The Town of East Hampton is surrounded by water on three sides, with eight state parks. It is bordered on the south by the Atlantic Ocean, to the east by Block Island Soundand to the north by Gardiners Bay, Napeague Bay and Fort Pond Bay.
The town consists of 70 square miles (180 km2) and stretches nearly 25 miles (40 km), from Wainscott in the west to Montauk Point in the east. It is about six miles (10 km) wide at its widest point and less than a mile at its narrowest point. The town has jurisdiction over Gardiners Island, which is the largest privately owned island in the United States. The town has 70 miles (110 km) of shoreline.[1This area had long been inhabited by varying cultures of indigenous peoples. At the time of European contact, East Hampton was home to several Algonquian-speaking groups identified by their geographic locations. The historical people known as the Montaukett controlled most of the territory at the east end of Long Island. They were closely related to Algonquian peoples across Long island Sound, such as the Pequot and Narragansett. Native Americans at the western part of Long Island were part of the Lenape nation, although they were also identified by geographic location.[2]
Chief Wyandanch negotiated with English colonists in the late-17th century for the sale of land in the East Hampton area. The differing concepts held by the Montaukett and English about property and its use contributed to the Native Americans' dispossession. The first Montaukett sale of land in present-day East Hampton was to English colonist Lion Gardiner, of what was to become Gardiner's Island, for "a large black dog, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets." The next trade involved the land extending from Southampton to the foot of the bluffs, at what is now Hither Hills State Park, for 24 hatchets, 24 coats, 20 looking glasses and 100 muxes[disambiguation needed].[3]
In 1660 Chief Wyandanch's widow signed away the rest of the land from Hither Hills to the tip of Montauk for 100 pounds, to be paid in 10 equal installments of "Indian cornor good wampum at six to a penny".[4] The sales provided that the Montaukett were permitted to stay on the land, to hunt and fish at will, and to harvest the tails and fins of whales that beached on the East Hampton shores. Town officials who bought the land filed for reimbursement for the rum with which they had plied the tribe during negotiations.[3]
Many of the Montaukett died during the 17th and 18th centuries from epidemics of smallpox, a Eurasian disease carried by English and Dutch colonists, to which the Indians had no immunity. After the American Revolution,some Montaukett relocated with Shinnecock to Oneida County in upstate New York, led by the Moheganmissionary Samson Occom, to try to escape settlers' encroachment. They formed the Brothertown Indians with other refugee Indian people from New England, and gave up some of their traditions. In 1831-1836, the Brothertown Indians migrated to Wisconsin, where they founded the settlement of Brothertown.[5]
Some Montaukett continued to live on Long Island. In the late nineteenth century, their most well-known member was the legendary Stephen Talkhouse. Their area on Lake Montauk was called Indian Fields until 1879. With their population reduced, over the years, they intermarried with other peoples of the area, and many of their descendants were brought up in Indian traditions. When Arthur W. Benson forced a government auction of Montauk, in which he bought nearly the entire east end of the town, he evicted the Montuakett. They relocated to Freetown, a community established by free [[people of color] on the northern edge of East Hampton Village. The tribe made several attempts to get the courts to declare the evictions illegal, but failed. In the 1990s, the Montauketts again began pressing their case for formal recognition. The Shinnecock, who were historically the same culture, have received federal recognition as a tribe.
Montaukett artifacts and sweat lodges are visible on trails at Theodore Roosevelt County Park. The park was formerly called Montauk County Park.East Hampton was the first English settlement in the state of New York. Lion Gardiner in 1639 purchased land, what became known as Gardiner's Island, from theMontaukett people. In 1648 a royal British charter recognized the island as a wholly contained colony, independent of both New York and Connecticut; a status it was to keep until after the American Revolution, when it came under New York State and East Hampton authority.
On June 12, 1640, nine Puritan families from Lynn, Massachusetts landed at what is now known as Conscious Point, in Southhampton; some later migrated to what is now known as East Hampton. Among the first English settlers in East Hampton were Joshua Barnes, Robert Bond, David Howe, John Hand, John Mulford, Robert Rose, John Stretton, Thomas Talmadge and Thomas Thompson, along with their wives and children.
