November 2023
History Matters
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Dear Friend,
A recent family visit to the Stratford Hall Historic Preserve reminded me that we are constantly connected to the past, often in surprising ways. It can happen in East Hampton whenever we notice a local historic house that’s for sale, visit a business that’s been around for generations, or try to identify the East Hampton Star’s “Recovering the Past” photograph. As the historian, David Thelen has described it, we need and depend upon the past just like we need food and oxygen.
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Stratford Hall, located in Stratford Virginia, overlooks bluffs on the bank of the Potomac River. These bluffs date to the Middle Miocene Epoch over 11 million years ago. As my nine-year-old son and I walked along the river, we encountered two people standing in the shallows, bent down to peer into the water. Introducing themselves as Kelly and Josh, they had come from Western Virginia to look for fossils. While the staff at Stratford Hall had shown us fossilized megalodon teeth and part of a whale head that were discovered in the bluffs, it never occurred to me that it was possible for a couple of amateur fossil hunters to find them in the same river that flows past Washington, DC. After Kelly and Josh showed my son what to look for, he soon discovered fossilized shark teeth and ray dental plates plus petrified wood, which are shown in the above photo. Since a shark loses over 20,000 teeth during its lifetime, it’s not surprising the teeth are so plentiful in the Potomac. Finding fossils was the highlight of his trip to Stratford and my son couldn’t wait to share what he discovered with his classmates at John M. Marshall Elementary School.
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Like the East Hampton Historical Society, Stratford Hall presents both natural history and cultural history in its education programs so that students may connect with the past in a variety of ways. While I especially liked “walking in the footsteps of the past” by visiting Stratford Hall’s historic buildings, my son had the chance to walk among the past’s teeth.
Sincerely,
Steve Long
Executive Director
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Our 38th Annual House & Garden Tour Benefit!
Friday, November 24 & Saturday, November 25
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It’s our 38th Annual “House & Garden Tour” fundraiser, which kicks off with a Cocktail Party on Friday, November 24 and the Tour on Saturday, November 25! Dedicated in memory of Joseph Aversano, the long-time Chair of the House & Garden Tour, this year’s edition offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see five spectacular houses located in East Hampton Village and the Devon Colony.
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Please join us as a “Tour Sponsor,” which entitles you to attend the Cocktail Party on the evening before the Tour. “Tour Sponsors” will be acknowledged in the House & Garden Tour program that is distributed to all attendees and friends of the Historical Society. Last year’s tour sold out so buy your tickets soon!
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Cocktail Party: Friday, November 24 from 6 – 8pm
House & Garden Tour: Saturday, November 25 from 1 – 4:30pm
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Photo Credit: Francis Fleetwood, Courtesy Fleetwood, McMullan & Sanabria Architects.
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Join us for a Historical Guided Tour this Weekend!
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Friday, November 3, 5:30pm: Lantern Tour of Main Street, East Hampton (IT’S BACK!)
(Meet at Clinton Academy, 151 Main Street East Hampton)
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Saturday, November 4, 10am: Tour the Thomas and Mary Nimmo Moran Home & Studio
(Meet at 229 Main Street, East Hampton)
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Sunday, November 5, 11am: Dominy Shops
(Meet at 73 N Main Street, East Hampton)
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For more information, please email or call us at 631-324-6850
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Q&A with Jeff Heatley, author of BULLY!
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On Veteran’s Day, Jeff Heatley will be at the Montauk Lighthouse with Mia Certic, Director of the Montauk Historical Society to discuss and sign copies of his book, BULLY! Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders, & Camp Wikoff.
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An architectural photographer, Jeff is the publisher of the indispensable Art & Architecture Quarterly/East End, an online publication devoted to art, architecture, and historic preservation. Recently, we spoke to Jeff about BULLY!
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For people unfamiliar with Camp Wikoff, what was its purpose and where was it located?
- Following the Spanish-American War, Camp Wikoff was a quarantine camp established in Montauk in August 1898 for the Fifth Army Corps, which included Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. More than half of the 22,500 soldiers suffered from tropical fevers – malaria, typhoid, dysentery, yellow fever; but, also, malnutrition, causing a nationwide scandal. And, more than 350 of those debilitated soldiers died at Montauk during the two-month existence of the great encampment. Montauk was selected because of its deep-water harbor at Fort Pond Bay, rail service, isolation, and northern latitude.
How did you initially become interested in Camp Wikoff?
- In the late 1960s/early 1970s, my father handled marketing for Nick Monte, owner of Gurney’s Inn. When there was a possibility that Third House & Ranch would be put up for sale, Nick Monte was interested in purchasing the property and making it available to guests of Gurney’s Inn. There was a rumor that Theodore Roosevelt had once stayed at Third House, and, if he had, that would be a marketing “hook.” My father asked me to find out if Theodore Roosevelt had ever stayed at Third House. Starting my quest at the New York Public Library Newspaper Archives, I was amazed by the press coverage of Camp Wikoff, which taken together created a vivid picture of a camp, balancing life and death, with limited supplies and support. Moreover, the daily papers, unable to reproduce halftones, relied on artists to illustrate the various aspects of the camp, from fallen soldiers to bronco busting.
