125 Years Ago 1898
From The East Hampton Star, June 3
There will be at least seventy-eight cottage families in East Hampton this summer, an increase of about twenty-five over last summer. East Hampton will grow just so fast as its particular attractions become known.
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Mrs. A.M. Payne is a lover of flowers, as her front yard demonstrates. The selection and arrangement of plants show her taste and skill in floral decoration. Just now her place is one of the most attractive on the street.
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Pathmaster Sherill has been at work the greater part of the week rounding up the highway on Main street just north of Newtown corner. Pipes have also been laid across Main street to carry the water from the north side of Newtown lane to the east side of Main street.
100 Years Ago 1923
From The East Hampton Star, June 1
For one whole day, beginning with the serving of breakfast at 8 o’clock in the morning of June 22, the Maidstone Inn will be run by the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society.
The owners of the remodeled Maidstone Inn have very generously given it over for that day into the hands of the ladies of the various committees, and the cash receipts for the whole day will be turned over to the Treasurer of the Society.
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In the summer of 1921 there was a certain demand for milk from tuberculin tested cows, and most of our local dairymen responded to it by having their herds tested; some of them suffering severe losses, and it seems only fair to the dairymen to let the people know what has been done for their benefit without hope of reward, voluntarily, there being no law compelling any testing, but simply the desire to give customers what they wanted.
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Last week’s announcement that six of East Hampton’s beautiful girls have been listed in the great contest to find East Hampton’s most beautiful girl has created considerable interest and this week brought the names of three others. The admirers of our community’s beautiful girls surely are on the job. East Hampton residents casting their votes for their favorites have been requested to send in the photograph of their favorite.
75 Years Ago 1948
From The East Hampton Star, June 3
The Mother-Daughter supper which was held last Thursday in the Presbyterian Session House was well attended; 134 were present. Mrs. Francis Kinsler asked the blessing. The tables were decorated with lupins and lilacs by Miss Elizabeth Brown; place-cards were made by Miss Jeanne Fanning’s troop.
After the supper a Court of Awards was held. The program for this was planned by Mrs. Edwin L. Sherrill, who is Program Chairman for the Town Committee; assisting her was Mrs. William Taylor. Mrs. Samuel Davis led the singing.
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A jet propelled Navy fighter plane in which Lieutenant Caesar Fernandez, twenty-eight, of East Greenwich, R.I., was making a training flight from the naval station at Quonset Point, R.I., developed engine trouble Friday afternoon, May 28, and Lieutenant Fernandez made a forced landing in woods about a quarter of a mile north of the East Hampton Airport.
Trees were sheared off as the plane hurtled through them and the plane was a wreck when it struck the ground. Miss Charlotte Niles, operator of the East Hampton Airport, saw the plane crash and called a doctor, expecting that the pilot would either be killed or seriously injured. The crash occurred about 300 yards from the beginning of a runway and Miss Niles saw Lieutenant Fernandez walking away from the plane.
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Looking Them Over
What a relief to be home again, no matter if it does rain, after a scorching Saturday in crowded New York! New York is no treat just before a holiday; neither is the Long Island Railroad. It’s like another world out here. I like New York, but it’s no fun shopping furiously and dripping with the heat all day. . . . Our three dogwood trees are snowdrifts of blossom; so are the paper-white narcissus; the bridal wreath is almost out, so are the snowballs and the flat viburnum blossoms that turn into Chinese-red berries next fall.
50 Years Ago 1973
From The East Hampton Star, May 31
At the first annual East Hampton Town Democratic Club dinner, held last Friday at the Chez Labbat restaurant, two more “firsts” were noted when it was announced that Democratic Town Leader Judy Hope would run as her Party’s candidate for Supervisor in November and that Mrs. Sandra Breuer would run for Councilman.
It is the first time, apparently, that a woman has run for the office of Supervisor here, and the first time that two women have been on a slate of local candidates for Town offices.
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Montauk
Three young men, Tony Caramanico, Lee Bieler, and David Williams, have opened up a new shop in town, The Albatross. It features surfing and diving equipment, beachwear, gifts, and gourmet foods.
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Unlike Manhattanites, East Hamptoners were not daunted by the windswept showers which doused Memorial Day paraders and spectators Monday morning. It was the first rainy Memorial Day in recent memory, but aside from a break in tradition when the flag at Memorial Green was raised and volleys fired before noon, the parade and ceremonies proceeded as usual.
The paraders included members of the American Legion — in charge of this year’s event — the Veterans of Foreign Wars, men from the Montauk Air Force Station, the East Hampton High School band, Scouts, Little Leaguers, and volunteer firemen displaying new and ancient, horse-drawn, equipment.
25 Years Ago 1998
From The East Hampton Star, June 4
Every year since he took office in 1993, scuttlebutt has had it that Bill and Hillary Clinton would spend their summer vacation in East Hampton, and every year the First Couple has confounded the rumormongers and gone instead to Martha’s Vineyard.
This summer, however, thanks in part to an East Hampton couple who are major supporters of the Democratic Party, the President and Mrs. Clinton are indeed expected to visit, though only for a long weekend, July 31 to Aug. 3.
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The word is out, though most of the details of James D’Ambrosio’s plan to film an adaptation of “Men’s Lives” here in East Hampton are still under wraps.
It is this production, based on the Peter Matthiessen book about the baymen of the South Fork, that would be the first major movie project to take up residence in a film soundstage next to the LTV studios.
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Although an earthmover has already begun scraping topsoil to form the half-mile-long entrance drive to the gargantuan estate Ira L. Rennert is building on what was once a 63-acre farm field on the corner of Daniel’s and Fairfield Pond Lanes in Sagaponack, a group of neighbors has banded together to halt the bulldozers.
“There’s no way this is a single-family house,” said Joseph Zicherman of Hedges Lane, one of the leaders of the Sagaponack Homeowners Association, which has threatened to sue Southampton Town over its approval of Fair Field, which another Hedges Lane resident called a “vulgar, grotesque monstrosity.”
