Amagansett, New York

Amagansett /ˌæməˈɡænsət/ is a census-designated place that roughly corresponds to the hamlet by the same name in the Town of East Hampton in Suffolk County, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island. As of the 2010 United States Census, the CDP population was 1,165. Amagansett hamlet was founded in 1680.

The area is sometimes referred to as Skimhampton. However this specifically refers to the area south of the Montauk Highway along Skimhampton Road. The artist Childe Hassam, who lived on Egypt Lane in East Hampton village, painted the area during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Portions of Skimhampton and the area on the northwest side of Amagansett hamlet are within the census-designated place of East Hampton North.

History

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.

Amagansett (LIRR station)

Amagansett is a station on the Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, at Main Street (NY 27) and Abrahms Landing Road (former Suffolk CR 33A) in Amagansett, New York.

History

Amagansett station was opened on June 1, 1895 by the Brooklyn and Montauk Railroad, and closely resembled stations such as Sea Cliff and the former East Williston Depot, but lacked the second story and gingerbread woodwork trim that these depots contained. It was burned to the ground in 1909, reportedly by a disgruntled LIRR employee. The station was rebuilt on August 15, 1910 in the colonial barn style typical of stations such as Riverhead, Bay Shore, Northport, and Mineola. Until 1929, it had train sheds, a wye, and coal and water dispensing facilities. On June 13, 1942, Nazi saboteurs used Amagansett station en route to New York City for the failed mission known as Operation Pastorius. The station house was closed in 1958 or January 1959, then razed on August 31, 1964 and replaced with a sheltered platform in 1965, a fact which has aroused disgust among railfans and local historians. The 1895-built former freight house survives, but was abandoned. High-level platforms were added between 2000 and 2001, as many stations along the Long Island Rail Road were getting at the time.

The Whaleboat House

The Whaleboat House (originally published with the title Amagansett) is a 2004 crime novel by British writer Mark Mills. It is set shortly after the Second World War with the events taking place in and around the small Long Island fishing village of Amagansett.

The novel was originally published under the name Amagansett when it first appeared in 2004. However, when it was later published in paperback, the publishers, HarperCollins, changed the name to The Whaleboat House after deciding that the original title was too elliptical.

Plot summary

Little has changed in Amagansett since the first settlers arrived there some 300 years earlier, but the discovery of the body of Lillian Wallace, a New York socialite, by a local fisherman named Conrad Labarde, shatters the apparent stability and threatens to tear the close-knit community apart.

Labarde (a second generation French Basque recently returned from the war in Europe), and Tom Hollis (a recently divorced former New York police detective posted to the area after his attempt to expose corruption resulted in the death of a colleague), are drawn to investigate Lillian's death, even though it appears to have been a tragic accident. They both have their own separate reasons to suspect that there is more to the death than meets the eye, and that it may have been the result of foul play.