125 Years Ago 1899
From The East Hampton Star, September 8
It was stated in the last issue of The Star that Mrs. S.J. Papendiek had sold her summer residence on Main Street to A. Poor, of New York, for the sum of $11,000. It is now reported that Mr. Poor will at once spend between six and seven thousand dollars in improving the place.
The house, which is to be rebuilt and remodeled, was purchased by Mrs. Papendiek in 1885. It is said that the house stands on or near the site of the house built by Daniel Howe or Thomas Baker, after the first allotment in 1649 or 1650. This property was the first recorded transfer of real estate recorded in the first volume of the town records. It would also seem that this was the place where the first settlers held their religious services.
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Miss Julia Chadwick’s lecture on “The Real Camp Wikoff” was old to many in the audience, but the many familiar scenes in and about the camp were interspersed with so many interesting, touching and convincing facts gleaned by the speaker in her daily work there and overlooked by the casual visitor that the closest interest of the audience was held from first to last. Miss Chadwick paid a glowing tribute to the men of the regular army, and gave those unacquainted with the facts a good idea of the noble work performed in the camp.
100 Years Ago 1924
From The East Hampton Star, September 5
Hal S. Beers, who claims residence in East Hampton, whose pockets carried a sheaf of neatly typewritten liquor memoranda and alcohol bills, and whose sedan motorcar carried many pint bottles of Scotch and gin, was evidently in a hurry to move along the deserted roads near Patchogue, in the small hours of Tuesday morning — which is quite the usual thing with the bootlegging fraternity.
Added to that, he was in bad humor, and as a result he spent all day Wednesday in the Patchogue village jail, awaiting friends who were to have appeared with $1,500 bail. Beers gave his name as Stephen French, but his owner’s license bore the name Hal Beers of East Hampton, and gave his business address as Freeport. He also tried to throw away a card of membership in the Shugrue Athletic Club of Waterbury. No one in East Hampton seems to know of Beers.
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The East Hampton High School will open Monday. This year the principal, teachers and students will have a splendid place in which to give and receive instruction. The new school building, which is practically completed, will give ample room for school work, with room for expansion for years to come.
Principal Gilbert Lyon is constantly planning improvements in the way of changes and enlargements of scope in the study courses, tending to make the local school equal to any in the Empire State.
75 Years Ago 1949
From The East Hampton Star, September 8
While fishing off Watch Hill, R.I., early Saturday morning, Edwin Sherrill Jr. noticed his boat listing to port. He found that a large torpedo had been caught in the fish nets. As his equipment was not heavy enough to lift the torpedo, which was all of 22 feet long and five feet wide, he cleared it from the nets at the side of the boat, and towed it to Montauk. He called the Coast Guard and was asked by them to take it to the Navy Dock at Fort Pond Bay.
This is probably the largest torpedo that has been “fished” out by a fisherman from the southern fork of the Island although a fisherman from Connecticut has “caught” several. The Coast Guard states the torpedo was a No. 14 “dead” one, weighing over 3,300 pounds.
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A slight decline in poliomyelitis incidence in the county was reported by the Health Department. The week’s total cases was 27, a drop of four from the previous week’s high of 31.
Dr. Rafle, Health Commissioner said, “The turn downward considered in light of several factors such as the reaching peak of reported disease in New York and Nassau County, the decreasing summer population is encouraging. It is hoped that this is the start of the trend downward.”
50 Years Ago 1974
From The East Hampton Star, September 5
The Sag Harbor Village Board met almost peaceably Tuesday night. Structures of the past and sewage of the future were mentioned. The Village’s proposed sewage plant, the Board noted calmly, would be pondered at an “environmental impact hearing next Wednesday. The hearing, Village Clerk Joan Schoen explained, was “required by the Federal government before they’ll give us anything.”
The Board hopes that Federal and State aid will pay seven-eighths of the $662,000 the plant is expected to cost. Board members have maintained that it cannot help but improve Sag Harbor Bay, since sewage from the business district, which it will serve, is not treated at all now.
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Two men parked their car at the Ditch Plains beach, Montauk, at 3 p.m. on Aug. 27. East Hampton Town Detective John Clafin was sitting in another car, parked alongside them. The two, according to Town Police, lit a marijuana cigarette, and theirs were the first of 17 arrests reported by the Town Police this week.
A search of their car, police said, “turned up” three small bags of marijuana. The two men were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, and they appeared before Judge Edward Hults and were released on $30 bail each.
25 Years Ago 1999
From The East Hampton Star, September 9
An Amagansett landscape contractor hired to dig a dry well on a Three Mile Harbor Road house lot outside East Hampton Village unearthed what apparently is an old human skull on the morning of August 25.
The skull and a few bones were found in a section of East Hampton known as Freetown, where a number of Montaukett Indian and African-American families settled in the 19th century.
Darryl Glennon of Amagansett, the contractor, took the bones home and stored them in a bucket. About a week later he called Southampton College and was referred to a former adjunct professor of sociology who, in turn, notified town police on Friday.
The skull and bones have now been sent to the County Medical Examiner’s office. “They’re going to try to date them for us,” said Det. Lieut. William McGintee.
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Some people in Sag Harbor had taken to calling the village Gag Harbor when an unwelcome guest blew in on the wings of a northeasterly breeze: an odor that smelled like a backed-up septic system and hung in the humid, late-summer air for much of Labor Day weekend.
The smart money was betting that the stench was coming from the village’s harborfront sewage treatment plant, which is often taxed to its limits during holiday weekends.
But village officials, from Mayor Bill Young to Nat Bennett, the plant operator, said the smart money was wrong. “It wasn’t sewage. It was seaweed,” said Mayor Young. “The smell started up Friday morning. It was all building up at the beach at Cormaria.”
