Welcome to Sherrill Diaries, East Hampton

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.

I miss her passion, her curiosity, her insistence that documentation mattered.

Going through her papers, I’ve found a treasure trove of research notes, reworked essays, an unpublished master’s thesis, and articles from her 1992 history symposium “Maidstone Revisited.” Sherrill Diaries, East Hampton is my place to share her writings — essays on East Hampton families, the Dominy craftsmen, Lion Gardiner's world, and colonial life.

Part Archive. Part Conversation.

But this is more than an archive. I'm continuing her work and inviting you into it. If you have memories, questions, stories, or photos to share, please reach out. Let’s make this a conversation.

A Personal Connection

I grew up spending summers at my grandfather's farm, Sherrill's Dairy, listening to my grandmother's stories and cooking what was fresh, local, and in season. Those summers shaped me. Morning fog rolling over the farm, soft ocean air, briny little necks, the feeling of being part of something that stretched back generations.

I now live in Orient with my husband Tom, a mushroom forager. We were early founders of Slow Food East End in 2004, drawn to the connection between place, food, and tradition.

This blog is my way of keeping that connection alive, preserving what matters, honoring what came before, and making it meaningful today.

Welcome to Sherrill Diaries, East Hampton. I'm glad you're here.

Mary

Photo: Rigging the Snipe, c. 1943