By the heart of West Tisbury I do not mean the geographical center of the little town, but the starting-point or points of its social, intellectual, educational, moral and spiritual forces. If you start from the beautiful residence of Squire and Mrs. Everett Allen Davis on the state macadamized road, which is the Main Street of the town, past the Parsonage and the delightful old Whiting manse, past “Brandy-brow” and S. M. Mayhew & Co.’s store, the graceful old church with its steeple and town clock will confront you. This long and honorable career of this historic Congregational church, dating back from the year 1673, will at once appeal to you and you will feel like standing bare-headed before this sacred edifice, which stands for righteousness, purity, morality, law and order. On the same side as the church and only a few yards from it, but separated by a road leading to Chilmark and Gay Head, stands the three-story school house, once the home of the far-famed Dukes County Academy, but now the headquarters of West Tisbury’s public schools, where Miss Susan Murdock and Miss Effie Littlefield, two excellent teachers, are training our boys and girls and imparting to them the rudiments of knowledge and a foretaste of higher education.

 

A step or two beyond the school house is the capacious hall of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society- a worthy institution which has for many years past been an educational force in the country and community in agricultural, horticultural, bucolic, culinary and domestic arts. This large hall where, besides the annual agricultural county fair and occasional agricultural lectures, are held the social gatherings of the various organizations of the church. Its commodious stage and fine curtains, also its large piano, render the hall a desirable place for any social occasion.

 

Returning from the hall and leaving the village smithy just behind you, you come to the street dividing the church from the school house. Past the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Eben Raymond, which was once the home of M. C. Mitchell’s school for boys, you will find yourself before a cozy little building, right above the door of which you will see a large-sized gilt sign - PUBLIC LIBRARY. (Opposite the library is the village carpenter shop.) The library is within a stone’s through of the church, the school house and the agricultural hall. There is an inviting air about this little temple of books, and you are irresistibly drawn towards it. The time is a Saturday afternoon. You go in, not because others are doing so, but because you feel like doing so irrespective of others. The first thing that meets your eye is a large lithograph picture of President Roosevelt, in front of which is a sizable mounted eagle almost ready to fly. On the wall is a handsome clock and right above the door is the head of a fine looking caribou.

 

Before the official desk is sitting a cheerful-looking, bright-eyed and intelligent-faced young lady ready to serve you if you want to take out books. At the center of this cozy little library is a table laden with some choice periodicals and books of reference. Around the table and on the settees are seen several light-hearted young men and young women reading or talking sotto voce - in an undertone - or waiting for their turn to take out books. It is winter outside, but the large heater near the entrance and the high pile of seasoned oak are equal to the occasion, to say nothing of the glow in the hearts of the inmates of the room, and once within the four walls of the library, good-bye winter, adieu bleak winds, and soon you will feel the sweet hominess and the genial, warm atmosphere of the place. You examine the shelves of the library stocked with public documents and fictional and referential literature.

 

Your inspection is over and you retrace your steps toward the door, when your eyes catch a printed sign on a door near the entrance. It reads thus: “The Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society room in the public library building at West Tisbury is open on Tuesday and Saturday afternoons and evenings. Many valuable antique and historic articles on exhibition. Admission 10 cents.” You have perhaps seen many a famous historical, ethnological and art museum. Probably you have a fair idea of the rich contents of the British Museum, of the Tower of London, and of the Louvre, (Paris), of the museums in Versailles, Brussels, Liverpool, Edinburgh, New York, Washington, Boston, Cambridge, Buffalo, Springfield and Montreal. Yet surely there is room for one more museum in the storehouse of your head, which fact compels you to go and see this one also. You push the door open, go up one flight, pay your dime and commence to examine the antique contents of the room. A casual glance around you will convince you that they are well worth your examination. There are two show-cases and several tables, within and upon which the curious articles of bygone days are exhibited.

 

Here is the show-case number one. Every article in it is ancient - at least, a century old, and some claim twice that age. Samplers, crib-spreads, fans, pocket-books, coffee-cups, cup-plates, shoe-buckles, knee-buckles, snuffers, snuff-boxes, shell-combs, ancient coins, spectacles, silver watches, an hour-glass and an Indian sun-glass.

 

Show-case number two contains ancient documents and antique books, notable among which are the will of Jonathan Mayhew made in 1805; an autograph order of Rev. Experience Mayhew, born Jan. 27, 1673, died Nov. 27, 1757. Here is a copy of the order: “May 27, 1755. Let this John Pahanash have one Bushel of Corn which you owe me. He will order Isack Norton to come for it. Exp Mayhew to Mr Job Look.”

 

The will of Whitten Manter dated Aug. 30, 1780, can also be seen in this case. The date of another document  is, “Homes hole August ye 10th A D 1746” and is addressed “To the Revd. Mr. Nathaneil Hancock.” Another document is dated “7: January: 1738-9.” A copy of a sermon preached in 1709 and printed in Boston in 1710; am old bill for “sixty-five Spanish milled dollars;” a copy of an English paper published in Manila, Island of Luzon, and entitled “Freedom,” also a Turkish passport are among the exhibits in this show-case.

 

Then you examine the tables and the different nooks and corners of the room, the contents of which carry you back to the colonial times. Kitchen-craft is well represented by its many utensils and implements: pewter dishes, a small stove, jugs and mugs, bellows, wooden ladles, mortars and pestles, a curios piggin, a funny funnel, churns, a butter paddle, a tinder horn, mixing bowls, a bread peel, bread trays, chopping trays, molasses kegs, fruit dishes, a copper tea kettle, tea sets, candle moulds, a skillet and a knife box.

 

In addition to the kitchen ware, articles for the proper administration of a New England home are by no means left out: andirons, old locks and clocks, curious lanterns and lamps, and candle sticks, footstoves, a number of old framed prints, mirrors and a cradle.

 

Textile art is pursues by the industrious housewives has here in peculiar implements: the inevitable spinning wheels, flax hetchels, shuttles, hand wool cards, winders and swifts.

 

In examining the contents of this museum you will also find articles brought over the sea by some sea-captains of the Island. Here are two whale harpoons, a number of whale teeth, a curios, murderous-looking stone adze of elaborate workmanship made by the natives of the South Sea Islands, Dutch sabots, a cocoanut broom, and a Japanese umbrella. Among the curios you will also find martial relics of the Revolutionary and Civil wars; a bayonet carried in the Revolutionary war, powder horns, a flint-lock musket, U.S. 

 

After thus minutely inspecting the contents of this small but creditable museum and admiring those who established it and blessing them in behalf of the rising and future (yet unborn) generations of Islanders who will be benefitted by this historic collection, you take your departure, feeling sure that you never spent your dime or your time to better advantage anywhere in your travels.