What specific sources did you draw upon for Bully?
- In the 1890s, there were ongoing newspaper circulation wars in New York City, led by Hearst’s New York Journal and Pulitzer’s The World. Because the writing was so vivid & coverage so complete, I saw little reason to re-write the story of Camp Wikoff – better to let those who were there describe what they witnessed first-hand. This was possible as news was limited to daily newspaper reports, absent radio, television and the internet. In addition, I included reports & editorials from eight local papers. To these chronological accounts, I added Theodore Roosevelt’s personal letters written during this period, giving a clearer picture to his decision-making process in regard to military & political matters.
As you just alluded to, Theodore Roosevelt was among the returning soldiers at Camp Wikoff. How did his experience at the camp affect his trajectory in politics?
- In 1898, Teddy Roosevelt was THE national war hero, setting an example the nation embraced. Coincidentally, there was also a gubernatorial election that year in New York and calls went up for Roosevelt to run for Governor; however, the incumbent Republican Governor, Frank S. Black, was seeking re-election. A political struggle followed, which ultimately led to Roosevelt’s nomination as the Republican Gubernatorial candidate in Saratoga on September 27, followed by his election victory on November 8. News coverage of Roosevelt at Camp Wikoff was critical to his political rise.
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BULLY! / published by Montauk Historical Society & East End Press, with a grant from the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.
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While researching in the East Hampton Star, we discovered a letter to the editor written in 1989 by Frank Dayton in which he detailed what happened to the gondola that Thomas Moran had purchased in Venice, Italy. Born in 1903, Frank Dayton was a well-known builder who collected historic photographs of East Hampton while also taking his own pictures. Although the letter is long, it contains wonderful details that we wanted to share with you in full.
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“I knew Ruth Moran, [Thomas Moran’s] daughter, very well. We were both members of that very enjoyable organization known as the Guild Hall Players, and I, with others, spent many an evening rehearsing my lines in her studio. She was completely devoted to the memory of her father and that gondola was her pride and joy. We often heard the story of its coming to Sag Harbor, lashed to the side of the New York-Sag Harbor boat, and then to East Hampton by way of a specially lengthened wagon. Her father used it on Hook Pond, and his gondolier was a Montauk Indian descendent, a Fowler or Butler, I don’t recall which.
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“When it was no longer used on the water, it was brought to Mr. Moran’s yard and carefully stored on blocks, where it lay for years. In my years as a building contractor, one of our annual tasks was to see that the gondola was carefully protected from the weather. The little carved “cab,” which could be lifted off the boat, was stored separately in a small shed especially built for that purpose. The seats were kept in the house, beside the fireplace.
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“At her death, Miss Moran left the gondola to the East Hampton Library, where it caused no end of problems, as it was of no use to them and there was no storage building available. As my wife was president of the library board at the time, I was well aware of the problems they had for its disposal. It was offered to several museums, with little success. The only one to show any real interest was the marine museum at Newport News, VA., where we both went to discuss the matter and make arrangements for its transportation. The cab, seats, and other accoutrement were brought to our shop and crated, and together with the gondola after some difficulty, they were loaded on a railroad flatcar and sent on their way south. As far as I know, they are still there.
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“It is unfortunate that, at the time, the East Hampton Historical Society did not have the Marine Museum at Amagansett. That beautifully shaped thing with its high pointed ends and carved woodwork, which Thomas Moran took the trouble to bring to America, would have been a fascinating attraction. It was certainly our loss.”
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While the East Hampton Historical Society did not yet have the Marine Museum, the organization stored the gondola at Mulford Farm for two years after Ruth Moran died in 1948. Historical Society Board President, Hilary Osborn Malecki discovered that the East Hampton Library loaned it to the Historical Society and LVIS, not long after they jointly purchased the Mulford property. In October 1948, the East Hampton Star published a photo showing the gondola in transit. In 1950, when the LVIS rejected an offer to house it permanently, Ruth Moran’s “pride and joy” was shipped to Newport News, just as Frank Dayton described, where the gondola is currently exhibited at the Mariners Museum.
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Visitors to the Moran Home & Studio can see the blue shed, mentioned by Frank Dayton, that housed the gondola cab and a photograph of Mary Nimmo and Ruth Moran seated in the gondola with George Fowler working as the gondolier.
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A Shop Full of Unique Gifts Online!
Check out the great items online!
You can shop online and have your order shipped directly to you or picked up at Clinton Academy.
Use code FLASH for 50% off your order.
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East Hampton Historical Society
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