East Hampton

By Richard Barons, Isabel Carmichael and Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr.

East Hampton began as a fishing and farming community in the 1600s, but by the late 18th century, the area had grown to be a popular summer destination. Within a year of its construction in 1796, the Montauk Lighthouse was already attracting tourists. By the mid-19th century, steamships and railroads were taking visitors to see the magnificent beaches and stay in the boardinghouses. The smaller East Hampton communities, such as Montauk, Amagansett, and Wainscott, also became favored locations for people escaping the heat of the cities, and they remain highly sought-after destinations today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: May 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781439656426

Richard Barons

Richard Barons and Isabel Carmichael are staff members at the East Hampton Historical Society, which has been collecting postcards of the township since the organization was founded in 1921. After several years of carefully cataloging and organizing the collection, the authors realized that the cards form a charming and nostalgic visual history that could be found in no other book.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Richard Barons and Isabel Carmichael

ISBN 978-1-4671-1603-9

Ebook ISBN 9781439656426

Published by Arcadia Publishing

Charleston, South Carolina

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951131

For all general information contact Arcadia Publishing at:

Telephone [phone]

Fax [phone]

E-mail [e-mail]

For customer service and orders:

Toll-Free 1-888-313-2665

Visit us on the Internet at www.arcadiapublishing.com

This book is dedicated to the trustees of the East Hampton Historical Society for their efforts in preserving East Hampton’s past.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

East Hampton offers a remarkable glimpse of an early American settlement and of life at a turn-of-the-century summer resort. These postcard images represent what could be called a golden era, when a gracious summer colony existed alongside a still-vital farming and fishing community. Views of farmhouses, barns, and windmills along the main streets of the Village of East Hampton, Amagansett, Wainscott, and Springs are reminders of our history as an agrarian community, beginning with our founding in 1648.

The rural landscapes depicted here recall the picturesque beauty of East Hampton that so inspired visiting artists. Images of the various summer colonies that sprouted in the Village of East Hampton, Montauk, and Amagansett, with their unpretentious shingled cottages, recall their open and neighborly character. In this era, visitors to our town traveled by horse-drawn wagons, bicycles, trains, and carriage-like automobiles and communicated with messages written on postcards.

While this period is distant from the East Hampton of today, I am happy to say that many of the buildings and places pictured here remain not only part of our character but also part of our landscape. How dear to my heart are these old images of East Hampton. I have been collecting East Hampton postcards for many years, and it pleases me that the East Hampton Historical Society is going to share its large collection of charming nostalgic postcards with the public.

The remarkable thing is that with the enthusiasm of both East Hampton Town and Village for their visual history, today many of these early-20th-century postcards show scenes that have not changed for almost 100 years. We must be doing something right and hope that you will come and visit us.

—Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the many individuals who have donated their families’ postcards to help form the collection of the East Hampton Historical Society that now numbers in excess of 1,000 cards. In addition, we would like to thank the board of trustees of the historical society for their support in this project. We are grateful for the help we received from Robert Hefner, Village of East Hampton director of historic services, Hugh King, village historian, and Rosanne Barons, the society’s registrar. Their advice and sharing of knowledge of the history of East Hampton have made the authors’ job much easier.

All images appear courtesy of the East Hampton Historical Society.

INTRODUCTION

The fascinating thing about postcards is the variety of subject matter and how the postcard writer decides what image to choose. When perusing this volume, which is a selection of postcards from the collection of the East Hampton Historical Society, you will notice the wide range of illustrations. What is important to realize is that when postcards first became popular just after the turn of the 20th century, they were really just an inexpensive way of communicating via the postal service. For a penny, a person could send a note to a friend in nearby Sag Harbor and be assured that if sent in the morning it would arrive in the afternoon. One of the cards in the collection actually reads, I’m bringing a rhubarb pie to dinner tonight. Those were the days.

Since these often weren’t wish you were here tourist correspondences, people found it fun to write their friend in Montauk on a postcard with a fabulous mansion on Lily Pond Lane or of a group of fishermen showing off their daily catch. The range of subject matter runs the gamut, from tourist cabins to the First Presbyterian Church of East Hampton.

Today, East Hampton is one of the premier spots to summer. Diaries and letters recorded tourists coming to see the Montauk Lighthouse within a year of its construction in 1796. One letter notes the quality of the cookies made by the lighthouse keeper’s wife. The first tourists arrived via boat from New York City or New London, Connecticut, at Sag Harbor and would take a stage to East Hampton Village. New Yorkers could also take the train to Patchogue and get a stage there to go out as far as Montauk. By the mid-19th century, railroads helped connect population centers with their summer escapes. The Long Island Rail Road’s first train to Amagansett arrived in 1895.