COMMERCE, NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 6l 



even tnen shown marked advances toward that commercial development 

 which its natural conditions invited and which the enterprise of its people 

 made necessary, that by an act of Congress in 1788 Sag Harbor was con- 

 stituted a Port of Entry and U. S. Collection District, being named first in 

 the act, which also erected the port of New York. It was then and for 

 some time afterward relatively the more important port of the two. It has 

 continued a port of entry and a collection district ever since, though under- 

 going great variations in the amounts of tonnage registered and business done 

 within its jurisdiction. David Gardiner, of East-Hampton, wrote and pub- 

 lished in the Sag Harbor Corrector about the year 1840, a series of " Chron- 

 icles of the town of East-Hampton," which were afterwards revised, gathered 

 into book form, and printed in New York in 187 1. In this work, on page 

 71, he says, what the historian Prime had already said in almost the same 

 words, apparently adopting them from the Corrector s print, that "As early 

 as 1 760, when yet the commerce of New York was carried on principally 

 with schooners and sloops, a small trade was had from this port (meaning 

 Sag Harbor) with the West Indies. Col. Gardiner owned two brigs en- 

 gaged in that trade, and there were several sloops employed in the fisheries 

 and coasting business partially owned by the inhabitants of this town. On 

 the conclusion of the war Dr. N. Gardiner and his brother purchased a ship 

 called the Hope and sent her upon a whaling voyage under command of 

 Capt. Ripley, she being the first ship that sailed from Sag Harbor. About 

 the same time they dispatched a brig of the first class upon a like voyage. 

 These voyages were unsuccessful.'' 



John Gelston, of N. Y. City, a native of Bridge-Hampton, was the 

 first Collector of customs, having been appointed under Washington. He 

 served about a year and was succeeded by Henry P. Dering who held the 

 ofiice for 31 years until 1821, when his son, Henry Thomas Dering, was 

 appointed, and for many years he, too, served in that ofiice to the great 

 satisfaction of all who had to do with it. 



On page 91 of Gardiner's Chronicles it is recorded that "The princi- 

 pal commercial intercourse was had with Boston, and several sloops were 

 employed in the trade ; among others as early as 1765, the sloop Endeavor, 

 Abraham Schelling master. Cattle, horses, sheep, goats and oil were bar- 

 tered for lumber, the produce of the West India islands, and such articles 

 as merchants deal in." The trade with the Indians which began with the 

 first settlement and continued throughout on a basis of practically uninter- 

 rupted friendship and good will, consisted mainly in an exchange of rum, 

 ammunition and guns for pelts and furs. * 



The boundary line between the English and Dutch was established at 

 Hartford by commissioners, who fixed it at the westernmost line of Oyster- 

 bay southerly to the sea. From 1640 to 1664, the settlers were virtually 

 their own masters and owned allegiance to no one lower in authority than 

 the British Crown itself. The first individual English settler in this county 

 and State was Lyon Gardiner, on Gardiner's Island, in 1639. The dates 



*A brief extract from the introduction to the excellent History of New London by Miss 

 Frances Manwaring Caulkins may not be out of place here : 



"Here lies Connecticut and Long Inland forever looking at each other from their 

 white shores with loving eyes, linked as they are by the ties* of a common origin, c ongen- 

 ial character and similar institutions; and guarding with watchful care that inland sea which, 

 won from the ocean, lies like a noble captive between them, subdued to theii- service and 

 enclosed by their protecting arms-" 



