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The village of Easthampton was founded in 1648 by Puritan farmers who worshiped as Presbyterians. The community was based on farming, with some fishing and whaling. Whales that washed up on the beach were butchered, and whales were hunted offshore with rowboats sometimes manned by Montauk Indians. The lack of a good harbor in East Hampton, however, resulted in Sag Harbor becoming a whaling center which sent ships to the Pacific.

The land had been purchased in 1648 by the governors of Connecticut Colony and New Haven Colony from the Montauk Indians, in large part for small drills to make wampum, their traditional industry; hunting and fishing rights were retained. It was then sold for about £30 to settlers, some from Lynn and Salem, Massachusetts, who had not found room for their herds in Massachusetts Bay Colony. The original name for the village was Maidstone, from a village in Kent where some of the settlers may have originated. Each original settler was allotted a village lot of several acres and rights in common to surrounding lands which were regulated by the town government. The area was transferred to the jurisdiction of New York in 1664.

In large part, early settlers in East Hampton were unacquainted with one another. A great deal of jockeying for position resulted, which took the form of legal proceedings conducted by the town government. Summaries of these proceedings were recorded by the town clerk and form the major resource for historians studying East Hampton during the 17th Century; there are few other written records such as diaries.