Ports of Call

From Gazette editions of November, 1935:

A site for the proposed Coast Guard boathouse was selected in Menemsha Basin on Wednesday by District Commander W. M. Wolff, who visited with Chief Boatswain’s Mate Samuel Gamache, commander of the Gay Head station. Associate Engineer Ernest Sangtagine surveyed the land yesterday, and negotiations were set in motion for the purchase of the land. The site is located on the point of land extending between the basin and the present creek at Menemsha. On this site it is proposed to construct a boathouse fifty by seventy-five feet, with tracks, hoists and all other necessary equipment. The cost will be $20,000 and when the big life boat is installed it will be the last word in Coast Guard equipment.

The need for such a boat has been repeatedly stressed, as the station is a busy one, yet has to transfer calls for assistance to Cuttyhunk station on many occasions. Just last week the big otter-trawler Bethlehem of New Bedford was sighted off Gay Head with distress signal set, and the Gay Head crew was unable to go to her assistance, not having a suitable boat for such work. The call was transferred to Cuttyhunk.

It seem strange that the Home Club of Edgartown, a venerable institution, should have passed out of existence with little public attention and little comment. Fortunately the Barnacle Club in Vineyard Haven, which has much the same sort of tradition, is still in existence and, judging from its annual clambakes and the occasional news which filters from its rooms, still vigorous.

There is something which links these Island clubs with seafaring times. Whaling captains and others had their part in forming the organizations, and they came to occupy a settled place in Island social life. They have been celebrated by historians and other writers whose descriptions have painted an evening or an hour in the smoke-filled club rooms as an experience apart from the whole generality of life in mainland clubs.

Now it is gone. The Home Club has followed in the wake of the older Pickwick Club of Edgartown; and though it languished in later years, largely because of the great diversity of attractions in the more modern town of today, it will not be forgotten. Its place in Edgartown annals is secure, and any new club will have to be strong indeed to surpass it in its day of glory.

Two tugs, a dredger, scows and other equipment of the Bay State Dredging Co., arrived at Menemsha Creek, prepared to start operations on the mile-long channel into Menemsha Pond, as soon as the machinery can be set up for use. Some local labor from Chilmark and Gay Head is to be employed on the job, and Benjamin Mayhew Jr. and Paul Campbell are already employed. It is planned to rush the job through in six weeks, working twenty-four hours a day in eight hour shifts.

This job of connecting the Chilmark harbor with the pond is the largest program of harbor work ever to be attempted in this part of the Island and is expected to greatly increase water traffic, besides improving and enlarging the shellfish beds.

Work on three WPA projects carrying total expenditures of nearly $17,000 and employing fifty-nine men for six months, will soon be under way in Oak Bluffs. The first project opened this week, when $4,000 for the completion of the big firestop arrived. Work on the seeding of the pond areas with shellfish will begin next week. In addition there are other projects, submitted by Joseph A. Sylvia, chairman of the selectmen. One has already been approved which provides “something for the white collar men.” This calls for a rearranging and rebinding of the assessors’ library, with all corrections that will follow the replotting of the town and the reprinting of the vital statistics. Surveyors, an engineer, clerks and several others will be employed on this project.

The pleas for cooperation between Island milk consumers and Island dairymen, presented at a recent meeting of the West Tisbury Grange, are reasonable and should appeal strongly to all who wish to see the Island independent and prosperous in winter as well as in summer. Unless Vineyarders support the Island dairy industry it will languish, and with it will languish one of the most vital factors in local agriculture. There is every reason why dairying, market gardening and certain other types of farm production should be profitable here.

Dairying is an industry which belongs on the Island. The fact that milk must be imported in the summer, however, introduces a difficulty since, if imported milk is used largely through the winter, milk produced here must be wasted during this part of the year. The only solution of this difficulty is for the Island consumer to stand by the Island farmer.

Compiled by Cynthia Meisner

library@mvgazette.com