125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, April 14
Volcanic eruptions are grand, but skin eruptions rob life of joy. Bucklen’s Arnica Salve cures them. — Advertisement
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David A. Fithian and Condi Miller were at Montauk this week, and enjoyed some lively shooting of wild geese and ducks. They had secured eleven fat geese and a few ducks, when they were joined by Hiram Sherrill and Jeremiah Huntting, and three more geese were shot and the number of ducks (broadbills) killed increased to 80. The foul were all hung in front of McCann’s market on Wednesday and they made a fine showing.
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We have heard much discussion the last week among the politicians about the town elections and the reasons for the success of the candidates on the Democratic ticket. Our opinion is that the independent voters are responsible for the result in this and several other towns of the county. The political bosses of both parties are losing their hold on the voters.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, April 11
Stories of quick wealth are to be heard at Montauk. Here is the latest. A man took a contract to bring from a supply boat to the shore 6,000 cases of liquor at $7 a case. He hired a big beam trawl fishing boat for three months, paying $2,000. The liquor is said to have been brought in and a cleanup of $40,000 made in six weeks’ time. Activity of the coast guard and revenue officers in capturing boats running rum has forced up the freight figure from $2 a case to $7 a case.
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The Sea View Hotel at Amagansett, owned by A.E. Vaughn of New York, was burned to the ground early Tuesday morning. The four-story frame building, used for the past twenty-six years as a summer hotel in Amagansett, was reduced to a mass of ruins in less than an hour after the fire was discovered. The origin of the fire is unknown.
Henry Conklin, resident of Amagansett, discovered the fire while eating his breakfast, about 4:30 a.m. He saw a bright light in the west and, knowing that it could not be the rising sun, he jumped to his feet and ran out of doors. He then discovered the large hotel was on fire.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, April 14
The mystery of who has been entering homes and stealing ladies’ high heeled shoes, sizes either 5.5 or 6, remains unsolved by police, who have received complaints of this type of theft since the Christmas holidays. The most recent case was reported on Sunday morning by Miss Doris Armbruster, a schoolteacher residing on Sherrill Road, who had shoes and $91 in cash stolen. Other types of shoes and clothing were untouched.
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Early Sunday morning the lives of two brothers, Frank Kenneth Bennett, 31, and Albert Harris Bennett, 33, were lost when they were suffocated by a fire, which started several hours before, when one or both men were smoking in bed. Their bodies were not burned beyond recognition.
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Friday, April 8 — a blustery, gusty day that cannot make up its mind to be one thing or the other. But spring is marching forward; it’s a lovely time to be in East Hampton. The day began auspiciously for me, with a pleasant visit from our neighbor, Mrs. Greydon Rhodes, bringing branches of plum blossom pruned from their tree. There is nothing more decorative than the graceful black branches and white blossoms against a mirror or a wall.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, April 11
The Long Island Rail Road decided two weeks ago that its trains here were too fast. “We determined after some discussion that the roadbed and ties out there were in kind of a deteriorated condition,” a railroad spokesman explained. “We made the decision for safety reasons. We realized we’d better slow down those trains.”
He added that the railroad’s discovery had followed complaints by riders, reports from trainmen, and a “minute inspection” of the last 53 miles of the Montauk line but denied that it had come as a complete surprise. “We’ve known that we have an extremely poor riding situation,” he said. “We’ve known that for a period of time, but we’ve now come to the point where we have to take safety measures.”
This point may or may not have been reached at 10:47 p.m. on March 26, when the locomotive and three cars of a west-bound train jumped the tracks in Westhampton. The train carried only four passengers, and no one was injured.
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Two teachers who have been told they will be dropped from the faculty of Sag Harbor’s Pierson High School were applauded and praised Monday night by a hundred students and parents, none of whom had kind words for the School’s principal, who had recommended the “termination.”
“These two men have established a communication line connecting from teacher to student!” exclaimed one parent. “They have really found a method to reach these children, so why are we trying to lose them?”
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, April 15
Verbal barbs between attorneys dominated Harry Macklowe’s latest trial in Town Justice Court last week.
East Hampton Village charged the high-profile real estate magnate and his KAM Hampton Realty I Corporation on March 3 with three zoning code violations. At a March 15 arraignment, Justice Roger W. Walker ordered Mr. Macklowe, who has been a no-show in past proceedings here, to appear for trial on April 6.
He did, although he spent much of the two-day, nine-hour proceedings reviewing leases for his Manhattan properties or walking in and out of the courtroom, frequently talking on a mobile telephone.
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The East Hampton Town Hall Shuffle is under way.
The Natural Resources Department has moved out of its offices next to the Planning Department to make way for the town’s new Code Enforcement Department.
So Code Enforcement has offices, but no director yet. And Natural Resources, temporarily displaced last month, will get a new space that Larry Penny, the natural resources director, said he’s pleased with.
“It was a little brutal for a bit because we were asked to move out while working on some crucial things,” Mr. Penny said last week. Now, however, he said he’s “excited by the prospect of the new space because we needed a little bit of isolation from Planning.”
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With a burgeoning business, the Harvest on Fort Pond has applied to the East Hampton Town Planning Board for site-plan approval to legalize a patio used for dining and add more parking.
The restaurant also has asked for eight variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals, including one allowing more clearing than allowed under zoning and another reducing the setback from wetlands from 50 to 16 feet.
The Planning Board voted last week to let the Z.B.A. make the pertinent decisions by voting against a positive declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. This means no further investigation into the environmental impacts of the site plan will be required.
