125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, June 30
A heavy storm passed Wednesday night between the hours of twelve and two. Incessant sheet lightning, heavy rain and a gale were the characteristics of the disturbance. No damage was done here but much good resulted from the rain.
The storm was more severe in the western part of the island. At West Hampton, a valuable cottage belonging to Mr. Stevens of New York, was set afire by the lightning and burned to the ground. In the same place a barn owned by James Goodman was burned with its contents including a three hundred dollar horse and the house of Fred Howland was struck and the roof torn off.
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Work on the Orient Point Lighthouse is progressing as fast as wind and tide will permit, and contractor Guerber has the structure raised about fourteen feet above the level of the water. When completed it will be about seventy feet in height.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, June 27
Hundreds of people from East Hampton and surrounding villages went to the beach Wednesday to view the baby whale, about twenty feet long, which was washed ashore east of the Sea Spray Hotel.
Tuesday morning the Lester boys as they are familiarly known hereabouts, including Frank, Charles, Henry and Fred Lester, went off the beach to lift their sturgeon nets in the ocean, about two miles off Georgica Coast Guard Station. When they arrived at the net they saw the corks which buoy the top line of the net afloat. This was altogether out of the ordinary and as they drew closer they saw the back of a baby whale come to the surface.
The whale had dragged the seine anchors together and then after thrashing around in an effort to free itself had become wound up in the net.
There was nothing for the fishermen to do but let the whale drown. Late in the afternoon, with the assistance of some of the coastguardsmen and Felix Dominy, the whale was towed east until in front of the Sea Spray Hotel. The Lester boys moored the whale with the intention of pulling it ashore early the next morning, when they would erect a canvas tent about the animal and charge a small admission to view it, in order that they might get a little something to pay for the loss of their net, which was completely ruined. During the night, however, the line parted and the whale washed ashore.
The beach was alive with people all day Wednesday, coming and going to the spot where the whale was ashore, the news having scattered very quickly.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, June 30
East Hampton Supervisor Herbert L. Mulford Jr. secured a $10,000 appropriation of county funds Monday for the construction of public wharfage facilities on Lake Montauk. The favorable action of the Board of Supervisors removed the last obstacle to a project which has been hanging fire since 1946.
In that year, $15,000 was allocated for a dock, to be constructed in connection with the dredging of a boat basin. The latter project, which was to be financed with Federal funds, has never materialized. However, the East Hampton supervisor persuaded his colleagues that the county improvement should not be held up any longer, and on motion of Supervisor Philipp A. Hattemer of Brookhaven, finance committee chairman, the additional $10,000 was voted Monday in a contingent fund transfer.
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The 152nd development of the Home Guardian Company of New York will be opened this weekend at Sag Harbor. The Home Guardian Company has specialized in resort properties. The new development known as Redwood consists of 70 acres divided into 670 lots, of which 314 lots are on the waterfront.
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The earth on a summer night is a different place from the earth by day. As the day world falls silent and disappears into the shadows of the night, a new world of sound and beauty emerges in the light of the moon and the stars.
Dusk is the transition period, the shading of light into dark, and the time of the changing of the guard, as it were. While the catbird sings its final aria from the top of the grape arbor and the yellow warbler hurries through its last song of the day, the nighthawk with its hunting cry starts its evening rounds in search of mosquito prey, and the bat swings low on its swift and silent course. — This Week Outdoors
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, June 27
Buoyed by the recent United States Supreme Court decision that upheld a group renting ban in the Village of Belle Terre, East Hampton Town officials appear to be diligently enforcing the applicable laws here.
The Supreme Court held in a 7-2 decision last April 1 that Belle Terre, a small village near Port Jefferson, had the right to limit occupancy of a single-family residence to no more than two unrelated persons. East Hampton Town’s “grouper” provisions, which are included in its zoning ordinance, are far more liberal: occupancy of a single family home is limited to no more than seven unrelated persons, and no more than four cars are permitted to be parked at a home rented to a group.
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The East Hampton Village Board, meeting Friday evening, held a public hearing on a proposal to prevent tiny houses, rejected the proposal, adopted a Village budget, heard another proposal to broaden the Planning Board’s powers, decided to hold a public hearing on that proposal, and talked about one thing and another.
The public did not come to the public hearing. Mayor Ronald Rioux, flanked by two Village Trustees, the Village attorney, and the Village Clerk, announced that the hearing was being held on a proposed zoning amendment that would require “a minimum of 800 square feet of enclosed livable floor space” in any new dwelling in the Village.
“In view of the fact that there’s no one here,” he concluded several minutes later, “we’ll adjourn the hearing.”
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, July 1
For deer ticks — and the nasty Lyme disease they carry — it is a brave new world.
This season, for the first time, a vaccine against Lyme is being heavily promoted and, doctors here say, widely used on the South Fork.
Its promoters claim that with any luck the vaccine, called Lymerix, will prevent transmission to humans of the microorganism thought to have afflicted more than a million Americans in two decades — and eliminates it in the tiny black-legged creatures when they bite people who have been inoculated.
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An Amagansett couple who put in a new foundation at their house without the necessary permits and continued the work despite a building inspector’s stop-work order were fined $950 in East Hampton Town Zoning Court.
According to court records, Barbara and Gerald Preiser, who own a house on Mulford Lane, near Lazy Point, allowed heavy equipment to damage the dunes near their house. They pleaded guilty to three of four charges when Town Justice Roger W. Walker levied the fine.