The Mulford Farmhouse, on James Lane, is the best-preserved 17th-century English colonial house in East Hampton. The barn dates to 1721, and the complex is operated as a living museum. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[6] It was built in 1680 for Josiah Hobart, a prominent early settler, named in the first formal deed of conveyance of East Hampton. This was known as the East-Hampton Pattent[7] or Dongan Patent. The 1686 instrument granting East Hampton to its new proprietors was signed by Thomas Dongan, then Governor of New York.[8] The patent named Capt. Hobart one of "Trustees of the freeholders and commonalty of the town of East-Hampton". A son of Rev. Peter Hobart, founding minister of Old Ship Church in Hingham, Massachusetts, Josiah Hobart and his brother Joshua both came to Long Island with their families. Josiah Hobart settled in East Hampton, where he served as High Sheriff of Suffolk County; and his brother Joshua, a minister, went to Southold, where he served the town for 45 years.
East Hampton was first called Maidstone, after Maidstone, England. The name was later changed to "Easthampton", reflecting the geographic names of its neighbors, Southampton and Westhampton.[9] In 1885 the name was split into two words, after the local newspaper the East Hampton Star began using the two-word name. "Maidstone" is frequently used in place names throughout the town, including the Maidstone Golf Club.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was born at Southampton Hospital on July 28, 1929. She would have been born in New York City but she was six weeks late and her parents, Janet Norton Lee and John Vernou Bouvier III, were staying at the Further Lane, East Hampton, home of her grandfather, John Vernou Bouvier III, named Lasata[12]
Her parents were married at St. Philomena's Catholic Church in East Hampton on July 7, 1928. The reception was held at the East Hampton village home of her maternal grandparents James T. Lee and Margaret Lee, on Lily Pond.
Her family were members of the Maidstone Club. She and her younger sister, Lee Bouvier, spent their summers at the house until she was 10, when her parents divorced.
Her connection to East Hampton got national attention in the 1970s following news reports and the documentary, Grey Gardens. Her aunt,Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale, and cousin, Edith Bouvier Beale, were living in poverty in a mansion after which the film was named. She and her husband, Aristotle Onassis, donated money to improve the plight of her relatives. Grey Gardens (musical) was also made into a Broadway musical. A new documentary on the estate was released in 2006.
Jacqueline's sister, Lee Radziwill, continued to own the Lily Pond Lane home of her maternal grandparents until 2002. The Bouvier family cemetery plot is at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery on Cedar Street. Jackie's father, maternal grandmother, paternal grandparents, and paternal great-grandparents, as well as various relatives, including Edith Bouvier Beale, are buried in the cemetery.
In 1998 and 1999 as talk surfaced that Hillary Clinton was considering a Senate run from New York, they began summering in East Hampton, where they stayed at the Georgica Pond home of Steven Spielberg. Clinton gave a Saturday radio chat from the Amagansett fire station.
In June 2008, at the conclusion of Hillary Clinton's Presidential bid, she stayed at the Wiborg Beach home of Thomas H. Lee in East Hampton Village.[13]he settlement of Gardiners Island has had a reputation as being a home for the wealthy especially after the Gardiners married into almost all the wealthy New York families.
East Hampton however largely remained undeveloped until 1880 when Austin Corbin extended the Long Island Rail Road from Bridgehampton, New York to Montauk. As part of the development Arthur W. Benson forced an auction paid US$151,000 for 10,000 acres (40 km²) around Montauk and forced the eviction of the Montaukket Native Americans there.
Benson brought in architect Stanford White to design six "cottages" near Ditch Plains in Montauk and they formed the Montauk Association to govern their exclusive neighborhood. Among the cottages was Tick Hall, owned by Dick Cavett. It burned in 1993 but Cavett rebuilt it filming the process for a television documentary.
