Third House | East Hampton Town, NY

Montauk’s first Third House was built in 1747 but burned down, then was rebuilt in 1806. It has had many owners and uses in its 278 years, beginning as a home for the keepers of cattle grazing each summer on Montauk’s pastureland. Almost as remote as Montauk Point, the farmhouse was also known as a hub of hospitality, for instance boarding the riders who drove livestock from East Hampton every June.

“The farmers would get their dinner at Third House and ride home in the late afternoon,” Jeannette Edwards Rattray wrote in a booklet about Montauk history in 1969. “It was a busy time in Montauk the day before, preparing batches of bread, milkpans of pork and beans, dripping pans of roast veal, home-cured ham, pickles, coffee and pie, for 60 or more men.”

“For more than 200 years the three houses for the cattle keepers were the only places on Montauk where a wayfarer might stay,” Rattray wrote. “Men came for gunning and fishing. The hills and ponds abounded in wild geese, ducks, quail, and other game birds. The ocean teemed with fish.”
 
(Source: Throwback Thursday — A House With Many Lives – Montauk Library)