An Address Delivered on the 26th of December, 1849, on the Celebration of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of East-Hampton, together with an Appendix, containing a general history of the town from its first settlement to the year 1800…

Sag-Harbor, Long Island, New York: Corrector Office, 1850. 8vo (9” x 5.5”), original printed wrappers sympathetically rebacked. [2], [i–vi], [1]–100, [1] pp., separately printed additions to errata affixed to foot of errata page. CONDITION: Very good, remnant of old dealer description affixed to upper-left corner inside front-wrapper, manuscript accession number in ink along inner margin dedication page, a few scattered contemporary pencil annotations to text, newspaper clippings affixed to foot of pp. 51 and 65 (no effect on text), some toning as expected, a very good copy.

First edition of this bicentennial history of East Hampton, written primarily as a “tribute to the character of our Puritan Ancestors” with the intention of correcting “some unfavorable impressions in reference to the so often scouted East End.” One chapter focuses on the Montauk people, and pages 52–72 contain genealogical information on several prominent East Hampton families, including the Gardiners, Corlklings, Daytons, Hedges, Huntings, and others. Hedges relied especially on John Lyon Gardiner’s manuscript entitled the “Chronicles of East Hampton” in preparing this pamphlet for publication.

Born in New York, Henry P. Hedges (1817–1911) was a lawyer, politician, and judge. After graduating from Yale College, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1842. In 1843, he moved to Long Island and opened a law office in Sag Harbor, which he maintained until 1893. He moved to Bridgehampton in 1854 and opened a law office there as well. In 1851, he was elected to the New York State Assembly as a Whig, representing the Suffolk County 1st District. Hedges was one of the founders of the Republican Party in 1856, and subsequently served as district attorney of Suffolk County, county judge, an office he held for four years. In 1880, he returned to his private law practice. Hedges was an authority on the history of eastern Long Island, where his ancestors lived since its first settlement. At the age of eighty, he published A History of the Town of East Hampton.