Historical areas in the villages remind us of the 'old days' when where you came from and where you lived really said a lot about who you were. Some things never change. Photo by Nicole B. Brewer

Dear readers, I am taking the week off. In my place is Bill Gardiner (as in Gardiner's Bay, Gardiner's Island, various lanes, and a host of farms) to give local folks and visitors for this seasonal start a "sense of place" as to where they are.

In the late 19th century some artists and writers were shipped out east to report on remote Long Island villages. They saw, they stayed, renting for eight dollars a week at East Hampton's Rowdy Hall, reporting, "a place of magical beauty reaching the very limit of creation, tranquil, untroubled and time forgotten with light so delicious…"

Bill De Kooning added years later, "Local people let us live and work, trading food for paintings. Artists could struggle and survive together."

Who were these locals? Their traditions? Their way of saying things?

Well, first of all, they might look askance at a recent article referring to Tom Lester, (who farmed the waters with his wife Cathy) as a Bonacker. Tom, like most of the Springs Lesters, was a Round Swamper. Bonackers were those who lived on Accabonac, down near the Harbor, Accabonac, not Three Mile. But then that article was penned by a 'come here', which was a way of identifying newcomers, those who were not from our town but from away.

And Bonackers were kind of looked down on by the rest of the town. Today everyone wants to be one. Like any small town, East Hampton had its stratifications that let people know as to who, what, and where. I was an 'up streeter' which placed me in East Hampton Village. Not many 'up streeters' were in the public schools (one school for all of East Hampton). I was beaten up routinely for being one.

The EMOs lived in Amagansett, the Edwards, Mulford and Osborne families. The other Osborn family, crop farmers, the Wainscott Dumplings, hailed from that hamlet. Later in Amagansett were Bunker Hills, Little Italy, and the DiSunno family and others from their Neapolitan villages, most who came to help build the railroad. The Promised Landers were off Napeague near that Harbor, and near the Fish Factory.

Other than Springs, Amagansett, Montauk, Northwest (where locals had their tree lots which once had been the site of the town's first settlement on Northwest Harbor), and the Village, there was half of Sag Harbor – the other half in Southampton - that fell into hard times losing its pre-eminent and profitable position as the Port of New York to the City, replacing the Harbor's bustling commerce and trade from its once flourishing whaling days.

Freetowner is a category still used today. The Gardiner family had something to do with that. A long ago a grandfather who farmed land from Springs to Wainscott gave parcels to families working for him so they could live on the land they toiled. Those parcels were between Amagansett and East Hampton Village which locals called Freetown because the land was given free.

There were Lesters other than the Round Swampers mentioned earlier. The Posey Lesters – Frank Lester always sported the flower in Church and the Skimhampton Lesters descending from Sam.

Montauk with its fishing village (destroyed in the 1938 hurricane) was inhabited by the 'come heres' from Nova Scotia and other Canadian off-shore islands. Montauk was pastureland. Not enough topsoil for farming. In East Hampton Village cattle grazed on the Maidstone fields. And we still live on the Gardiner Farm off James Lane.

James Lane in the Village was named for the Reverend, urgently sent for by Lion Gardiner (all of us 'come heres', I guess) to come from England and guide the heathens. (Heathens were the non-pious settlers, not the native Indians who, perhaps foolishly, allowed the visitors to stay. I think that's where that welcoming soul characterizing the Town came from - its original dwellers!).

Fireplace? That was where the fires were to signal the folks on Gardiner's Island that supplies were needed or had arrived. Louse Point? That's where the children were routinely taken for delousing. What a great view they had while enduring that procedure.

The town had its stratifications for sure, some were cruel. But there was not one soul from Montauk to Townline that wouldn't give the shirt off their backs in times of desperate need. Some Social Service assistance from Ma Jones and from folks who quietly, without keeping score, would bring food and extra clothes if that's what was needed.

That was the sense of place and sense of community, the sense of a larger family embracing you, there for you - that was so special out here. Out East was a place "where poor folks could live, off the land, off the sea," said George "Sid" Miller, from the Springs Millers. Out East touched those artists' and writers' souls who came for a visit, stayed, and brought other waves in later years.

A sense of place? It's still there. Just harder to find.

Yes, well welcome to the Hamptons. Thanks, Bill, but how did East End real estate become such a very strange business?