A Cast Into the Past

From Gazette editions of July, 1935:

Schooners B. T. Hillman and Liberty, Edgartown swordfishermen, had the bad luck to arrive at the Boston market together last weekend, adversely affecting the price and each other’s luck. The Hillman had thirty-eight fish and Captain Wagner’s vessel had thirty-one. The price received was 26 cents, with 20 cents for the little fellows, which Captain Wagner figured out as a straight 24. He ruefully compared this to the 33 cents offered by Sam Cahoon at Woods Hole as the Liberty was bound for Boston and which he declined in anticipation of better luck.

It is not at all necessary to have a quiet summer. The sea is an incorrigible maker of noise, and no one objects. At times the roar from the South Beach is audible over most of the Island, and the North Shore has a gentler voice of its own which is never stilled. The winds are more or less noisy, especially when they have groves of trees to play with, and the birds never fail to set up a clatter just before sunrise. Some birds, like the starlings, tramp over the roofs as if they had boots on. Yet all these sounds, all these noises, no one seems to mind.

Of the sounds made by human beings, too, a surprising number are unobjectionable. The laughter of young people at the beaches or on picnics; the roars of applause at games and theatres; the singing of carefree but uninspired individuals full of innocent gaiety: complaints seldom come in against these things.

It is unfortunate that the narrower category of noises which are downright objectionable cannot be eliminated. It should not be an unattainable goal to quell excessive racket of traffic, churning engines, tooting horns and that sort of thing. When such few noises stand between the summer public and complete satisfaction, the few should be brought under control.

Gardner Fassett offers the first complaint to the Island advertisers that has been heard this season. Gardner waxes indignant because, as he says, all the advertising done by Island business has stressed the good fishing here. Especially striped bass fishing. And the deponent further states that he has fished with earnestness for days, employing every variety of bait, lure, plug and jig known to mankind, but he has failed to hook one single bass. Therefore he protests vigorously against further such advertising and asks if someone does not owe him heavy damages or other recompense for his great pains and expenditure.

Town authorities instrumental in framing and publishing advertising offer in rebuttal this defensive statement: that they have advertised bass fishing, that there are bass in abundance here. That these fish flirt with all anglers, to the point of exasperation, which inspires the sympathy of the aforesaid town officials who are also anglers. But the officials offer the reminder that they did not guarantee that anyone would catch a fish, and they opine that good fishing does not imply that fish will be caught. Briefly, their ultimatum to Gardner is that “there are the fish and the fishing as advertised. Go change your bait and catch em, or jump up a smokestack. We’ve done our part.”

The guest soloist at this week’s community sing was Mrs. Harry Hill. It was estimated that between 1,400 and 1,500 were in the Tabernacle. The foghorn at West Chop was a little too much in evidence in parts of the program, its tones mingling but not harmonizing with the piano.

One service from which the study of Island history would derive almost a rebirth would be the discovery of inscriptions or artifacts left by the Norsemen. The Vineyard has felt very near the first of all explorers of the New World, Leif Ericsson. Edward Gray’s book reconstructs the sagas to place Leif on Noman’s and at Menemsha. There has been the susposed runic rock on Noman’s. And there is the cromlech of Quitsa which has been over enthusiastically accepted as Icelandic relic. Nothing so far is conclusive. One needs some unmistakable inscription or relic which cannot be doubted.

It is not only relics of Icelanders for which Islanders seek. Other pages of early history are almost as in doubt. What of the Portuguese? Miguel Corte Real has been singled out as the author of the Dighton Rock inscription; did he and his Portuguese visit the Vineyard? There would be considerable satisfaction in finding some proof that they were here. Or that Verrazano was here. The proof might be a coin, or a weapon, or some unimagined relic.

Such things as have been found have come to light by accident. No one has made a deliberate search for these particular legacies. The chances are against a discovery of the conclusive evidence, and yet it will pay explorers of the Island shores and countryside to keep their eyes open.

Compiled by Cynthia Meisner

library@mvgazette.com