In 1893, Southampton’s esteemed historian William S. Pelletreau wrote that it was “safe to address almost any middle-aged man one might meet as ‘Captain’, for the chances were that he was one.” Certainly, Main Street must have teemed with salty whalemen for whom the main thoroughfare was not just a convivial strip but the place they called home. Zachary Taylor has been looking into the extraordinary concentration of sea captains who may have sailed out of Sag Harbor but made Southampton their home.
