Carleton Kelsey in the stacks, most likely at the Amagansett Library, where he was the director for 35 years. The year 1999 is written on the back of the photograph, along with the name of the photographer, Mike Rissiaro. | Courtesy of the Amagansett Historical Association, which owns the photograph, and the East Hampton Library Long Island Collection, where it was housed and digitized.
Legend has it that Carleton Kelsey visited the Montauk Library when he was in his 90s to see if it was “worthy” of receiving a portion of his prize collection of historical photographs and postcards. It was, he determined not long before he died, so he donated what he had that was relevant to Montauk, creating one of the library’s most robust archival collections, with more than 300 photographs and postcards offering rare views of the growth of Montauk from the mid-1890s through the 1950s.
Hilda Tuma, postmistress of the post office in the old fishing village on Fort Pond Bay, in the 1920s. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library Archives
An Amagansett native, Kelsey was for 12 years the East Hampton Town historian and for 35 years director of the Amagansett Library, and he was the author of two pictorial histories of the hamlet and a founder of the Amagansett Historical Association. His Montauk collection of photographs is particularly rich in images from the 1930s, also focusing on the former fishing village on Fort Pond Bay; Teddy Roosevelt and the soldiers sent to recuperate at Camp Wikoff after the Spanish American War; the Navy’s activities during World War I on Fort Pond Bay; the Lighthouse, the Montauk Association houses, and the rugged ocean landscape; as well as what during the Cold War was known as the Camp Hero Air Force base.
Old Edgemere Road circa1930, before most of the development of Montauk. Negative of a photography by Richard F. Roberts. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library ArchivesMan walking on a trail in a mostly wild Montauk landscape in the 1930s. Negative of a photograph by Richard F. Roberts. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library ArchivesTeddy Roosevelt at Camp Wikoff, 1898. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library ArchivesHorses drinking in the water at Camp Wikoff, 1898. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library Archives
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Tents at Camp Wikoff, 1898, and tents at Hither Hills State Park, 1930s. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library Archives
The Montauk Association houses, also known as the Seven Sisters, as seen from the nearest ocean beach, 1885-1889. Built for a handful of wealthy New York families, the shingle style cottages were designed by McKim, Mead and White and set in the landscape by Frederick Law Olmsted. Cyanotype from the Montauk Association Houses Album. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library ArchivesThe Montauk Lighthouse before 1899, when a brown band, or daymark, was painted around the mid-section of the tower. Cyanotype from the Montauk Association Houses Album. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library Archives
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A 1915 postcard promoting Montauk and a circa-1920s one of the Carl Fisher Office Building. | Carleton Kelsey Collection, Montauk Library Archives
“Carleton’s passion for history was contagious … he collected traditions and folklore, myths and legends, and thousands of postcards and photographs relating to the East End,” says the introduction to a Youtube video that highlights his donations to the Montauk Library. Take a look!
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