Farms Galore

From Gazette editions of June, 1960:

Dukes County has 49 farms, according to the preliminary report of the 1959 Census of Agriculture taken last fall. The total land in farms is 7,848 acres, and the average size is 160.2 acres. The average value of farms, including land and buildings in Dukes County is given as $33,488. Of the operators of farms in this county, 32 own their farms, nine own part of the land and rent additional land, and five are tenant farmers. The average age of the farm operators in the county at the time of the census was 54.4, and there were six farmers 65 or more years of age. Of the 49 farms, 41 were listed as commercial farms. The approximate land area of the county is given as 67,840, which means that the proportion in farms is 11.6 per cent.

The steel barge recently placed in operation between Falmouth and Oak Bluffs during the boatline strike, and the service rendered via it by the courteous captain, Charles W. Vanderhoop Jr., and his aides has been winning friends and influencing people everywhere. If there were any exceptions to this general rule it seems to have been because the reservations were garbled by those making them.

One example of the service rendered by the barge and its towboat, the Mirage, and the attendant passenger craft, the Vera B., should serve to point up the situation as it really is. Among the passengers on Monday was a family cavalcade of five cars, manned by Mr. and Mrs. Norris Hall and Dr. and Mrs. George Sands and their family, all Chappaquiddick bound. They couldn’t say enough about the service and the cooperation they received from the captain and his crew in connection with the imposing assemblage the cavalcade represented. There were the five cars, but also the humans mentioned, plus four Sands children and two baby sitters, and also four dogs and thirty chickens. The chickens lent a helping hand by escaping from custody during the trip, but a community effort kept the fowl from actually becoming Mother Cary’s chickens.

It is reported that the Joseph Chase house on the Vineyard Haven waterfront has been sold to Robert Douglas, through direct negotiations by the owner. This large, old “high, double house” is a village landmark, containing much history. Built, it is said, in 1804, it was once the Rising Sun Tavern. Whether or not it was conducted as a tavern by Isaac Chase is not entirely clear, but Isaac Chase, an ancestor of Joseph Chase, was an owner at one time and had considerable work done on the house. Interior trim, paneling and woodwork in general are said to be among the very finest examples of such handicraft to be found on the Island.

For many years David Noble of Vineyard Haven has been bed-ridden by arthritis, still young and strong, yet crippled to such a degree that he must lie on his back at all times, deprived of the use of his legs and unable to sit up except briefly. But with alert faculties and able to use his hands and arms, he has developed into a constant and enthusiastic “ham” radio operator. With his radio suspended over his bed in order to operate it as he lies, he has exchanged messages with other ham radio operators across the country and the world.

A member of the area association of ham radio operators of Cape Cod and the Islands, he has exchanged messages with them all for years, yet they had never seen him until Sunday. On that day, the annual picnic of this amateur association was held at Waquoit, and through the efforts of the group, Dave Noble attended, the first time he has visited the mainland in nineteen years.

Carried on a stretcher by a mainland group who came to the Island aboard the Bonnie Jean, he was conveyed to Woods Hole, where a station wagon awaited, and then to Waquoit, where a hospital bed in a tent was provided for him. Thus he attended the picnic, and was lustily greeted by a hundred of his associates of the air, together with their families, numbering about 300. Everyone knew him from air conversations and greeted him as an expert radio operator and a man of unusual courage in the face of extreme affliction.

The Islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are united in anger and determination. Since April 15, Vineyarders have had to look at the ferry Islander, a boat that was bought largely on their credit and with their money, that belongs not to any private corporation but to the people, lying in her slip, idle. They have not been able to use their own property.

What sort of perverse situation is this? The strikers, a privileged group, are forcing the brutal pressure of a strike against the men, women and children of the Islands. No matter what may happen within the next few days or weeks, this strike will not be forgotten by Islanders.

Compiled by Cynthia Meisner

library@mvgazette.com