Information, News, and features from Montauk Library’s local history collection.
Where were you in 1976? Did you get to witness the nation’s jubilant Bicentennial celebrations – all the tall ships and parades and Revolutionary War reenactments? Were you terrified by the release of the movie Jaws – and among the crowds who gathered on the Montauk docks to gawk at the massive creatures? Were… Read more »
Dean Phillippe, originally from Kansas City, Missouri, enlisted in the Air Force in the early 1960s to get ahead of a draft, completing basic training in Texas before being assigned to the 773rd Radar Squadron in Montauk. He traveled to Montauk by train, spending New Year’s Eve stranded at Penn Station after missing his connection…. Read more »
A ghost from Montauk’s history perched on an inexorably vanishing shore – this painting depicts the McCaffray/Rheinstein windmill on what was known as Sandpiper Hill. The work most likely was painted by William A. Rogers in the 1930s. It came into the family of Harold Hone, who purchased property nearby in Ditch Plains in… Read more »
This post was originally published on July 3, 2024. It has been slightly updated to included the date of this year’s Friends of the Library Book Fair. Barbara Metzger (1944-2023) was an award-winning novelist, editor, writer of greeting card verses, artist, and longtime volunteer with the Friends of the Montauk Library. It was in that… Read more »
On the corner of Main Street and Carl Fisher Plaza, White’s Pharmacy was a magnet for Montauk kids in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. For starters, it had a soda fountain and a great view of any action that was going down in town. “What the liquor store is now was Dick White’s drug store,”… Read more »
“WHY, here is all the charm of England and Scotland, and less than three hours from New York!” The noted visitor, a traveler to many climes, stood high on a breeze-swept, green-clad hill at Montauk Beach, 125 miles out into the cool Atlantic on Long Island’s slender tip, and surveyed the alluring panorama before him…. Read more »
Montauk’s first Blessing of the Fleet – born as the “Blessing of the Boats” – was in 1956 and the brainchild of Vinnie Grimes, a charter boat captain and Navy veteran who’d seen Portuguese tuna fishermen blessing their boats before they headed out to sea on the West Coast. “It is an old European custom… Read more »
Dear Carl, Just a card showing you what sort of a place I live in. Write again, Pal, Bob Robert E. Hale sent this postcard in October 1944 from Montauk to his pal Carl, stationed on Manus Island off northern Papua New Guinea, during World War II, while both men were serving in the U.S…. Read more »
One of seven children, Sarah (King) Tuthill was sent at age 6 to Montauk to live with Loretta Dickinson, a friend of her mother’s who lived in “better circumstances” and had indicated that “she would like to have one of the girls.” In an oral history interview in 1967, when she was 81, Sarah… Read more »
Joyous, I heard, while slowly borne along, From wakening birds, the early burst of song, Upspringing like a morning hymn, to rise And mingle with the worship of the skies. -J.A. Ayres, The Legends of Montauk, 1849 This time of year, the dawn chorus of birdsong combines mating, territorial, alarm, and location vocalizations from resident,… Read more »