From the Sept. 6, 1894 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

Give attention, kind friends,

and harken good neighbors.

And for a brief time

abstain from your labors,

For our Fair is approaching,

and whate’er your vocation,

We entreat your heartiest

co-operation;

But first of all, farmers,

(We trust you will note it.)

The part most important

will be what you make it.

Bring your fine-wooled Merinos,

your Southdowns and Shropshires;

Your Chester white pigs,

your Suffolks and Berkshires;

Bring your Devons and Durhams,

your Jerseys and Alderneys,

Your Mammoth Holsteings

and diminutive Britannys;

Bring the fruit of the dairy;

your large fruits and small fruits;

Bring your pickles and jellies,

your canned fruits and dry fruits;

Bring your pumpkins and beans,

your beets and tomatoes,

Your carrots and turnips,

your grain and potatoes.

Come ladies and girls,

with your knit mats and stockings;

Your cushions, quilts,

drapes and elaborate nothings;

Bring your brown bread

and yeast bread,

your plain cake and fruitcake,

And that queen of all frauds,

a yesterday’s johnnycake.

Come mariners — come

with marine curiosities;

Your baskets and bones

and pickled monstrosities;

We’ve plenty of room

for your knicknacks and oddities;

With our butter and bread

and household commodities;

We want our craft filled,

stem and stern and amidships,

Till there’s scarce room

to walk fore and aft or athwartships.

Physicians, we’ll greet you,

your wives and your daughters,

But leave in your office

your home manufactures.

Concoctions of rhubarb,

quinine, assafetida,

Will cure all our ills,

in all probability;

But to judge them by taste

in the time-honored fashion

Would drive a committee

to the verge of distraction.

Come one and come all,

builder, tradesmen and teachers,

Come mechanics and lawyers

and printers and preachers,

Come jewelers, clerks,

harness-makers and blacksmiths;

Come milliners, dressmakers,

masons and tinsmiths;

And to each and all,

just a moment wait

At the little office

that’s near the gate.

From an August 1970 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

Cockerels and pullets, geese and ganders, goats and ewes and fat sheep, yeast bread and whole wheat bread, fruit cake and sponge cake, dahlia bouquets and patchwork quilts — all will be judged next week at the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society’s annual fair and cattle show - three days of old-fashioned games and midway attractions that begin on Thursday at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury.

Ever since 1859, the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society has been having fairs. Now and then there has been a brief haitus caused by a war most often. But always, when the war was ended, and crops flourished again on West Tisbury hillsides and colts pranced and silky merino sheep grazed, the fair grounds bustled again in midsummer.

At that first fair, Capt. Henry Cleveland displayed cloth made at West Tisbury’s Tyasquan Mills; there was a silk bridal dress of 1780; a quilt made from Island-grown flax, silk dressing gowns sent from the Orient by Vineyard captains. There were fine shoes and slippers manufactured by the W.F. Durginne Co. of West Tisbury, compost with kelp and compost without, red and white currant wine, wheat and corn and “three noble pumpkins on one vine, weighing severally 28, 28 and 37 pounds.”

Once again West Tisburyites are cleaning and otherwise sprucing up the fair grounds, setting up display counters, and hoping that — as has always been the case in the past — Islanders and Island visitors will be turning out in droves to participate with enthusiasm in the Vineyard’s major agricultural event.

Compiled by Alison L. Mead