E. A. and H. Hildreth

In 1842 Lewis Hildreth laid the foundation for Hildreth’s first general store on the same Main Street site where Hildreth’s is still in business today, making it Southampton village’s oldest established store. With the growth of the community, Hildreth’s steadily enlarged its building and adjusted its stock from the early days when it sold groceries, gun powder, calico, grain and a variety of household goods. Later when Lewis’s sons Edgar A. and Henry H. succeeded their father, it became known as E. A. and H. Hildreth, and today the business is still in the hands of the Hildreth family. By 1913, The Sea-Side Times is reporting in its Progress Edition that Hildreth’s carries “almost everything” and is perhaps “the largest and heaviest stocked mercantile establishment east of Jamaica.” The correspondent takes note of Hildreth’s success with “the wealthy summer cottagers” who have at their service during the season “20 hands and 10 horses and three automobiles” and “depend upon the Hildreths for almost their entire supplies.” In the intervening years each generation of Hildreths has left its mark on this historic enterprise, adjusting stock to meet current demand and updating services, always mindful of the importance of preserving the iconic building. With its original cast iron columns and additions that echo the original 19th-century structure, the building remains remarkably evocative of Hildreth’s long history, always so closely associated with the history of Southampton and giving rise to the claim that Hildreth’s is the “oldest department store in America.”