Letters

I’ve stopped at yard sales and seen something nice. I picked it up, discussed it with the owner, haggled over price, and paid for it. When I got home, I had no idea where I would keep it or what I would do with it.

This seems to be the difficulty the Southampton Town Board is having with the 7,000-pound anchor they received from a donor in Babylon [“Southampton Town Takes Possession Of Historic Ship’s Anchor,” 27east.com, February 16]. The anchor is presumably from the Circassian, a vessel that was wrecked off Mecox in December 1876. During salvage in the weeks that followed, it broke up and sank in a second storm. Many salvagers still aboard perished, including members of the Shinnecock Nation.

In the mid-1970s, I heard a story about the Circassian that centered on bravery, courage and sacrifice, and the heartbreak of untimely death. Years later, I heard quite a different version of the same story. This version centered on treachery and deceit, and ended in the same way, a heartbreaking, untimely death for many young men.

Each story has been used as a basis for the way the two groups of people — the descendants of the settlers and the descendants of the Shinnecock Nation — treat each other.

Lately, the Shinnecock Nation has been all over the local news. The electronic signs in Hampton Bays have been completed. The long-sought-after goal of casino gaming seems to have progressed to the point of building a casino on the territory just west of Southampton Village. Economic independence for the nation and a much brighter future seem more likely now than at any time since the Europeans arrived.

Building something on a reservation puts Southampton Town out of the regulatory picture. The electronic signs were challenged in court, and the Shinnecock Nation responded that the court has no jurisdiction on the matter. One sign has been up for months now, and there have been no reported accidents because of distracted drivers. The signs are both up while the court continues to ponder the matter.

Back to the yard sale and the anchor: The town received the anchor as a gift. It should offer it as a gift to the Shinnecock Nation, as a gesture of goodwill and with wishes of cooperation for the future. I would hope that it would be placed in front of the new casino as a token of our official respect for each other.

Someday, we could agree on a single story of the Circassian. If we want to give the story a happy ending, the anchor is one beautiful opportunity that gives us that power.

Bruce Doscher

Hampton Bays