125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, March 10
There is a big storm just ahead of us. It will be warm to-day and to-morrow will probably bring a storm which is likely to continue on Sunday, ending Sunday night or Monday, possibly with hail or snow. Tuesday and Wednesday should be fair and cold with blustering northwest winds. Thursday will be warmer.
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Fred McCann’s meat cart, driven by David A. Fithian, became stuck in the mud on Newtown lane on Tuesday. The horse fell and broke both shafts off.
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The Alonzo Hatch Electro-Photo Musical Company gave an entertainment in Clinton Hall last Friday evening. The moving picture machine seems to be a popular thing in East Hampton, and the hall was packed to its utmost capacity. The entertainment was pleasing throughout, and was repeated on Tuesday evening last, but owing to the inclemency of the weather there was a small audience present.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, March 7
In September, 1858, a strange ship was seen hovering off Montauk Point. In the morning the ship had disappeared. This would have occasioned no comment, but a boat load of rough Portuguese sailors landed at Montauk.
In Oakland Cemetery is a monument. It marks the grave of Favieco Maeceia, a sailor, native of Portugal. Inscribed is an odd epitaph: “Tho Boreas’ winds and Neptune’s waves have tossed me to and fro; by God’s decree, you plainly see, I’m harbored here below.”
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About 11 o’clock Tuesday morning the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Dayton at Georgica caught fire from some unknown cause and was completely destroyed. Not a single article was saved, and the Daytons’ pet dog, the only living thing in the house, was burned to death. Mr. Dayton, who is overseer of the poor of East Hampton town, lost all of his town records, as well as his own business records.
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William Young Martin, seventeen years old, and his brother, Samuel K. Martin, 3rd, fifteen, of 636 Fifth Avenue, New York, and East Hampton, learned Tuesday that in all probability they will in six years be among the richest young men in the United States. Unless legal difficulties arise they will inherit about $10,000,000 of the estate of the late Otto Young of Chicago.
The funds are at present in trust.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, March 10
Cost estimates and plans for the construction of five stone jetties in a town beach protection project have been approved by the Suffolk Board of Supervisors, and it is expected that the state will award contracts so that the work will start this spring.
The plans call for five jetties in the vicinity of Abrams Landing and Fresh Pond Road. The cost, estimated at $39,000, will be borne 50 per cent by the state, 25 per cent by the county and 25 per cent by the town of East Hampton and owners of adjoining property, on a frontage basis.
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Fifteen tons of potatoes were scattered about the King Street crossing Sunday noon, but the driver of a Reich Bros. truck and trailer miraculously escaped serious injury when the eastbound Sunday noon L.I.R.R. train hit the truck trailer. The potatoes were owned by George A. Hand, Newtown Lane farmer, who stated that the load of 13 tons was made up of 50 and 100 pound sacks, consigned to a New York market. They had been stored at Mr. Hand’s potato storage building on Long Lane.
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Enoch Squires, the “Roving Reporter” who is heard over the Rural Radio Network at 12:40 p.m. from Monday through Friday of each week (East Hampton can hear it over WFHA, the Hartford station), has mentioned this locality in two broadcasts within the past week.
On Thursday last, he spoke of “Home, Sweet Home.” Part of his program was electrically transcribed. As he talked, Mrs. Courtland Mulford played “Home, Sweet Home” on the Presbyterian Church organ here.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, March 7
Adolph Gottlieb, 70, of Apaquogue Road, East Hampton, and New York died Monday in Beth Israel Hospital, New York. Although confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke in 1971, Mr. Gottlieb had continued to paint and at his death was one of the most respected of American artists.
Although he was sometimes thought of as sardonic, even aloof — Mr. Gottlieb was one of a group of New York painters known in the 1950s as “The Irascibles” — he was known in East Hampton as a kindly, neighborly man, albeit with great style and a certain reserve.
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The United Montauk Medical Group was to have closed its contract of purchase of the New York Telephone Company building at noon today and to have celebrated the first major step in bringing medical services to Montauk at a luncheon following the closing for members of the Group’s committees at 1 p.m. at Gurney’s Inn.
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The East Hampton Town attorney told the Town Board at its executive meeting last week that, in his opinion and that of the State Attorney General, Supervisor Judith Hope’s appointments of an ombudsman and a financial adviser were illegal. “I don’t know how you can operate outside the law,” Duane Whelan told Mrs. Hope.
“Now I’m charged with giving legal advice to the Town and I’ll give it whenever you seek my assistance.” She had not sought it, he complained. “Now I don’t know how we can operate,” he insisted, “if we’re operating outside the law.”
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, March 11
Like Janus, the Roman god of gates and doorways, who is depicted looking in two directions at once, the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals is facing two lawsuits in which it will have to defend itself in one using the same argument with which it is being challenged in the other.
In October, after the Zoning Board turned down an application to build a sea wall on the beach in Springs, the homeowner sued. Then, last week, after it okayed a request from a group of Montauk waterfront residents to put rocks in front of a timber bulkhead, neighbors sued.
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The dragger First Lady ran aground on the east side of the Montauk Harbor inlet last Thursday night at the height of a cold, northwest blow. The impact tore a 14-foot-long section out of the hull and water rushed into the 80-foot wooden vessel as rescuers helped her crew scramble to safety over the rocks of the breakwater.
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Sounding a good deal more cheerful than at his last appearance, Lucius Ware, the president of the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, came to the East Hampton School Board on March 2 bearing, he said, some good tidings, some bad.
“A lot of good things have happened since we presented [our report] to you 14 months ago,” he began, including several “fruitful” meetings with district officials, and plans for what he called a “diversity” job fair on March 20, where teachers of color will be sought.
