125 Years Ago 1897
From The East Hampton Star, February 17
Mrs. Hackstaff, of New York, was in town last Saturday looking for a house lot. Owing to the severity of the weather she returned before making a purchase, but will visit East Hampton again in the near future.
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Amagansett
A number of young ladies of the village had made arrangements with N.O. Hedges for two teams to take them to East Hampton to see “The Schoolmistress” on Thursday evening, but owing to the storm have postponed their trip until next Tuesday evening. It is said the young ladies were led to do this by the slowness of the young men of the village in offering entertainment in the shape of sleigh rides, etc., during the winter evenings. We wish these young ladies a jolly time, and let the gents take a timely hint and bestir themselves.
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Invitations will be issued tomorrow for the dance to be given by the young social club in Clinton Hall, Friday evening, Feb. 24th.
100 Years Ago 1922
From The East Hampton Star, February 15
If the plans of Congressman Celler and the Bureau of Fisheries go through, a large and modern fish hatchery will soon be established at Montauk. A bill to create such a station and appropriating $100,000 to erect and equip it, and to erect the necessary docks and purchase boats, has already been introduced.
A similar station at Boothbay Harbor, Me., has been in operation for a long time and the Government believes it has done much good in the way of restocking the sea in that section with food fishes and lobsters, particularly the latter and codfish, winter flounder and pollock.
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A meeting of the nominating committee for the celebration of the 275th anniversary of the settlement of East Hampton town was held Saturday evening at the home of Geo. A. Eldredge, Huntting lane.
The meeting was called to order by S.C. Hedges, chairman pro tem. Mrs. N.H. Dayton served as secretary.
It was the unanimous vote of the committee that E.T. Dayton be appointed general chairman, which office Mr. Dayton has accepted.
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Judging by the heavy advance sale of tickets for the three act comedy “Buddies,” which will appear at the Community House, Bridgehampton, this evening, under the direction and for the benefit of Edwin C. Halsey, Post No. 700, American Legion, there is going to be a packed house. This play will be presented by the Legion Post of Southold, under the personal direction of Charles F. Kramer.
75 Years Ago 1947
From The East Hampton Star, February 17
The program of events scheduled for National Scout week in this area was climaxed Friday when a District 5 Court of Honor was held in the Montauk school. Scouts of East Hampton, Bridgehampton and Amagansett took part as did the Cubs of East Hampton, Montauk and Amagansett.
Everett Brockett, chairman of the Scouts’ advancement committee, spoke as did Earl R. Bull of Southampton, District Commissioner.
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The East Hampton High School basketball team traveled to Southampton on Friday night, February 11, and won again. This was the second meeting between the two teams this year. The Bonackers won the first game on their home court by the score of 47–45. In this second contest the Bonackers ran over the Southampton boys by a score of 45-30. This was about the best game East Hampton has played this year.
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Plans are being made this month for the 1949 Water Safety Program of the American Red Cross, Hampton Chapter, Southampton. This chapter covers the south shore area from Mastic Beach to Montauk Point. During the war the Red Cross concentrated its water safety efforts on the teaching of young men to swim and execute rescues under combat conditions. The interest is now turned to the teaching of our youngsters to swim and be life savers.
50 Years Ago 1972
From The East Hampton Star, February 14
Gasoline dealers here are less and less cheerful. “The situation is really quite tight,” said one. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” He could not prove that it would get worse, he conceded; that was just the way things seem to be going. Prices had risen by eight cents per gallon since the summer, he said, and Texaco was limiting his station to 77 percent of what it had got in 1972.
“I think the government is a very poor one,” said another, whom Chevron was limiting to 80 percent of his 1972 supplies. “They’re not responsible. If they did what they should do, they would have had rationing a long time ago.”
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Most of the East Hampton Ladies’ Village Improvement Society meeting on Monday at Chez Labbat was devoted to discussion on the proposition, now before the East Hampton Town Board, to upzone much of the town’s undeveloped land from one to two acres. A series of hearings is being held on this subject, from Jan. 18 through March 1. After discussion, the L.V.I.S. endorsed the proposal.
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Tom Paxton of Egypt Close, East Hampton, one of the nation’s most popular folk singers, will appear in concert at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Southampton College Fine Arts Theater. Jim and Cecelia, rock, folk, and blues musicians, will also perform.
Mr. Paxton, a composer as well as a singer, describes his appearances as “the logical completion of a process that begins in my hideout at home, in hotel rooms, on sidewalks, or wherever I may be when a song begins to beat its way from the back of my head to the front.”
25 Years Ago 1997
From The East Hampton Star, February 18
The Point Wells, the 82-foot cutter that symbolizes the United States Coast Guard’s presence in Montauk, may soon be calling Greenport home.
A decision on whether or not to move the vessel and its 10-member crew will be made as early as this summer after a feasibility study is finished, said Cmdr. Philip Heyl, who oversees the Coast Guard’s Long Island operations.
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Yet another skirmish between opponents of the Golf at the Bridge development and the Southampton Town Board ended on Friday when the board, after emerging from executive session, withdrew a resolution it was considering that would have retroactively extended a zone change granted to Robert Rubin, the property’s owner.
It did so after being called to task by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and representatives of the Group for the South Fork and members of the South Fork Groundwater Task Force.
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Thanks to a generous gift of land in a stately house on Route 114 in East Hampton, the South Fork-Shelter Island Chapter of the Nature Conservancy is about to get a new home base, with offices, a research library for staffers and the public, and a herbarium featuring samples of local flora.
The conservancy, which preserves ecosystems and environments by acquiring and managing lands, also works with East Hampton Town to broker its open-space acquisitions. It has been “staffing up” in anticipation of the land-purchase monies to be raised, beginning in April, by the new 2-percent real estate transfer tax, said a spokesman.
