125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, January 27
We have received a copy of the New York Genealogical and Biographical record for January, containing a graphic story of Lion Gardiner’s fight with the Pequot Indians, near Saybrooke Fort, Conn., in 1637, contributed by Frederick Diodati Thompson.
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Mr. and Mrs. Theron Strong, of New York, were in town last Saturday, and stopped at the Osborne House. They were so much pleased with their cottage, which was recently remodeled by George A. Eldredge, that they decided to occupy it themselves the coming season instead of renting it, as they had planned to do. Mr. Strong has occupied a cottage at Southampton the past few seasons.
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Quartermaster Sergeant John H. Supple left Montauk on Saturday last, leaving three civilians in charge of the government property there, which consists of the electric light plant, laundry and water works. Lieut. Hase, Corporal Baylis and Chief Clerk S.R. Bassett left on the 19th.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, January 25
The Crescent Theatre and Odd Fellows’ Building on Main street, Southampton, were badly gutted by fire Sunday night. At one time it was feared that the flames would get beyond control of the firemen and cause a serious conflagration.
Shortly after 9 o’clock Mrs. Frank La Croix, who occupies an apartment in the Odd Fellows’ building, which adjoins the Crescent Theatre, discovered smoke issuing from the rear part of the theater and called to Walter Bourke, who was passing on the street, to turn in an alarm.
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During the past year, it cost East Hampton town approximately $45,000 for improvement and maintenance of its many miles of highway. Of this amount $32,060 is charged to general repairs, including sluices and culverts, according to the annual highway report published elsewhere in this issue.
The machinery needed in maintaining a system of highways, such as East Hampton has, means quite a large expenditure. During the past year, the new machinery and repair bills amounted to $2,111.32.
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J.E. Huntting placed with all the local real estate dealers last week the sale of twenty-four building lots located on the hill east of Osborne lane, and fronting on Osborne lane, and two new roads which he recently laid out and named Huntting avenue and Talmage lane.
Huntting Avenue is a fifty foot road (the same width as Osborne lane through the Osborne property), which Mr. Huntting has recently purchased, to the center of his Fithian lot, where it connects with Talmage lane running in a northerly direction through the center of the lot.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, January 27
The Cub Scouts held a Pack meeting last Tuesday night at the Presbyterian Session House. Those who received their Wolf Badges are: Jerry Dillon, William Petty, Jr., Dennis Conklin, Francis Orr, Scott Bennett, Edward Black, Greydon Rhodes, Joseph Holmes, Donald Kennedy, John Talmage and Gary Grant.
A quiz program was held, with Cubmaster James Black as Professor, assisted by den chiefs Bob Amann, Freddy Lester, and Bobby Taylor, who picked out boys from the audience to participate.
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The East Hampton High School basketball team traveled to Greenport last Friday and won a very close game by the score of 47-42. This victory put East Hampton in first place. Riverhead, now in second place, plays here Friday.
The game was played at a very fast pace and was very close all the way except for the last minute. Both teams were using zone defense and the fast-break.
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A strike threat made against the Long Island Railroad by a union representing its 300 locomotive engineers was officially canceled on Saturday night.
In a joint statement the union and company announced they had reached an agreement. Division 269 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, unaffiliated, had complained about the railroad’s equipment a week earlier, stating that the Long Island’s steam locomotives and electrically powered trains were in disrepair and unsafe. The company emphatically denied this.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, January 24
Plans to halve the permitted density on a quarter of the land in East Hampton Town were denounced as “confiscatory” and praised as a deterrent to “rampant deterioration” Friday morning, when a crowd of over 100 appeared at Town Hall for the first three of 11 scheduled hearings on the upzoning proposals. The crowd was the largest seen there in years; 13 of its number spoke against upzoning and 16 in favor of it; and the hearings lasted for two hours.
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John Bistrian waited a long time to become East Hampton Town’s Superintendent of Highways; and, finally, after about a decade of unsuccessful bids, he won the post last November. Immediately he set about trying to put in order what he viewed as a house in disorder.
The changing of the guard in the Highway Department, traditionally a bastion of political patronage, has been unusually rocky, but the other day Mr. Bistrian, who is a Democrat, led one to believe that he had emerged from the initial skirmishing bloody but unbowed.
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A total of $30,300 had been collected as of Monday morning in the less-than-two-month-old drive to create a United Montauk Medical Group.
Elated by the initial success of the drive to obtain a building that might induce a full-time physician and part-time specialists to come to Montauk, Mrs. Lucille Jarmain, president of the Chamber of Commerce, which launched the effort, said this week she was overwhelmed by the response.
“Donations have ranged from a young man out of work who gave a dollar to checks for $1,000 from seven individuals and organizations,” Mrs. Jarmain said.
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, January 28
The idea that every major project proposed for the East Hampton Town Airport could require a public hearing and an environmental assessment has angered local pilots and airport property owners, who see the proposed measures as yet another sign of the Town Board’s antipathy toward the airport.
Aviators spoke out against proposals for greater scrutiny of airport projects at a public hearing on Friday. The head of the East Hampton Airport Property Owners Association told the Town Board to expect a Federal lawsuit on its “discriminatory” handling of airport matters within the week.
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A Springs artist has gone to court over a Jackson Pollock painting now at Manhattan’s Museum of Modern Art, claiming that it was stolen more than a half century ago and saying that she wants it back. The artist, Mercedes Matter, was a friend of Mr. Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner.
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The fate of the Connecticut-based Caldor corporation, the nation’s fourth-largest discount retail chain and the largest one on the South Fork, took a turn for the worst last week as last-minute talks with creditors failed to save the ailing company. Caldor leases a more than 66,000-square-foot store at Bridgehampton Commons.
In Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the last three years, Caldor announced on Friday it was going out of business and would close all 145 of its stores by mid-May.
