Skip to main content

Item of the Week: Records of Cattle Earmarks, 1674-1963

Thu, 07/20/2023 - 10:47

From the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection

This book, from the East Hampton Town Historic Records, recorded each unique livestock earmark in East Hampton and to whom the mark was registered.

Earmarks are small cutouts punched into a livestock animal’s ear when it is young, communicating important information, usually to whom the animal belongs. These were required by law in the American colonies as early as 1644 in Connecticut. East Hampton’s earmark log was faithfully kept by the town clerk. In 1830, when the page seen here was written, Jonathan S. Conklin (1771-1839) filled that role.

At the time, earmarks were considered the least painful or dangerous way of identifying livestock that wandered unsupervised, grazing on common lands. With so many cattle grazing in the remote fields of Montauk, earmarks prevented free-roaming cattle from being misidentified or stolen. Common designs here included a crop, slope, halfpenny, ell, or slit.

Because cattle earmarks were prescribed to specific locations, with specific designs, the possible combinations were inevitably limited. As a result, new farmers could buy another farmer’s mark, along with any cattle bearing that mark. This was an added item a farmer could sell later in life if he chose to scale back on farming activity. Other existent marks were given as gifts or inherited within families. On the page shown here, William H. Dayton (1810-1899) receives a mark from his father, Jeremiah Dayton (d. 1867), as was often done.

Today, ear tags, dye, and electronic methods of marking are increasingly popular with livestock farmers, although earmarking is still practiced.

While it may seem strange to the Hamptons of 2023, wandering livestock were a normal sight in this area for centuries. Much of eastern Long Island’s economy was tied to raising livestock for the sugar islands of the Caribbean, where land was too valuable to waste on crops less lucrative than sugar, as the Plain Sight Project has illuminated.

Moriah Moore is a librarian and archivist in the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection.

 

Villages

Tariffs Are Sobering News for Liquor Stores

It’s not clear when, or if, President Trump’s European alcohol tariff will ever go live. Nonetheless, the threat is looming over South Fork wine and liquor retailers, who have been forced to react to the uncertainty. 

Mar 27, 2025

East Hampton Star Shines at Better Newspaper Contest

Durell Godfrey, The East Hampton Star’s longtime staff photographer and a fixture at community events from Montauk to Southampton, has once again been named one of New York State’s top photographers. At the New York Press Association’s annual conference last week in Saratoga Springs, The Star’s newsletter also repeated in winning first place in the Best Newsletter category, capping a successful awards season for the paper. 

Mar 27, 2025

A Short Parade That’s Become a Big Success

For the first Am O'Gansett Parade in 2009, the organizers jokingly promised Clydesdales, Macy's balloons, and floats. With good humor and an enthusiastic response from the community, the very short parade has been an annual event ever since.

Mar 20, 2025

 

Your support for The East Hampton Star helps us deliver the news, arts, and community information you need. Whether you are an online subscriber, get the paper in the mail, delivered to your door in Manhattan, or are just passing through, every reader counts. We value you for being part of The Star family.

Your subscription to The Star does more than get you great arts, news, sports, and outdoors stories. It makes everything we do possible.