Dan’s Papers July 1, 2011 danshamptons.com Page 39
Meig’s Raid on Long Wharf
Getting Free Why Sag Harbor Should Erect a Statue to Christopher Vail
Dan Rattiner’s second memoir, IN THE HAMPTONS TOO: Further Encounters with Farmers, Fishermen, Artists, Billionaires and Celebrities, is now available in hardcover wherever books are sold. The first memoir, IN THE HAMPTONS, published by Random House, is now available in paperback.
Here is his very first entry. This was just two months after the Battle of Bunker Hill. “I, Christopher Vail of Sagg-harbour, Suffolk County and State of New York enlist as a soldier in Capt. John Hulbert’s Company.� He had joined the Rebels. John Hulbert’s Company, known as the Courtesy of Suffolk Co. Hist. Soc.
By Dan Rattiner As we celebrate the signing of our Declaration of Independence this holiday weekend, it is important to recall the various skirmishes and battles that took place here in the Hamptons during that turbulent time. Men died to give us our freedom. And though the Hamptons and the rest of the East End remained in British hands until the very end of the war, it did not come easy for them to control the island. Quite remarkably, there was one young man from Sag Harbor who figures quite prominently in many of these skirmishes and battles in the Hamptons. His name was Christopher Vail, and in 1775, when the Battle of Bunker Hill took place in Boston with the shot heard round the world, he was a 17 year old, working as a rope maker in that port town. The war had started. And he stepped forward. We know this because for the next five years he kept a diary of his life. A copy of it is in the Library of Congress in Washington. You can read it in its entirety if you like. You will find it, all 18,000 words of it, online at www.americanrevolution. org/vail.html.
The Hulbert Flag
Around 1900, a man in his late twenties named Morton Pennypacker moved to Southampton from Pennsylvania, married an East Hampton girl and went into the publicity business. She became the librarian of the East Hampton Free Library. He became a proliďŹ c writer and collector of historical data about the Revolutionary War, mostly about the spy ring that George Washington had put together. His book “George Washington’s Spies - the Culper Ringâ€? became nationally known because
Bridgehampton Militia, assembled, trained and learned how to use their weapons on what was then a parade ground on the southwest corner of Montauk Highway and Ocean Road, right in the center of downtown Bridgehampton. There is a small park called Militia Park that sits behind Almond Restaurant on that corner today that marks the location. Across the street, on the northwest corner of the intersection, there exists today a historic marker, which notes that during Revolutionary War times, Wick’s Tavern existed on that spot. Men of all ages assembled here and argued back and forth about the rebellion that had now started. At the time, the commerce on the East End consisted of cattle raising, farming and fishing. Many people supported the status quo. The British had mostly ruled the East End gently until that time. They had constables in Southampton and East Hampton. And everyone, after all, was a British subject. If you want to fight, then go, the elders said. And so the young men, Christopher Vail among them, did. The company, consisting of several hundred men, boarded ships at Sag Harbor and headed to New York to receive further instructions from the newly appointed leader of the American Army, General Washington. Washington had them march to Ticonderoga to join a rebel force that was poised to capture the fort there. Off they went. The Bridgehampton Militia arrived after Fort Ticonderoga had fallen. But the Commander
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