From the September 27, 1940 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
The summer season of 1940, now closed, had a little of just about everything. It began, after all the favorable auspices of the early spring, with darkness and mourning. The war suddenly became terrible and paralyzed the minds of people who a little while before had been thinking of vacations. The weather, instead of hitting its proper pace, remained cold to the point of bleakness, and winter feelings did not warm up or thaw out until after July arrived.
Then there was the steamboat strike, which threatened to ruin the late-beginning summer just as it seemed on the point of appearing and feeling more like itself. There had already been the shocking Oak Bluffs murder, an event as uncharacteristic of the Island and Island summer life as anything one could possibly imagine. The tragic seaplane accident at Vineyard Haven heaped one more weight upon the wrong side of the scale for everyone.
But in August the season did develop at last into what it should have been all along, and people kept coming to the Island and having a good time. If only August could have lasted — but the recreational industry is more a creature of whims and fancies and misadventures than most other industries, and August was a streamlined model of fleetness. Before one knew it, Labor Day was at hand.
Looking back on the brevity of the season of 1940, we find it hard to draw any moral. There was nothing which anyone around here could have helped, and all we can do is to hope that in 1941 we and everyone may be more blessed. It is firmly ingrained upon the record, at any rate, that in August the Island rose to the pitch of a good season in all things. We need more Augusts, and since we are not likely to get them, the only thing to do is to go ahead as always, hoping for the dispensation which is needed to bring visitors early, to keep them long, and to grant them good weather while they are here.
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“Boarded off the Bridge,” was the old notation with reference to ships taking on pilots when approaching the Vineyard from the west or southwest. In log and in journal, not to mention various newspaper items of olden days, the notation appears. The “Bridge” is, of course, Devil’s Bridge Ledge, off Gay Head.
History repeated itself last weekend when the Finnish steamship Daphne made her landfall at the mouth of Vineyard Sound, ran in under Gay Head and anchored, setting her signal for a pilot.
The Gay Head Coast Guard noted the steamer and signal immediately and sent word to Pilot Louis Smith of Vineyard Haven. Pilot Smith made the passage to Gay Head by car in half an hour, was taken to the ship by the Coast Guard crew, and “boarded her off the Bridge” in traditional style.
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Many pupils of Tisbury High School, escorted by members of the faculty, were received by Miss Helen Keller on Monday afternoon at Chip Chop, the home of Katharine Cornell, at the Chappaquansett herring creek. The students walked from the village to the herring creek, to call on Miss Keller.
Miss Cornell arranged the visit as a surprised to Miss Keller and presided as hostess of the occasion, also receiving the visitors and serving refreshments.
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We suppose that all the city people who have recently left the Vineyard are settling down at their desks and attending to important matters. Only a little while ago, the captains and the kings (we use the phrase metaphorically) were sprinkling their lawns, getting up beach parties, dallying their bare feet in the warm sea water, and otherwise pursuing the joy of the free and the trivial.
It must be hard to get down to business again in September. In fact, we do not see how anyone can tell in this month of the year just what is important and what isn’t. With the sun warm and that fall freshness in the air, with the first banners of red and orange hung in the swamp maples and the invitation of the outdoors heralded by every living thing, the powers of reason must be baffled. There must be moments when the industrialist at his desk suspects that the trifles of the vacation just past were not really trifles at all, but exceedingly important things.
Even here on the Vineyard it is hard to get down to work and to deny the voice of September, one of the best of all the months of the year, except when it chooses to misbehave. Bathers on Saturday reported that the water was more delectable than it had been all summer, and that they could not bear to leave it. A scattering of yachtsmen was out, and they reported fine sport and memorable hours on a perfect sea.
Some people prefer spring, because they say that the season then is on the increase, and that the days are sure to become warmer and better. But it is hard to beat the fall when the warmth is treasured by the water and the earth, to slip away slowly, and the prospect of winter ahead only makes keener the enjoyment of days sufficient unto themselves.
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
library@vineyardgazette.com
This article appears in September 25 2026.