Corbin had more industrial desires for building the train to Montauk. He thought a new port city would develop around the train station on Fort Pond Bay and that ocean going ships from Europe would dock there and the passengers would take the train into New York – thus saving a day in transit.
The grand plans for Montauk did not pan out and the land was sold to the United States Army which was to use most of the land for Army, Navy and Air Force bases through World War II with Theodore Roosevelt making a much publicized visit there at Camp Wyckoff at the end of the Spanish-American War.
One of the side benefits of the railroad extension was a building boom of mansions in the newly accessible village of East Hampton resulting in the wealthy venturing further east from Southampton with theMaidstone Golf Club opening 1891.
In 1926 Carl G. Fisher was to resurrect the dream of an urban Montauk with plans to turn it into the Miami Beach of the north. He bought the former Benson property for $2.5 million (which was then surplus government property following the end of World War I). He built the 6-story Montauk Improvement Building in downtown Montauk (which is still the town's tallest occupied structure - as zoning has forbidden highrise structures), the Montauk Manor (which was a luxury hotel), dredged Lake Montauk and opened it to Block Island Sound to support his Montauk Yacht Club and the associated Star Island Casnio as well as theMontauk Downs golf club.[14] Fisher was to lose his fortune in the Crash of 1929 and the land was sold back to the military in World War II.
Through the years East Hampton's wealth has evolved emanating out from the village taking over the farmland that had once been dominated by potato fields. The most dazzling row of mansions remains in the village of East Hampton on the closest road paralleling the ocean along Further Lane and Lily Pond Lane.
While ostentatious displays of wealth occurred near the ocean ("south of the Montauk Highway") much simpler houses and bungalows have been built through the years throughout its history particularly in Springs and Montauk. In the 1950s and 1960s following the Kitchen Debate between Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon more than cheap affordable prefabricated housing second homes called Leisurama were built in Montauk at Culloden Point.
In November 2006, the median price of a house in the Town was US $895,000 [15] compared with a national median for the U.S. of $225,000.[16] Several houses in East Hampton now sell for prices in the tens of millions of dollars. Living in East Hampton is expensive. In 2007 the cost of living was 168% of the national average.[17]
Artist Colony is now owned by State University of New York at Stony Brook with scheduled appointments to see his studio, which was left unchanged after his death.
East Hampton's reputation as an artists colony began with painter Jackson Pollock, who resided in Springs, New York in the 1940s and 1950s, with Lee Krasner, at what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio. Many of his most famous paintings were painted in the barn, which he had converted into a studio. The property is now open to the public for tours, by appointment.
Among the other artists who popularized East Hampton as an artists colony were Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Ian Hornak, Larry Rivers, Alfonso Ossorio, Robert Motherwell, Andy Warhol and Thomas Moran, as well as art dealers Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnabend.
Pollock died in 1956 while driving with his mistress, Ruth Kligman, and a friend of hers, on Springs Fireplace Road, after picking them up at the Long Island Railroad station in East Hampton.[18]
Pollock and Krasner are buried in Green River Cemetery, in Springs, along with many of the artists of their generation. Pollock's influence continues to be felt in the community.
Marcia Gay Harden won a 2000 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for portraying Krasner in Pollock (film) which was shot in East Hampton as the dream project of Ed Harris, who was also nominated for Best Actor.
An ongoing debate rages over whether 24 paintings and drawings found in a Wainscott locker in 2003 are Pollock originals. Physicists have argued over whether fractals can be used to authenticate the paintings. The debate is still inconclusive.[19]
Andy Warhol and his longtime collaborator, Paul Morrissey, had a large, waterfront estate in Montauk called Eothen. Among their guests were Jacqueline Onassis, Lee Radziwill, the Rolling Stones, Bianca Jagger,Jerry Hall, Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor, John Lennon, John Phillips[disambiguation needed], and Halston.[20]
In 1993 the Andy Warhol Foundation donated 15.6 acres (63,000 m2) of the estate to the Nature Conservancy for the Andy Warhol Visual Arts Preserve which is run in conjunction with Art Barge in nearby Napeague.[21]