East Hampton’s settlers fattened their cattle out in Montauk in warmer months, whooping it up on Cattle Day to celebrate the beginning of the season and observing Thanksgiving only after the animals had been driven back home. Town records speak of herding at Montauk as early as 1661, and there were cattle drives to, from,… Read more »
“There was nothing there but a few screaming seagulls and the bell buoy, and the old fish house with the roof caving in,” Mary Gosman recollected, in a 1996 oral history interview, about the harbor area – mostly still swampland and sand — in 1943 when she and her husband, Robert, took over Charlie Bonner’s… Read more »
We hope these vintage photos will inspire your Halloween costume ideas. In return, can you help identify the people in disguise? The first one’s on us: Emily Burke Cullum and Buddy Burke, who were sister and brother, are the costumed cuties in the photo above. The year is probably about 1934; we’re not sure… Read more »
There wasn’t much going on here, road-wise, before Carl Fisher and Robert Moses got their hands on Montauk. Only really tough vehicles could navigate a cart track built from one end of Montauk to the other. And the laying of a new road from Amagansett to Montauk, using cinders donated by the railroad, was a… Read more »
Montauk’s earliest proprietors were fully aware that its workers would need places to live. The original First House was built in 1744, Second House in 1746, and Third House in 1747, all to accommodate the keepers who tended livestock driven annually from East Hampton to Montauk to graze. It was also understood that the keeper… Read more »
“Gather wild grapes in early September,” Jean Fischer advised in her recipe for Wild Grape Jam with Lime in Montauk Cooks with Friends. “Many vines will not have fruit. The heady rich aroma of ripe grapes and your nose will help you find them.” It’s true that only the female vines of wild fox grapes… Read more »
September 5 will be Day 1 for Montauk School students – a Thursday, which should give them a soft landing after summer vacation. For the second September in a row, Jack Perna, the school’s longtime superintendent and principal, will still be on vacation, however, having retired in 2023 after more than 50 years. Hired by… Read more »
On that day, August 25, they wandered from one isolated dwelling to another, frightening most residents but managing to purchase two dogs, a bottle of gin, and some sweet potatoes with the Spanish gold doubloons they had found aboard the ‘Amistad.’ — Mutiny on the Amistad In August of 1839, nine Africans came ashore at… Read more »
Robert G. Lamparter Postcard Collection, Montauk Library Archives At 228 years of age, the Montauk Lighthouse is one very old lady, but she’s been photographed more times than any runway full of models. Heaven knows how many postcards have been graced with her image, and the Montauk Library has the good fortune of possessing… Read more »
Built in 1896 in Wilmington, Del., the “Shinnecock” was long recognized as ‘the Queen of the Fleet” and, as Ron Ziel wrote in Steel Rails to the Sunrise, “one of the finest American steamboats.” Certainly her debut in Sag Harbor stirred up excitement: “The air was full of noise of steam whistles and the cheers… Read more »