East End Cemetery Amagansett

When I was a little girl my father would take me and my sister for long car rides out to the end of Long Island. He would take the old main road,... more

by Barbara Barber

Original - Not For Sale

Price

Not Specified

Dimensions

40.000 x 30.000 x 1.500 inches

Title

East End Cemetery Amagansett

Artist

Barbara Barber

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

When I was a little girl my father would take me and my sister for long car rides out to the end of Long Island. He would take the old main road, otherwise known as Montauk Highway, which runs all the way down Long Island to Montauk, the very end on the South side of the Island.

I always thrilled when I saw this old and very enchanting graveyard near the very end of Long Island in off Montauk Highway and the corner of Atlantic Avenue, in Amagansett. I wanted to paint it even back then and finally went back a few summers ago and realized my ambition.

The first deed referring to Amagansett is dated 1683. By means of that document the Reverend Thomas James sold to Abraham Schlellinger 52 acres of woods by a highway known as Amagansett commonly called Amagansett Way. The name Schlellinger is commonly found on many of the tombstones in the ancient burial ground. The earliest families who settled in Amagansett were the Bakers, the Conklings and the Mulfords. Alice Baker, who died on February 4th 1708 at age 88, was the wife of Thomas Baker, the first to settle the village.

The great painter, Thomas Moran, painted the beauty of the East End in 1850. When the settlers came to the region the Native Americans greeted them without hostility. The warm reception was largely the result of the friendship between Lion Gardiner and the sachem Wyandanch. Gardiner went so far as to offer himself as a hostage to obtain the release of Wyandanch's daughter when she was abducted by the Pequots.

Amagansett derives its name from the Montaukett name for "place of good water" from a water source near what today is Indian Wells beach.

Unlike the rest of the Hamptons, Amagansett was initially settled by the Baker, Conklin, and Barnes families, descendants of English settlers, and the Dutch brothers Abraham and Jacob Schellinger, the sons of a New Amsterdam merchant who moved to East Hampton between 1680 and 1690 after the English took over New Amsterdam.

Many houses and other buildings still stand from the 19th and even 18th century in Amagansett, Montauk, the Hamptons and other Long Island communities.

Uploaded

September 30th, 2012