125 Years Ago 1898
From The East Hampton Star, June 24
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lyman, the theatrical artists, who gave several performances in Clinton Hall last summer, under the auspices of Clinton Cycle Club, are coming to East Hampton again this summer. They have already enlisted their services with the cycle club and some really good entertainments may be expected during the season.
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Mrs. Julian Hawthorne, as member of the Woman’s Relief Corps, Veteran Association 71st Reg. N.G.N.Y., has been asked to solicit subscriptions for the Relief Fund, in East Hampton. At a time like this, all people are doubtless aiding the soldiers in some way, but Mrs. Hawthorne would be grateful for help from friends of the regiment or from outsiders who may feel kindly disposed to it.
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There was a little hitch in starting the trains on the new schedule yesterday morning. The timetable called for a train to leave East Hampton going west at 7:18, but for some unknown reason the said train failed to appear. Several passengers at the station bound for New York insisted on having a train, and a special was sent from Amagansett to take the place of the one that did not run, leaving here about 9:20.
100 Years Ago 1923
From The East Hampton Star, June 22
Fifty whiskey runners and gunmen, besieged in a lonely house on the sandy stretch between Greenport and Southold, where they were making a desperate attempt to hold possession of the liquor, finally fought their way through the surrounding force of deputy sheriffs with sawed-off shotguns and Colt automatics and succeeded in making their escape with all of the whiskey that their local helpers did not steal from them.
It was the greatest engagement yet waged on Long Island in the Prohibition war of 1923, and could be approached in thrills only by a movie.
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Arthur Sinclair, Sr., and his brother, Terry Sinclair, have for several days been the guests of their son and nephew, Arthur Sinclair, Jr., at his summer home on Jones road. Mr. Sinclair’s father is eighty-six years old and has the distinction and honor of being the only living representative of Admiral Perry’s expedition to Japan, with whom he sailed when only sixteen years of age, under the rating of junior officer. His father, Captain Sinclair, was in command of the ship Supply in the expedition.
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Checks are beginning to be received by Felix Dominy, chairman of the Fourth of July Fireworks Committee, to pay for the big $1,000 display of fireworks to be shown at the East Hampton bathing beach on the night of the Fourth. An order for this amount has been contracted for by the committee, with the International Fireworks Company of Jersey City, N.J., the largest manufacturer of fireworks in America.
75 Years Ago 1948
From The East Hampton Star, June 24
Dress rehearsals have been held nightly, this week, for the Three Hundredth Anniversary “Cavalcade of East Hampton History” to take place on the Village Green, directed by Mrs. Warren Whipple and presented by the Guild Hall Players, with more than 500 people, largely members of East Hampton’s early families, participating. The pageant will begin at two-thirty on Saturday afternoon, June 26, weather permitting.
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Wainscott Day is set for Friday, July 2; this will be the second special “Day” in East Hampton’s season-long program of tercentenary celebrations throughout the township. Chairman Raymond H. Osborn reports that the strawberries, which ripened slowly at first due to the long cold spring, are now coming in plentifully and will be ready in abundance for the strawberry shortcake with whipped cream and coffee to be served from five to seven o’clock at Wainscott’s Strawberry Festival. The place is the green beside the village schoolhouse.
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The Devon Yacht Club restaurant is now open, with Hector Bonomi of the Cafe de la Ville in New York in charge as usual. The club’s formal opening will be on Saturday, June 26, when the colors are raised at twelve o’clock noon. There will be a reception and tea at five o’clock for club members and subscribers. That evening, the first dinner dance of the season will be held. Joe Carroll will personally direct his orchestra for the Devon dances, every Saturday night all summer.
50 Years Ago 1973
From The East Hampton Star, June 21
Graduation ceremonies will be held Sunday at East Hampton High School, a program that will include music, song, a valedictory speech, and the presentation of diplomas to a senior class of about 160, whose top three scholars are triplets.
James Bain, with a four-year average of 94.555, will be the valedictorian. Robert Bain, who averaged 94.500, will be the salutatorian. William Bain, with an average of 94.388, ranks third in the class. The three are sons of Mr. and Mrs. William P. Bain Jr. of Three Mile Harbor Road, East Hampton.
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Fast-moving events in a State investigation of alleged Republican hanky-panky, involving last year’s campaign for the State Assembly, ground to a temporary halt this week when Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz turned over the probe to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan.
The investigation centers on the activities of one Harold J. Relkin, whom almost everybody on the GOP Assembly staff, from Speaker Perry B. Duryea Jr. on down, has professed not to know.
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The directors of the Amagansett Historical Society met last week at the home of Mrs. Elsie Treleaven, Devon Road, and discussed plans for the annual attic sale, to be held at the Legion Hall on July 7. Mrs. Charles Whitmore, chairman, made an appeal for salable articles.
There was discussion of the proposed “Gansett Dunes” subdivision, and a letter from the Amagansett Residents Association concerning “overdevelopment” on the dunes was read; the directors moved to “support this concern.”
25 Years Ago 1998
From The East Hampton Star, June 25
The M60 Army tank stays, but the wartime mementos inside the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post on Montauk Highway just east of Wainscott are gone.
In their place are cream-colored walls suggestive of Mediterranean stucco and graceful archways reminiscent of Tuscany. Cypress trees are said to be on order to enhance the indoor decor.
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East End voters will finally get a chance to cast their ballots on the long-awaited East End Land Bank Bill, a preservation measure hailed as the most significant environmental legislation for the region in decades.
Gov. George E. Pataki signed the bill into law on Monday at the B.N.H. Farm on Scuttlehole Road in Bridgehampton. Surrounded by local politicians and conservationists, Mr. Pataki called the East End “one of the most beautiful” and “ecologically important” parts of the state.
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Some have a logo embossed on them, some are made of amber-tinted glass, others consist of a simple foil tray. Whatever their design, most ashtrays in Suffolk County restaurants will be pulled off bars and packed away by next Wednesday.
Suffolk legislators on Friday failed to override County Executive Robert J. Gaffney’s veto of a law that would have put off a smoking ban in the bars of restaurants making most of their profits through the sale of food.
