Southampton's Summer Colony: The Beginning

Esperanza and Irwin discuss the beginnings of the Southampton Summer Colony, inspired by Dr. David Goddard's "Colonizing Southampton". In September of 1863, a young Manhattan physician of means by the name of Theodore Gaillard Thomas went by horse and wagon out to visit the farms and rural villages of Long Island with his wife. The trip lasted many days. The couple spent their first two nights in Babylon staying at a rooming house, then pressed on to Quogue, Southampton, East Hampton and Montauk, finally spending a night out at the lighthouse with the keeper and his family there. During this sojourn, Thomas fell in love with the simple though bucolic communities of eastern Long Island and, after returning to Manhattan, vowed that sometime in the future he would return with some friends with the intention of establishing a summer colony there. He had become charmed by the farmland that went down to the ocean, the single Main Streets with the Presbyterian Church, the blacksmith shops, feed stores and dry goods stores that marked what were essentially old New England Communities. Dr. Thomas is considered to have been the founder of the Southampton Summer Colony as we know it today. Within four years, he had persuaded many others to build there. By 1882, there were 30 summer owners (a dozen “cottages”) where five years earlier there had been none. Two years later, Dr. Thomas and others in that group met in a Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan to found what was then called the Southampton Village Improvement Association to “beautify the principal streets” and “see to the removal of nuisances” so as to make Southampton even more attractive to possible future summer residents. As you might have imagined, they soon came into conflict with the local residents of the community—there were about 500 of them, who were enjoying the town as their ancestors had for 200 years before—farming the land, fishing the waters and otherwise engaging successfully in rural activities. Sound familiar?