Bridgehampton Finally Gets An Historic District

by Joe Enright

As you inch along Montauk Highway traffic, you might notice a marker tucked away on the south side of Main Street in Bridgehampton, just before the big stone monument and flagpole. 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 had done 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 too fresh for Long Islanders to feel any other way. It is said that future traitor Aaron Burr attended the rally and might have even whet his whistle at John Wick’s Bull’s Head Tavern on the northeast corner of the Commons, where Montauk Highway

Bees

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Then I’m off to New Orleans for the American Beekeeping Federation’s (ABF) annual conference and trade show. An eighty-year-old organization, the ABF is different than other beekeeping organizations as they have a paid lobbyist. Their mission is to act on behalf of the beekeeping industry on issues affecting the interests and the economic viability of the various sectors of the beekeeping industry. They put on an outstanding annual conference with a variety of speakers and researchers presenting important and useful information to their membership.

I will be giving two talks at ABF this year: ‘Value Added Products from the Hive for Health and Wealth’ and ‘Mind Your Own Beeswax and Your Propolis Too’. The first delves a little into apitherapy, a variety of hive products and the medicinal benefits of each, and how beekeepers can make and market these products. The second talk goes into detail on harvesting, processing, and making products from beeswax and propolis, with a little information about the medicinal benefits of both. If you have not heard of propolis, please look it up. It is a powerful medicine made by honey bees.

If everything goes according to plan, a few new ribbons will be added to my collection. I’ll report back on some of the more interesting conference details next month, but if you’d like to follow along on my daily adventures, find out what is coming up in my bee world, or learn important bee-centric news and views, please follow along on my Instagram or Facebook pages. I am Bonac Bees on both platforms and always welcome new followers. Bonac Bees celebrated ten years in business this year! To commemorate, I created 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 renova- a program called “Coddle a Colony”. All the fun details on this program and more can be found on my website, BonacBees.com.

Until next time, I think I’ll try to beguile George with information about honey bees mating practices. I mean, who wouldn’t want to know that the queen bee leaves the hive on her onetime mating flight at about 2 weeks of age and flies to the drone congregation area, where she mates with over a dozen male bees from other colonies? If that isn’t interesting enough, maybe he’d think the readers would like to know that the male honey bee becomes paralyzed after his endophallus is everted into the queen. Upon ejaculation, his endophallus explodes and breaks off inside the queen as he flips backwards and falls to Earth in a long and lonely death spiral. If you are in the right place at the right time, you can actually hear the popping sounds of honey bee procreation. As I mentioned earlier, timing is everything tion, 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. when it comes to beekeeping.

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 had their priorities right,” came the ready response. 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. “In 1700,” somebody smirked, “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.