125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, March 31
March goes out to-day like a lamb. April will come in to-morrow bringing fine weather to this section, which will possibly continue on Sunday, though storm conditions will be close at hand and will develop into rain on Monday and Tuesday. Clearing weather on Wednesday and warmer and fair on Thursday.
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Telegraph Operator McCord expects to conclude his engagement at the East Hampton telegraph and post office on April 10, after which he will return to the service of the railroad company at one of the island stations.
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The Home Water Company has decided to extend its North Main street water main beyond Mrs. Ann Parsons’ residence, where it was at first proposed to end it. The main will now run to the vicinity of Mulligan’s store and supply water to the new houses being erected by Messrs. Schenck and Gay, and may possibly be still further extended to form a circuit through the Hook.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, March 28
The test of the alarming powers of the new fire siren on the power house, which has been installed by the village to replace the old steam whistle, was made Wednesday morning and, judging by the number of firemen who turned out, the whistle is not loud enough. Only one foreman, William Conrad, and thirteen firemen heard the alarm and responded. Chief Dominy, who was dreaming that he was trailing a huge black bear, slept calmly through the alarm, as did Nelson Osborne, president of the village.
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Exaggerated reports which have been published from time to time concerning the lateness of its trains has prompted the Long Island Railroad to issue the following statement:
A summary of passenger train movements for the month of January, 1924, compiled by the New York State Public Service Commission, shows the Long Island Railroad is fourth best in the matter of “on time” performance, out of twelve roads reporting to that body.
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A truckload of liquor disguised as gasoline and motor oil was picked up in the net that Federal Prohibition Agents Lowell R. Smith and Merchant O. Phelps laid down over Long Island roads during the week-end.
The truck was seized on the Middle Island road, near Smithtown, on Saturday. Al Simpson of 112 Central avenue west, Hoboken, driver, was arrested on a charge of transporting liquor. He was held in $500 bail by United States Commissioner Rasquin.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, March 31
Barring the off chance that some agency of the Federal Government will put in a bid, Suffolk’s chances of acquiring Plum Island, former United States military reservation off Orient Point, are excellent, according to information received by the Board of Supervisors. On Feb. 28, the county board affirmed its “urgent desire” to acquire the 840-acre island, which was declared surplus last June 22 by the War Department.
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Raoul Nadeau, baritone, will be one of the guest soloists in the presentation of Stainer’s “Crucifixion” Palm Sunday evening by the combined choirs of the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Methodist Church at St. Luke’s Church.
Mr. Nadeau, who received the Atwater Kent award in 1930, as a boy sang Gregorian Chants and modern masses in the churches of Montreal and Quebec. For three years he was soloist on the “Bach Cantata Hour” with Alfred Wallenstein. Under Wilfrid Pelletier’s direction Nadeau was soloist with the National Opera Company on the National Broadcasting Company network.
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At last Thursday evening’s preview in Guild Hall of the High School Camera Club’s first formal exhibit, Charles Gould’s silhouette study, “Preparing for Winter,” was awarded first prize for the best picture in the show.
Second award, “Town Pond,” went to Ruth Vail and Charles Squires, and third, “Reflections,” to Fred Yardley. Prizes were given by the Guild Hall Camera Club.
Several members of the club demonstrated techniques of portraiture which they had learned this winter.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, March 28
With an apparent easing of the gasoline shortage, service stations in Montauk, Amagansett, and East Hampton were open last Sunday, some for the first time in a long while, and with the good news prospective summer renters, who ordinarily would have appeared in January or February, began flocking again to East Hampton.
A survey of about 20 local real estate brokers this week revealed that the sales market, in both land and homes, had been good throughout the winter, but until the last couple of weekends the summer rental market had been dullsville.
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With a recent resurgence and complaints of dog misbehavior and requests that East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village adopt “leash” laws, a reporter for the Star sought out last week the Town’s Dog Warden, Henry Chapman.
Mr. Chapman, a tall, square-faced, rather handsome man with green eyes and closely cropped wavy black hair, was found in the basement of Town Hall among some of the Assessors’ paraphernalia — file cabinets, maps, and a blueprint reproducing machine that uses eye-watering quantities of ammonia.
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The East Hampton Town Police Department made arrests last week on charges that included burglary in the third degree, disorderly conduct (“streaking”), driving while intoxicated, and traffic violations, and were still investigating a theft of 100 gallons of diesel fuel on Tuesday, March 19, from Halsey’s Marina at Three Mile Harbor.
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, April 1
By Friday, with air attacks continuing on Serbia and jet fighters taking off from a North Atlantic Treaty Organization air base in southern Italy, East Hampton School Superintendent Jan Furman saw no choice but to cancel a 10-day, $2,000-per-person tour to Italy that 42 high school seniors had planned for spring break.
The students, with six high school teachers as chaperones, were to have left yesterday.
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With plans to double the size of its student body over the next 10 years, the Ross School unfurled to the East Hampton Town Planning Board last week a design for a “campus in the woods,” encompassing the largest privately owned tract of woodland, outwash plain, and rolling hills in the Buckskill Superblock Study area, as well as lots along Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton, some 137 acres in all.
The school has 196 students enrolled for next fall’s grades five through 11, said George Biondo, its attorney. The vision is of more than 400 students, from prekindergarten through the 12th grade.
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You notice the light first. The mornings seem longer, the sunsets lazier. You’re waking up at 5:30, eating dinner at 8. Then, even before the daffodils turn their faces to the warmer sun and the air starts to smell like earth, there are the sounds — bird concerts at dawn, peeper recitals after dark.
But it’s not so much the greening of the grass or blooming vinca that signals the true start of spring, it’s that first distant hum of a lawn mower, the sight of trucks laden with bags of mulch and peat moss and topsoil, shovels and rakes, pitchforks and manure, a tractor at work in the field again.
