Founded 1680 as a settlement of the Town of East Hampton (itself established 1648), via land grants. Sources disagree on the first family: one names the Bakers as the first European family to receive acreage; another credits Abraham Schellinger’s 1683 land purchase; a third says Dutch colonists settled 1680–1690, soon joined by English families. — Flag: first-settler identity CONFLICTED; 1680 founding date consistent.
Name: from a Montaukett phrase meaning “place of good water,” referring to a spring near present Indian Wells Beach. — CONFIDENCE HIGH.
Early economy: whaling (first shore-based “drift/shore whaling,” later ship-based), shoemaking, agriculture, clamming and potato farming.
Governance
Hamlet and CDP in the Town of East Hampton, Suffolk County; East Hampton Town Board governs; beaches/bay bottoms under the East Hampton Town Trustees. ZIP 11930.
Deep history — Operation Pastorius (the Nazi saboteur landing)
In the early hours of June 13, 1942, a German U-boat (U-202) put ashore four Abwehr saboteurs on the beach at Amagansett — the opening landing of Operation Pastorius (named by Abwehr chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris after Franz Daniel Pastorius, leader of the first organized German settlement in America, 1683). — CONFIDENCE HIGH.
Unarmed 21-year-old Coast Guardsman Seaman 2nd Class John C. Cullen, on foot beach patrol from the Amagansett Coast Guard Station (~half a mile away), encountered the group. Their leader, George John Dasch (using the name “George John Davis”), tried to bribe/threaten Cullen (reportedly ~$260); Cullen played along, retreated to the station, and raised the alarm. The Coast Guard/FBI recovered buried explosives and gear in the dunes.
All eight saboteurs (a second team landed at Ponte Vedra, Florida) were caught within two weeks after Dasch turned himself in to the FBI. A military tribunal convicted all eight; six were executed (Aug 1942); Dasch and Burger got prison (later deported). Cullen received the Legion of Merit. The episode launched the U.S. Coast Guard Beach Patrol (July 1942) and produced the Supreme Court case Ex parte Quirin (1942). — CONFIDENCE HIGH.
Native ground
Amagansett’s very name is Montaukett (“place of good water”); the hamlet sits on Montaukett ground between East Hampton and the Montauk heartland. See ../../../native/montaukett (detribalization: Pharaoh v. Benson, 1910).
Key people & families
John C. Cullen (1920–2011) — the Coast Guardsman who detected the saboteurs. · George John Dasch — saboteur leader who defected. · Old Bonacker families associated with Amagansett baymen/whalers: Lester (incl. the Amagansett “Posy” Lesters), King, Miller, Bennett, Conklin, Strong, Havens. · Abraham Schellinger (1683 land purchase). · Modern celebrity-resident lore (unverified for this file) includes a long roster of actors/musicians drawn by the hamlet’s quiet.
NARA records
naId 6121079 — “[Court Martial Case 334178 (German Saboteurs)] Volume II of XVIII, Transcript” — fileUnit; RG153 Records of the Office of the Judge Advocate General (Army); series “Transcripts and Related Records of the Trial of the German Saboteurs”; Unrestricted; digital. The primary federal record of the Operation Pastorius trial (18 volumes).
naId 134779165 — “Relating to Radio — Montauk Radio Station” — fileUnit; RG19 Records of the Bureau of Ships; Unrestricted (coastal radio context).
Method: Catalog API v2 (x-api-key + browser UA); record.naId = true id (not controlGroup.naId); verified live 2026-11-03.
Money & real estate
Amagansett is one of the East End’s most expensive and most volatile micro-markets. 2025 median figures diverge sharply by report and quarter: a Q4 2025 report gave a 2025 median of $6,762,500; a Q3 2025 report showed a median of ~$4.45M (down >26% YoY from $6,040,000); total 2025 sales volume reported at ~$535M (up from $280.5M in 2024). — Flag: medians swing on thin transaction counts; treat the ~$4.5M–$6.8M band as the 2025 range.
Buyers: ultra-high-net-worth second-home and celebrity buyers who want oceanfront/near-ocean with a quieter, less-flashy vibe than Southampton. Commercial character: a tight, charming Main Street (farm stand, Amagansett Square, a handful of restaurants/boutiques) that trades on understatement. Brokerages: Corcoran, Douglas Elliman, Sotheby’s, The Agency, Saunders.
Culture & character (elite-money read)
The “quiet money” hamlet — old-whaling-village bones (Marine Museum in the former Coast Guard barracks on Bluff Road) plus discreet celebrity and finance wealth. The elite read: Amagansett sells restraint and provenance — you have arrived enough not to need Southampton’s display. The Pastorius landing gives it a WWII tourist hook; the Bonacker lineage gives it authenticity ballast.