Southampton, NY — Crash Data, Roads, History & Law

History

The Village of Southampton traces its origin to 1640, when a small group of English Puritans sailed from Lynn, Massachusetts, explored Long Island's shoreline, and made landfall at a place later called Conscience Point on North Sea Harbor, where they founded a settlement they named Southampton after the British Earl of Southampton.^[1][2][17] The Town of Southampton's own history page states that "the Town of Southampton is proud to be New York State's first English colony";^[18] the Village's history page similarly calls the 1640 landing "the first permanent English settlement in the State of New York."^[2] The Town of Southold, settled the same year, makes the identical claim on its own official website — "Historically, the Town of Southold is the first English settlement in the State of New York" — so which of the two 1640 landings came first is a dispute between the two towns' own governments rather than a settled fact.^[22]

The English settlers found the area inhabited by the Shinnecock, an Algonquian-speaking people; the Village's history page states that "the Native American Shinnecock tribe sold additional land to the settlers adjoining their original grant of eight miles square" and shared agricultural and fishing knowledge with the colonists.^[3] The Shinnecock Indian Nation's reservation lies in the Town of Southampton; the Nation was not federally recognized until 2010, and litigation over tribal land and gaming rights in the Town is discussed below under Law and Legal History.^[26][27][28]

With the end of the Revolutionary War and the withdrawal of British forces in 1783, the community was slow to recover, according to the Village's account.^[4] The offshore whaling industry, which had begun on a small scale in the late 17th century, grew substantially with long-distance whaling voyages in the 19th century and helped restore the community's prosperity.^[5] Village-listed places of interest from this era include the Elias Pelletreau Silversmith Shop, built in 1686, and the Thomas Halsey Homestead, which the Village dates to 1648 and describes as "the oldest English frame house in the state."^[7][8] Monument Square, in the Village center, was "erected in 1897 in memory of the soldiers and sailors of Southampton who served their country," and the Village's Historical Museum, now operated by the Southampton History Museum, opened in 1951.^[7][9]

The Village was incorporated in 1894, 254 years after the original 1640 settlement.^[1] The Village's own history page ties the Long Island Rail Road's 1872 extension through Southampton to Sag Harbor to the start of the area's transformation into a resort community, as wealthy New Yorkers seeking escape from the city began building large estates during the following building boom of the early 20th century.^[6]

How the roads got here

The New York State Department of Transportation's official touring-route description of NY 27 lists the road running through "North Patchogue, Oakville, North Shinnecock Hills, Southampton, East Hampton, (Montauk Point)" — meaning the road known locally as Sunrise Highway to the west becomes Montauk Highway by the time it reaches the Village, under the single state designation NY 27.^[31] (NY 27A, a separate state touring route also called Montauk Highway in places, runs only between Nassau County and Oakdale, well to the west, and does not reach Southampton.)^[31]

The road popularly called "County Road 39" is, per Suffolk County's own current road list, officially logged as CR 39 "North Road," running from CR 80 (Montauk Highway) to David Whites Lane, with CR 39A ("Flying Point Road") continuing east to NY 27 and CR 39B ("Old North Highway/Canal Road") linking the road's western and eastern segments across the Shinnecock Canal.^[29] That corridor lies north of the incorporated Village, in the North Sea and Noyack area, feeding into NY 27 near the Village's edge rather than passing through the Village itself; Suffolk County's Department of Public Works describes it as "the major transportation challenge facing residents, businesses and visitors to the East End" and has an active corridor study underway to address chronic congestion.^[30][29] County Road 38 (North Sea Road) is logged by the county only from its junction with CR 39 north to a point beyond Millstone Brook Road — the county's list does not include a segment of North Sea Road inside the Village itself, suggesting the stretch nearer the Village center is locally, not county, maintained, though no Village document confirming that ownership was located.^[29]

The Long Island Rail Road reached Southampton with an 1872 extension of its line to Sag Harbor, according to the Village's history page; that extension is credited with opening the area to the wealthy New York vacationers whose summer estates later defined the Village.^[6]

