Bridgehampton's Summer Colony

By Julie B. Greene

The hamlet of Bridgehampton was settled in 1656 and aptly named for the bridge that was built to connect the settlements of Mecox and Sagaponack. Ninety miles from New York City, this rural farming community was transformed by the arrival of the Long Island Rail Road in 1870. With the notion that salt air and sea breezes were the perfect relief from the hot and sweltering isle of Manhattan, wealthy New Yorkers made the sojourn to the pristine shores of the Atlantic Ocean. On a trip down Ocean Road toward the beach, one would pass the grand homes of a toy importer, a pen manufacturer, a coal industrialist, a merchant tailor, and an inventor--the established summer colony. The region quickly gained a reputation as a pleasant summer resort--a reputation that still thrives today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Apr 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781439650998

Julie B. Greene

Julie B. Greene is the curator and archivist for the Bridgehampton Museum and the local history librarian at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton. She has utilized the photograph collections of the Bridgehampton Museum to present a visual narrative of Bridgehampton's early-20th-century summer colony.

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INTRODUCTION

Bridgehampton is a hamlet in the town of Southampton, on the South Fork of eastern Suffolk County, New York. It lies nestled between the villages of East Hampton to the east, Southampton to the west, and Sag Harbor to the north. To its south lies the vast Atlantic Ocean. The first European arrivals settled Bridgehampton and neighboring Sagaponack in 1656, over a decade after the Town of Southampton was settled in 1640 by men and women originally from England by way of Lynn, Massachusetts. The first use of the word Bridgehampton did not appear until 1699, when the bridge at Sagg Pond united the areas then known as Mecox and Sagg.

At the turn of the 20th century, summer resident and renowned American historian James Truslow Adams described these early settlers as folks who possessed courage and perseverance, self-governance, a belief in God, and human qualities of virtue and vice. The area had its first church in 1686 and a tavern by 1700. Everyone worked, both men and women, and even the minister farmed. These East Enders, largely self-sufficient, relied on the land and sea for their livelihoods and sustenance.

For over 200 years, Bridgehampton was an agrarian society, its residents content in the rhythms and patterns of an isolated existence. The stagecoach from neighboring Sag Harbor required a three-day journey to reach Brooklyn, barely 100 miles away. But all that changed in 1870, when the arrival of the railroad facilitated the journey of summer visitors from New York City and beyond to the eastern shores of Long Island. By 1877, approximately 36 homes in Bridgehampton were available to summer boarders. Local farmers welcomed the opportunity to increase their income by turning their farmhouses into boardinghouses. Soon after, summer visitors began buying land and building their own houses, developing the neighborhoods closer to the beaches and the heart of the hamlet itself. The increase in summer population, of course, required increased services. More merchants were established, supplying dry goods, hardware, furnishings, and groceries. Leisure activities, such as tennis, bicycling, golf, sailing, and bathing, all required clubs and clubhouses, which were quickly established. It was not long before these second-home owners, often referred to as summer people, became an integral part of the area’s economy and fabric of life.

Almost 150 years later, vacationers will still endure arduous travel to get to Bridgehampton, experiencing traffic jams on regional and local roadways or the annoyance of insufficient mass transit. They endure these difficulties in order to reach a destination that offers the same qualities that enchanted the first summer boarders: bucolic scenes, ocean breezes, fashionable shops, and the hospitality of the descendants of Bridgehampton’s founders.

John Eilertsen, PhD

Executive director

The Bridgehampton Museum

In the late 17th century, a bridge was built across Sagg Pond, connecting the settlements of Mecox and Sagg, thus naming the larger area Bridgehampton.

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NEXT STOP,

BRIDGEHAMPTON’S

SEASIDE BOARD

This is an advertisement from the Sag Harbor Corrector of May 1846. Travel to the southern shore of the East End of Long Island in the mid-19th century required a full day’s sojourn by stagecoach. But that changed in 1870, when the railroad came to town.

This is a conveyance of land between Charles A. Pierson and his wife, Fanny Pierson, and the railroad, dated February 15, 1870. The large piece of land, purchased for $1,000 from Pierson, was to be used for the tracks as well as the depot.

This land conveyance between William Corwith and the railroad, dated February 15, 1870, was for the land east of the depot. Corwith received $200 for a piece of his farmland, intended for tracks to be laid north of the homestead. The Corwith family immediately took advantage of the arrival of the railroad and opened their home as a boardinghouse.