125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, February 10
We are sending out, for several weeks, one hundred sample copies of The Star to persons whose names are not upon our subscription list. We dare to hope those to whom the paper is thus sent will become sufficiently attached to it to be induced to send us their subscriptions for a year.
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Another spell of winter weather was allotted to us this week. Snow fell on Sunday and Monday and at intervals on Tuesday and Wednesday. On the latter day there was a rise of temperature far above the freezing point about noon and a drizzling rain set in. During the afternoon the temperature dropped rapidly, at the rate of ten degrees an hour, and Thursday morning found the day clear and the mercury down to zero.
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The New England supper at Clinton Hall last evening was well attended, the gross receipts being $86. The Village Improvement society will probably net $60 from the affair.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, February 8
The whale which had been feeding off the coast here for several days was put to rout last Friday when a party of local whalemen gave chase and succeeded in darting a bomb into him. Unfortunately, however, the lance and bomb did not work as the inventor intended and the whale, measuring about forty feet, was only wounded and, in a great rage, made his escape.
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A copy of Bill No. 309, which has been introduced in the State Senate by Assemblyman Rabenold, has been received by supervisor David W. Tuthill. This bill, which is an act to amend the present Conservation Law in relation to marine fisheries, would, if passed, be a severe blow to the fishing industry of Long Island.
In the proposed bill it is planned to change the present law and omit the portion of the law which now reads: “except as to the taking of migratory fish of the sea within the limits of the marine district.” In fact, wherever the term migratory fish of the sea is used in the present law, it is planned to strike out this clause. This bill would provide for the licensing of all fishing.
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The question of East Hampton town “rights” has been determined in the Montauk dispute by a unanimous consensus of opinion of the Board of Trustees of the Freeholders and Commonalty. Another question obtrudes. Just what “rights” has East Hampton town in lands beneath water and what really are the bounds of the town, so far as any claim to waters and lands beneath water are concerned?
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, February 10
Plans for the Guild Hall Square Dancing Class have been completed and Charles Mansir, director of the group, announces that the first meeting will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 8:30 p.m., instead of the first Wednesday in March as previously announced.
Rev. Nat Griswold, who has a wide knowledge of folk dancing, is assisting Mr. Mansir in organizing the group and will help with instruction.
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Mrs. Adeline Mulligan will celebrate her ninety-eighth birthday tomorrow, Feb. 11, at the home of her niece, Mrs. Sarah Bennett Recktenwald, on Floyd Street. There will be a birthday cake and tea, and Mrs. Mulligan’s descendants and neighbors will come to congratulate her. She is, as far as the Star knows, the oldest resident of this township. She is well, in good weather she often walks to call on nearby friends; she enjoys going visiting. Up to last year she could sew without using eyeglasses, but now her eyesight is not so good for close work; but she can identify people going by the house.
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Better ways of marketing the Long Island potato crop will be discussed from every angle at the 17th annual Suffolk County Potato Growers Convention, which will be held in Polish Hall, Riverhead, on Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 15 and 16, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. During the two-day session, held under the auspices of the Farm Bureau County Potato Committee, outstanding experts will give Long Island growers the most recent developments in everything from seed treatment to marketing, according to Herman E. Aldrich.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, February 7
Open political feuding erupted between the two Democratic and the three Republican members of the East Hampton Town Board at last Friday’s meeting, the second time since the year began that this has happened.
This time the controversial subjects were a Planning Board appointment made that morning by the three Republicans, and several appointments made early last month by Supervisor Judith Hope.
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Montauk
The Friends of Erin have begun planning their St. Patrick’s Day parade, scheduled for March 17, and have asked anyone wishing to contribute to it to call their president, Gil Keller.
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A miscellany of politicians, environmentalists, and businessmen was united last Thursday by the problem of what the gasoline shortage may do to East Hampton’s summer resort economy. Their meeting, described by one spectator as a “big amorphous discussion,” evinced agreement among some past antagonists; the possibilities that businessmen may band together to lighten the crisis and that the Long Island Rail Road may listen to suggestions; and the hopeful slogan, “Eastern Long Island is only a tank of gas away.”
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, February 11
The Concerned Citizens of Montauk this week filed suit to overturn an East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals decision that the Viking Lines could ferry up to 1,927 passengers from Lake Montauk before having to seek permission to expand.
And, in what is by no means the final act in the ongoing fracas over the Viking Ferry, the Town Board voted Tuesday to revise the law governing how many passengers the ferry line may carry before official review is required.
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A group of neighbors who oppose Ira Rennert’s plan to build one of the largest houses in the country on a 63-acre tract of Sagaponack oceanfront have sued Southampton Town and the multimillionaire industrialist, seeking to halt the project.
The Association of Friends of Sagaponack and four neighbors acting as individuals, Alan Stillman, Joseph Zicherman, and Joseph and Clay Dilworth, have filed two suits in New York State Supreme Court in Riverhead. One challenges the Jan. 7 decision of the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to uphold the building permits given to Mr. Rennert’s Blue Turtles Corporation, the property’s nominal owner.
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By Tuesday afternoon, Katie Sarris, Sara Miller, and Stephanie Talmage, who are juniors at East Hampton High School, and their chemistry teacher, Robert W. Schumacher, were exhausted — recuperating from an unexpected media blitz.
The school’s phone had been ringing off the hook since the middle of last week, when the School District’s public relations company, Zimmerman-Edelson of Great Neck and Southampton, released the news to television and radio stations that the girls had made high school science history by discovering a new molecule.
A slew of interviews followed, culminating in the three girls’ live appearance Monday morning on “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” from ABC’s studios in Manhattan.
