I was working the day shift out of the Amagansett Star-Revue headquarters when the phone rang, and I heard a familiar cry.
“Enright! We need some history!!”
It was George again. “You want real history, boss, or can I jazz it up?”
“Not jazz, history! Pay attention. I just saw a sign in Bridgehampton. I texted you a photo. Get on it!”
Click.
Later, as I inched along Montauk Highway traffic, I noticed the marker tucked away on the south side of Main Street in Bridgehampton, just before the Old Glory flagpole and big stone monument attesting to the hamlet’s age.
It’s a blue plaque on a street pole that stands outside a parking lot for boutique stores, proclaiming the area was once “Triangular Commons,” where militia from the surrounding settlements gathered to train from 1649 until 1776…Hmmm…1776…that year rings a bell.
Ah, yes. August of 1776, when 32,000 soldiers, the largest expeditionary force that England had ever assembled, invaded Brooklyn. George Washington thought he would hold the high ground with a series of forts in Fort Greene, Red Hook, and Cobble Hill, pounding the attacking redcoats as they climbed the Brooklyn heights, just like the Boston militia did months earlier on Bunker Hill. To assist the Continental Army, the Bridgehampton militia was mobilized to protect the far eastern flank and herd livestock deeper into Queens, away from the hungry enemy. But whilst on that mission, the British quickly overwhelmed the colonials, forcing Washington to abandon Long Island. With the European invaders busily occupying homes, gathering food, mowing down trees for firewood and hunting rebels and informers, the militia men wisely fled east and then north across the Sound to fight another day.
And so the Commons would not see marching men for many years. It did however witness a huge throng in 1798, protesting the maritime policies of President John Adams and Governor John Jay that seemed to be leading the young nation toward an alliance with England in a war against France. The wounds of English occupation were still far too fresh for Long Islanders to feel anything but loathing for such a conflict. Future traitor Aaron Burr attended the Bridgehampton rally and it is said he might have even whet his whistle at John Wick’s Bull’s Head Tavern on the northeast corner of the Commons, where Montauk Highway intersected with the old Sag Harbor Turnpike. That Tavern, built in 1686, was torn down in 1939, replaced by a gas station. Another plaque on another pole is all that marks the spot.
Happily for history buffs like me, the rest of the historic buildings surrounding the Triangular Commons will now be preserved, thanks to substantial investments of time, energy, and thoughtful planning that has created the new Bridgehampton Bull’s Head-Main Street Historic District.
On October 24, a public meeting of the Southampton Town Board was held to discuss the matter and hear objections from hamlet residents. But only one dissenting voice was heard, from a home owner who described a house so badly in need of renovation, the only thing historic remaining would be the enormous bill from contractors. Her house was readily excluded by the Board, clearing the path for passage of a final resolution on December 14, a designation six years in the making.
At a prior Town Board meeting, after a presentation on the history of the hamlet, someone remarked that the first building in Bridgehampton was a tavern. “Well, they certainly had their priorities right,” came the ready response of a Board member. Julie Greene, the Town historian – who completed the extensive historical research in-house, saving taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in lieu of the Board hiring a consultant – pointed out that the tavern also served as an inn for travelers who needed to bed down before continuing their eastward trek. “No doubt,” somebody agreed, “but in 1790 it probably took less time to get to East Hampton on horseback than it does today in a car.” The Board was unanimous in its assent.
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