Those of you who are history buffs and planning to visit the Hamptons are definitely in for a treat. Both East Hampton and Southampton have fascinating stories dating from before the first English settlers established the community at the Hamptons almost 370 years ago..
Crime and Punishment
Today, torture is back in the news, but it wasn't news in the Hamptons back in the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1725, Dick Syme was hired for the position of town's Common Whipper; he was paid 3 shillings (the equivalent of about 50 cents today) for each person whipped.
Seventy-five years earlier, a woman named Anne "Goody" Edwards was fined the amount of 3 pounds. Her offense appears to have been asserting her independence; period documents describe her as a "very ignorant, selfish and imperious" woman - which (feminists take note) meant that she had refused to submit to the authority of her husband or father. According to the story, a warrant had been issued requiring her to appear before the magistrate of that that particular village in the Hamptons; she basically told the magistrate what he could do with his warrant.
Had she refused to pay the fine, she faced the punishment of having her "tonge in a clefte-stycke" - a device frequently used in those days to "cyrb the tonge of women whycche talketh to idle."
The Wild East
For twenty years following the American Civil War, the great Cattle Drives of the Wild West were the stuff of legend. However, these were not confined to the western territories; East Hampton's Main Street was the path of a major cattle drive twice every year as local farmers moved their livestock to the pasturelands around Montauk in the spring and back again in the fall. These cattle drives had been happening since the first settlers established farms, and continued in the Hamptons until well into the 1900s.
"Thar's Gold In Them Hills!"
Polly Sweet was born in the Hamptons in 1815. At the relatively young age of 30, she became the first woman from New York State to make the arduous overland crossing of the country on the Oregon Trail, then following California Trail over present-day Interstate 80 across the deserts of Utah and Nevada. She was also the first woman on the scene when gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in 1848.
Champion Swimmer and TV Legend
Three miles seperate Fireplace Point in the Hamptons from Gardinier's Island. Since the late 1920s, many athletes have attempted this challenging and dangerous swim; the record of two hours was set by one Cleon Dodge, who accomplished the feat in just under two hours, beating the time of the very first swimmer to ply those waters - a camp swimming instructor who would go on to have a prominent career as a bandleader and define mainstream American culture in the 1950s through his popular TV show.
That swimming instructor's name was Ozzie Nelson.
These are just a few of the fun and fascinating facts you can learn when you visit the Hamptons.
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