From the Vineyard Gazette edition of May 22, 1925:

This week the Vineyard Gazette enters upon the eightieth year of its career. Founded by Edgar Marchant in May, 1846, through all the year to the present time its title has remained the same, and it also holds the somewhat unique record of never having missed an issue in its long life.

Hardly a person is now alive on our fair and prosperous island who remembers the day when the Gazette made its first bow to the public and took its modest place in the periodicals of this section.

The Gazette has been in good company from its start, and without delving for extended information on this thought, it may be of interest to state that the New Bedford Mercury, the Nantucket Inquirer (1821), and the Nantucket Mirror (1845), the Yarmouth Register (1836), and perhaps others, were older brothers of the Gazette in this section of the State, flourishing when it was born.

Contemporary with the Gazette and having 1846 as their birth year this paper again has reason for self congratulation, for its age corresponds with such well-known journals as the Boston Herald and the Cambridge Chronicle, and it takes pride in being so related. The Gazette, in point of longevity, leads by four years the New Bedford Standard, the leading city paper of this section.

Changed indeed are conditions on the Vineyard at the present day from those in 1846 when the Gazette was established. To enumerate in detail would require columns of newspaper space. Whaling then was in its prime, and on the waterfront the fitting and discharging of ships and the plying of the various trades incident to the whale fishery, made the two Vineyard ports lively with an industry which harvested its reward from the seven seas of the globe. Today this industry has vanished, but in its place, from waters not so far afield, the Vineyard’s fishing fleets, by catches of many varieties, bring in an annual income to the Island of hundreds of thousands of dollars, probably exceeding each year the one time revenue from whaling.

In those years summer visitors on vacation were practically unknown now thousands of people from all parts of our country hail the Island as their summer vacation land.

Those were the days before kerosene, now electricity supplies light and power to the greater portion of the Island. The well and the hand pump have given way to public water systems, and today your own or the other fellow’s automobile takes you to Gay Head easily in an hour, when in 1846 it was practically a Sabbath day’s journey there and back over wretched sandy roads which have given way to fine macadam highways.

In this progress we trust the Vineyard Gazette has been no laggard. An intelligent constituency has loyally cooperated and sustained it through the many years that are past. Old in years but young in heart, ever working for the increased prosperity of the Island, it looks forward with confidence to the future - a future which we trust will see still greater strides in the making of a bigger, busier and better Martha’s Vineyard.

Armindo Pinto, mate of the power lighter Eben A. Thatcher, has a cat which is the pride and attraction of Daggett avenue, Vineyard Haven. The animal, which answers to the name of Puss, has voluntarily assumed responsibility for a brood of young chickens.

Day and night Puss mounts guard over the coop in Mr. Pinto’s yard, allowing the chickens to nestle against her sides and peck at the light colored spots on her fur. Woe to any dog or stray cat which ventures too close to her charges — for Puss becomes a whirlwind of aggression and her teeth and claws wreak havoc on the enemy.

The cat is not a native of the Vineyard. She was brought from Alaska by a halibut fisherman to Seattle, and somehow, travelling either by land or sea, came to Gloucester and aboard the Fannie Belle Atwood, fishing schooner, and now a Cape Verde packet. About five years ago, when the Atwood was wrecked near Woods Hole, Mr. Pinto went aboard the wreck with her captain and took off the cat, which was given to him.

Puss had never seen any woman or children, and didn’t care for their society at first. Neither did she like milk in its natural state, her favorite food being the evaporated variety put up in cans. So very fond of canned milk was the cat that having learned of a neighbor of Mr. Pinto who used it, she would sneak into the house, jump on a table where the milk was kept, upset the can, and lap it up as it ran out.

Like all good sailors Puss feels the call of the briny now and then, and Mr. Pinto tells of instances when the cat has followed him from his home to the wharf, jumped aboard the lighter, and made the trip to New Bedford or Woods Hole returning home after the voyage apparently very well satisfied.

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com