Sagaponacko Chocolate & the Easter Bunny

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   From DAN'S PAPERS (covers the Hamptons on Long Island), 16 August 2002,
pg. 13, col. 1:

   _Our Heritage_
_The Rise And Fall Of The Emil Sagaponacko Chocolate Factory_
   By Dan Rattiner

   The Hershey Chocolate Company got put up for sale the other day. (...)
   For it was here in the Hamptons that the chocolate business first got its
start in America.  And it was the Hershey Chocolate Company that put our
company our of business.
   The American chocolate industry was founded in 1834 by Emil Sagaponacko, a
businessman who immigrated to America frim Zitz, an eastern European country
that is presently part of Aberjazan.  (AZERBAIJAN!  I WAS THERE!  DOES ANYONE
EDIT COPY????--ed.)
   Sagaponacko settled in what was then a small forest (Col. 2--ed.) between
Southampton and East Hampton and it was here that he builot a small chocolate
factory, similar to the one his grandfather had owned back in the old
country.  Soon Sagaponacko Chocolate was known from coast to coast in
America--it was a favorite of Thomas Jefferson (THOMAS JEFFERSON DIED ON JULY
4, 1826!  HE DIDN'T EAT ANY SAGAPONACKO CHOCOLATE IN 1834!  I'M GOING TO
BURST A BLOOD VESSEL!--ed.)--and after just ten years Sagaponacko tore down
the forest and built the huge factory, now gone, that dominated the landscape
here in the Hamptons for nearly a century.  Sagaponacko was changed to
Sagaponack.  The rest is history.
(...)(Pg. 36, col. 1--ed.)
   Between 1832 and 1890 (DIDN'T I JUST READ THAT SAGAPONACKO CHOCOLATE WAS
FOUNDED IN 1834?  IS THIS GUY "DAN" FROM CHICAGO?--ed.), more than 4,000
people worked each of the twelve-hour shifts at the plant, turning out untold
millions of chocolate items, from bars to kisses--yes, Sagaponack Kisses
wrapped in wax paper--to the pride of the Sagaponacko enterprise--the (Col.
2--ed.) Sagg Chocolate Easter Bunny, which legend has it was invented when
Emil saw a local rabbit carried off and eaten by one of the many large sea
birds that inhabit the coastline here.
(...)

(I'll have to check this.  John Mariani's "chocolate" entry in the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK mentions the chocolate Easter bunny,
but not Sagaponacko at all.  This would be not only important for the OXFORD
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FOOD, but it would be OED's first citation for "Easter
bunny"--ed.)