it was worse last summer than when there was no commission.”
“Another thing I would like to report: The spraying of the marshes hereabouts was utterly useless and ineffective. In fact, the mosquitoes seemed especially plentiful and vicious about two days after each spraying. Our experience is that ditching is the only effective method for mosquito elimination.”
“The commission’s report indicates that this year it intends to rely more on ditching than on aerial spraying of the breeding areas with oil and DDT larvicides.”
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Dr. Aston, the distinguished Cambridge scientist, is an authority for the statement that the atom cannot be held to be a menace to humanity, and he has no fears that some foolish chemist may liberate enough atomic energy to blow up the world.
“We have in sight a source of energy far beyond the dreams of scientific convictions,” Dr. Aston said in explaining how science has discovered the secrets of chemical transmutation.
“The possibility of such transmutation being achieved on a large scale in the future is of the utmost importance,” he said.
Of course, it is possible that some savant will use transmutation and develop a great world-exploding power, the scientist admits, but he doesn’t believe it will happen.
50 Years Ago 1973
From The East Hampton Star, March 1
Fish and people should start using Lake Montauk in shifts if “a degree of favorable environment for marine life there” is to be maintained, according to a scientist who has been studying the Lake’s fish eggs and larvae for the past year and a half.
“As a scientist, and looking at the situation from the fishes’ point of view, I would recommend that there be no further development in the Lake,” said Dr. Herbert M. Austin, of the New York Ocean Science Laboratory in Montauk. “But being realistic, all I can do is urge that any alterations to the ecologically fragile shoreline and bottom be done during the months when there are no eggs and larvae present in the water.”
These months are between mid-August and mid-February.
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The roulette wheel from the old Star Island Casino is alive and well, and living with a year-round family in what is still sometimes called the East Hampton summer colony, but the renaissance of Montauk as an elegant gambling center seemed this week to be far from assured.
Interest in legalizing new forms of gambling in New York reached a peak last year, when the State Legislature gave first passage to a proposed Constitutional amendment that would remove the general prohibition against any gambling activities operated directly by the State or by a public benefit corporation on behalf of the State.
25 Years Ago 1998
From The East Hampton Star, March 5
A stolen car recovered in New York City, a $16,000 trail of forged checks, and a pilfered credit card with as much as $5,000 in fraudulent charges.
These are among the factors in an East Hampton Village Police investigation that was still unfolding yesterday as The Star went to press.
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Twenty-one years after the Shinnecock Indians decided to build a museum and cultural center in Southampton, its dream may soon be realized.
But there is one catch: The Native American tribe, whose roots on the East End reach as far back as Shinnecock relics dated at 1043 B.C., needs to raise another $300,000 to complete the project.
