125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, July 7
A Star reader suggests that the residences and places of business on Main street be numbered. Would it not be a good plan? If not, why not? It would be much easier to direct a person to No. 28 Main street than to say seventeen doors above the church. And besides, everybody would then know which way is "up" and which is "down."
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, July 11
Justice Russell Benedict in Supreme Court Tuesday granted a change of venue to Brooklyn to Patrick Ryan, who is under indictment in Suffolk County for first degree murder as a result of the killing of Ferdinand Downs, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and who claimed he could not get a fair trial in Suffolk because of Klan activities.
In asking for the change of venue Dr. Philip A. Brennan, Ryan's counsel, said in court that the Ku Klux Klan men had threatened to wreak vengeance on Ryan, that the "committee' or posse which found him some hours after the shooting of Downs has practically determined to lynch him on the spot, and expressed the fear that they would creep into the jury box, hide their Klan affiliations and convict Ryan whether he be innocent or guilty.
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Amagansett suffered a severe loss Tuesday afternoon of this week, when the old windmill owned by John and Lewis Parsons, brothers, which stood in front of the Mill cottage on Windmill lane, burned to the ground. The origin of the fire is unknown.
The fire was first discovered by members of the Parsons family about 4 o'clock. An alarm was immediately turned in and the firemen worked heroically to save the historic structure, but without avail.
The East Hampton department was called and the chemical company responded, directed by Chief Dominy, but the fire had gained such progress that the only help they could give the Amagansett firemen was to help save the Windmill cottage, which was in danger. The grass and shrubbery for several feet around the mill caught fire. It took nearly an hour for the mill to burn down.
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The local police department was kept busy over last week-end, regulating traffic and maintaining the usual good order throughout the village. At the fireworks celebration Friday night it took eight officers, besides Chief Morford and Traffic Officer Garrow, to direct traffic at the beach. It is estimated that over 1,000 automobiles were parked at the beach. The parking spaces near Terbell's garden and across the road were filled and so was each side of Lily Pond lane. The Crossways and north on South Beach lane to Mrs. Robert Gardiner's home were filled.
Never before has the annual Fourth of July fireworks display in East Hampton drawn such a crowd. Tourists from all over the Island came early in order to secure a good place.
On Friday one young man, who is staying in East Hampton this summer, felt mischievous and threw a lighted firecracker into a parked car on Main street.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, July 14
Casper Bedell of East Hampton was very seriously burned by sulphuric acid in an explosion on Wednesday, July 6, at the Smith Meal Company's plant at Promised Land. It occurred about ten minutes to five, shortly before Mr. Bedell was to have gone off duty. Something seemed to be wrong with a boiler, and he was working on a valve, when the explosion occurred. He was burned in the face, and on his arms.
At first Dr. David Edwards, his physician, and Dr. Charles Tainter, the eye specialist from Mather Memorial Hospital at Port Jefferson, feared Mr. Bedell had lost his sight. But they are now giving every encouragement that sight is there. But the nerves in the patient's eyelids are injured, so opening his eyes is difficult and his recovery may be a slow process.
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Friday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock the important question of considering recommendations for the zoning of the newly annexed village area, on both sides of the Montauk Highway and at the western end of the incorporated village, will be before the public with reference to which sections shall be classed as Residential "A" and Residential "B" zones. Business now conducted in that area will remain as is, but no new provision for business expansion in the annexed area is contemplated.
Considerable study and work has gone into the making of zoning recommendations by members of the zoning planning commission and members of the village board. The plan as presented appears to be a good solution to the zoning of this attractive part of our village and should work out to the best interests of all.
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, July 11
Businessmen in Sag Harbor are asking for a submarine. Admirals are reported to have encouraged them. Greenport, however, wants a submarine too. Montauk, it has already been decided, won't get one.
According to David Lee, president of the Merchants Association of Sag Harbor, "various admirals and other important people" have said that no one will get any submarines until the Middle East calms down some more but that afterward the Navy will probably agree to part with six that it has "mothballed" in Philadelphia, lending them to "various organizations." One of these organizations is the Long Island Submarine War Veterans.
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Two landlords of homes rented to groups of persons for the season pleaded guilty to violations of a section of the East Hampton Town zoning ordinance before Town Justice Sheppard Frood on Monday.
The two were Neil Roth, Meeting House Lane, Amagansett, and Sol Aronowitz, corner of Cedar Street and Stephen Hand's Path, East Hampton. They pleaded guilty to violating a provision, adopted by the Town Board last winter, through which more than four cars are prohibited from being parked at a group-rented home.
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, July 15
A motley crew of Long Islanders, from a concert promoter to a former supermodel to dozens of veteran anti-nuclear activists, set sail from Montauk for the shores of Connecticut under a portentous sky on Saturday morning to "shut it down."
It was the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in Waterford, Conn. The repetitive chant — "shut it down," "shut it down" — was a mantra for some 150 people spread over approximately 40 boats that gathered a hundred yards offshore from the hulking facility to protest its continued operation.
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Pesticides, many of them banned for years because they pose grave threats, still lurk in the water of 30 out of 138 public, private, and monitoring wells in East Hampton Village, Wainscott, and Amagansett.
The Suffolk County Department of Health Services, which conducted an 18-month study for the State Department of Environmental Conservation, released the findings Friday as part of its report on water quality Islandwide.
Pesticide residues were found in every Long Island town, the report says, with the highest number of affected wells in Southold (51 percent), Riverhead (38.7 percent), and Southampton (34.5 percent).