Law and legal history

The Village's prior-written-notice law, Village Code § 95-25, was adopted April 21, 1987 as Local Law No. 1-1987.^[15] It provides: "No civil action shall be commenced against the Village of Southampton for damages or injuries to persons or property sustained by reason of the defective, out-of-repair, unsafe, dangerous or obstructed condition of any highway, street, bridge, culvert, sidewalk or crosswalk, or of the existence of snow or ice thereon," unless written notice was first given to the Village Clerk and the Village failed to act on it within a reasonable time.^[14] The Village Clerk must keep an indexed, public record of all such notices for five years, and the law does not excuse a claimant from separately serving a notice of claim under General Municipal Law § 50-e.^[14]

Land in the western part of the Town of Southampton, an 80-acre parcel known as Westwoods, was the subject of nearly a decade of federal litigation over the Shinnecock Indian Nation's attempt to build a casino there without state or Town approval. In 2007 the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, consolidating suits by New York State and by the Town of Southampton, permanently enjoined the Nation from developing the casino, finding on three independent grounds that the Nation's "aboriginal title to Westwoods held by the Shinnecock Indian Nation at the time of first European contact in 1640 has been extinguished," among other rulings.^[27] On appeal, the Second Circuit did not reach that question: in State of New York v. Shinnecock Indian Nation, 686 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2012), the court held that the district court had lacked federal subject-matter jurisdiction over the case and "VACATE[d] the judgment of the district court and REMAND[ed] with instructions for the district court to remand the case to New York state court."^[28]

Separately, the Shinnecock Indian Nation had sued the Department of the Interior in 2006 (docketed as No. 06-CV-5013, later captioned Shinnecock v. Salazar) over the government's delay in deciding the Nation's petition for federal recognition; a 2009 decision in that litigation addressed a Freedom of Information Act dispute over Interior's withheld records.^[26] A federal court approved a settlement agreement in that case on May 26, 2009, setting a schedule that led the Bureau of Indian Affairs to issue a Final Determination on June 18, 2010, acknowledging "the Shinnecock Indian Nation is entitled to be acknowledged as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law"; that determination became effective July 19, 2010, and the Nation was formally added to the BIA's list of federally recognized tribal entities as of October 1, 2010.^[24][23][25]

Suffolk County's Traffic and Parking Violations Agency handles moving-violation adjudication only in the five western towns of the county; Southampton is not among them, so traffic and other charges from the Village are heard in the Village's own Justice Court rather than a county violations bureau.^[11]

Government, courts and policing

The incorporated Village of Southampton has its own government, headed by a Board of Trustees, separate from the surrounding Town of Southampton.^[1] The Southampton Village Police Department and the Southampton Village Justice Court are both based at 151 Windmill Lane, Southampton; the Justice Court "has jurisdiction over a broad range of matters, including vehicle and traffic matters, small claims, evictions, civil matters and criminal offenses," and also hears building, zoning and Village Code violations.^[11][12][13] Outside the Village's limits, policing in the Town falls to the Town of Southampton Police Department, headquartered at 110 Old Riverhead Road in Hampton Bays, and criminal, traffic and civil matters arising in the unincorporated Town go to the Southampton Town Justice Court, whose clerk's window is at 32 Jackson Ave., also in Hampton Bays — a different building, address and phone number from either the Village court or the Town's administrative Town Hall at 116 Hampton Road in the Village.^[19][20][21]

Road ownership within and around the Village is split among three levels of government: NY 27 (Montauk Highway/Sunrise Highway) is a New York State highway; the County Road 39/39A/39B corridor to the Village's north is Suffolk County-maintained; and named downtown streets such as Main Street, Hampton Road and Nugent Street fall under the Village's own Streets and Sidewalks code, which is also where the Village's prior-written-notice defense to lawsuits over street and sidewalk defects is codified.^[31][29][14]

Railroad and transit

The Village's own history page dates the Long Island Rail Road's arrival to 1872, when the line was extended through Southampton to Sag Harbor; the Village credits that extension with beginning the transformation of the farming and whaling community into a resort destination for wealthy New Yorkers escaping the city.^[6]