Introduction: a Local Legend and a Romance

Who is Sammy of Sammy's Beach? Did you ever wonder?

We Sherrills all heard the story growing up—it was our family legend about "the first of that name in East Hampton." My grandmother told it to her friend Jeannette Rattray, who included it in East Hampton History (page 544.) For us, it was a charming story.

My mother, Sherrill Foster, was East Hampton's town historian and longtime “Around the Green” columnist for The East Hampton Independent. For decades, she dove into archives, tracked down diaries and letters, weaving together the accounts of our town’s early history. She loved the detective work, the discovery, the piecing together of a puzzle. If you knew my mother, you would remember her excitement at finding something unexpected. For her, history was a quest for truth.