Jack Youngs Honored By Sag Harbor Historical Society

Jack Youngs is a retired physical education teacher and coach, but his subject of choice could have very easily been history.

“The history of Sag Harbor was engraved in me,” said Youngs, as he browsed through a thick binder filled with what seemed to be a pamphlet, program, or postcard for every historical occasion to take place in the village in the past century. “They saved everything,” he continued, referring to his parents, “so I was inundated with historical stuff.”

“It’s a wonderful hobby,” interjected his wife, Joyce, from the dining room in the couple’s home outside the village, which is decorated with historic paintings, maps, photos, and objects. “He’s had such a good time with it over the years.”

After 12 years of indulging that hobby as a board member of the Sag Harbor Historical Society, Youngs, 78, has announced his retirement. Last month at the society’s annual meeting, he was presented with the Dorothy Ingersoll Zaykowski Award.

“During his tenure,” the award reads, “he oversaw the dedication of the Whaleboat Shop, numerous seasonal exhibitions, the creation of school walking tours, the maintenance and preservation of the 18th century Annie Cooper Boyd house — the museum’s headquarters, and the creation of the Dorothy Ingersoll Zaykowski Award in 2014, of which he is now a very deserving recipient.”

Youngs is quick to point out that his forebears arrived on eastern Long Island early. In 1640, the Reverend John Youngs was among the original settlers of Southold.

Youngs’s great-great-grandfather, Hampton Youngs, owned a 58-acre farm at Mecox, and after his death in 1874, his son, Addison Youngs, who was married to Georgianna Freeman, the daughter of Captain William Freeman, sold the farm. Freeman was the manager of the Point House in North Haven, then an inn, and the two men purchased the Tinker building in Sag Harbor, which was a furniture warehouse, and converted it into what is now the American Hotel.

The business stayed in the family’s hands until 1972, when Ted Conklin purchased it for $60,000, a good price for a Main Street commercial building at the time.

Youngs, who was teaching in Redding, Connecticut, came home to show it to Conklin. “As we went through the building, I could see the wheels turning in his head as though he was creating his vision of what it would become,” Youngs said

Although he was born in Connecticut, Youngs returned to Sag Harbor when he was 15 and graduated from Sag Harbor High School after playing on the first of then-Coach Ed Petrie’s league championship basketball teams. He went to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, for a year, but the 27-hour bus ride home proved too much, so he transferred to the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, and landed a job teaching physical education in Redding, only returning to Sag Harbor after retiring in 2000.

Besides volunteering with the historical society, Youngs has continued to work as a substitute teacher in Amagansett and Sag Harbor, although he decided to not accept any more jobs this year after contracting a minor case of COVID-19 early in May.

Youngs, who the society’s current president, Nancy French Achenbach, described as “a great history buff,” was invited to join the organization’s board of directors in 2010. He became co-president with Diane Schiavoni a few years later when Achenbach had to step away to care for her dying husband.

Youngs, who said he had no idea who Annie Cooper Boyd was when he first joined the historical society until he learned later that she had given his grandmother painting lessons, made preserving her home, now the society’s headquarters, a priority despite a limited budget.

One of his thrills when he was president, he said, was when fellow board member Barbara Schwartz called him one day to tell him she wanted to donate $50,000 to rebuild the whaleboat shop behind the Cooper Boyd house in memory of her mother.

He added that the society had been fortunate to have annual exhibits curated by “the meticulous” Jean Held and began the practice of holding regular summer fundraising galas during his time on the board.

Although he has stepped down from the board, Youngs said he wasn’t planning to go anywhere. “I’ll still be involved,” he said.