125 Years Ago 1900
From The East Hampton Star, February 9
The Long Island Railroad Company will have an exhibit at the Paris Exposition, to occupy about forty square feet in which to display large pictures showing the magnificent scenery of Long Island and its system of railroads. These pictures were taken by Mr. H.B. Fullerton, the author of “Unique Long Island,” and will be by far the finest and handsomest collection of Long Island scenery ever put on exhibition, which will serve as an excellent advertisement for Long Island. The railroad people believe in advertising and that is just what Long Island needs.
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Among the bills introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman Scudder for the improvement of rivers and harbors of Long Island is this one:
A bill directing the Secretary of War to make a survey and submit plans and estimates for the improvement and deepening of the inlet to Three Mile Harbor in the town of East Hampton, so that vessels may readily enter and leave the harbor, by constructing a channel in the inlet to be not less than ten feet in depth at mean low water and two hundred feet in width.
The bill was referred to the Committee on Rivers and Harbors.
100 Years Ago 1925
From The East Hampton Star, February 6
Patrick Ryan, who for ten months has been under indictment for the murder of Ferdinand Downs, constable and Ku Klux Klan member, is at his home in Brookhaven — a free man. A jury in Brooklyn Supreme Court Tuesday night acquitted him of the charge of killing the constable in a pistol battle on the night of May 16, near Manorville, L.I.
After the trial was completed, Ryan said: “It is my impression as I look back over that eventful night that it was not my bullet that killed Downs at all, although I fired several shots from my automatic after they had pursued and overtaken me — the five men in their car — and had wounded me in my right hand. None of the five in the car wore a police uniform and they acted so much like bandits that I probably would have shot several of them if I could have had the proper opportunity.”
It was stated that the jury took but one ballot to acquit Ryan.
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Bad hootch so snarled up the feet and warped the brains of some of the people attending dances at the Chateau de Legion of Eugene Hand Post, American Legion, at Hampton Bays, that henceforth admission to the dances will be by card only, according to a rather spicy letter that has been issued by the post.
75 Years Ago 1950
From The East Hampton Star, February 9
Comparatively few of the price-supported, 1949 crop of potatoes remaining in farm storages on eastern Long Island will actually be dumped, Suffolk Production and Marketing Administration officials said yesterday. The county P.M.A. committee has steadfastly opposed dumping as means of getting rid of the overstock of program potatoes, and its members are frankly unhappy over the disposal plan announced at Washington last Friday and the publicity which preceded and followed it.
Improved commercial demand for spuds that can still make consumer grades and a reopening of livestock outlets will tend to reduce the Long Island throwaway, according to Elmer J. Mather, administrative assistant in charge of the P.M.A. office in Riverhead. He estimated that the stock of 955,000 bushels on some 185 Suffolk farms as shown by a survey carried out several weeks ago has already been substantially reduced, perhaps by as much as one third.
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Louis Vetault’s Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia) plants are now in full bloom, with six magnificent blue and orange flowers set on spike-like stems. This exotic plant, whose blossoms resemble the brilliantly plumed bird of paradise on the wing, is a native of South America, but in recent years has been grown to a large extent in California and Florida. However, in the north its natural habitat is confined to the even temperatures of greenhouses and florists’ show windows.
50 Years Ago 1975
From The East Hampton Star, February 6
When Assemblyman Perry Duryea confronts the Federal Interior Department at their offshore-oil hearings next week, he will most likely reiterate his longstanding misgivings about oil drilling off Long Island’s coast. But he is also bound to mention, a press aide confides, a recent poll of his East End constituents that reveals 62 percent of them in favor of offshore drilling.
Lona Rubenstein, the aide, said Mr. Duryea was frankly surprised at the poll’s results — she herself had ordered an immediate (but confirming) recount. Mr. Duryea was further surprised, she added, when mention of the poll’s results at one of Mr. Duryea’s open meetings with his constituents, in Southold, failed to elicit more than a shoulder-shrugging response.
The poll, which was mailed to 39,000 households in Mr. Duryea’s First Assembly District, showed 62 percent of the 2,000 respondents in favor of offshore drilling as one solution to the country’s energy needs, with 28 percent opposed, and 10 percent undecided.
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“Stabilizing” Georgica Pond will make it a smelly marsh or save it from becoming a desert, prevent flooding or worsen flooding, and conserve fresh water or not conserve fresh water: opinions differ. Some landowners and the East Hampton Village Board want stabilization immediately.
Other landowners, baymen, and the East Hampton Town Trustees, who own the Pond’s bottom, don’t want it ever. The Army Corps of Engineers is still planning it, has planned it for 17 years now, with no end in sight.
What the Corps has in mind is pipes, between the Pond and the ocean, to relieve the Pond whenever rain fills it past a “desired” level.
25 Years Ago 2000
From The East Hampton Star, February 10
The news about heating oil has gone from bad to worse for now. Not only has the price continued to skyrocket, reaching a peak of $2.48 a gallon on the East End Monday, but, even more worrisome, supplies remain extremely low.
“We’ve never seen anything like it,” said Fritz Schenck of Schenck Fuels in East Hampton. But although local dealers are still tearing their hair out, there appears to be a light at the end of the pipeline. Yesterday, two small price changes brought Schenck’s price down to $2.32 a gallon.
The most recent price spike came as supplies reached the critical stage last week, with reports that all of Long Island was only a day away from running dry.
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East Hampton Town Trustees and Larry Penny, director of East Hampton’s Natural Resources Department, worked hard last week to move the long-awaited dredging of the Napeague Harbor entrances off square one.
Over time, the shifting sands of Napeague’s north shore have offered wide-open channels on both the east and west sides of Hicks Island, a closed west channel, and the current configuration: a closed east channel with shoaling and serious erosion at the mouth of the west channel.
Despite the environmental degradation caused by the clogged east channel, it is doubtful, Mr. Penny told the Trustees, that the County Public Works Department will agree to dredge both channels.
