From the Vineyard Gazette editions of Jan. 1921:

There is only one person on the Island, so far as we can learn, who has subscribed for the Vineyard Gazette ever since it was founded in 1846. Mrs. Rebecca Manter remembers when Edgar Marchant drove up-Island soliciting subscriptions for his new venture. Mrs. Manter recalls how folks laughed at him and said, “The idea of those people down in Old Town thinking they can have a newspaper! Why, they wouldn’t have anything to put in it.”

Mrs. Manter is a singularly charming lady who is more alert than anyone who had not seen her could possibly suspect. For instance she remembers many winters that were much harder than last. There wasn’t a day last year when she did not go out of doors. Think of that, effete young generation of an effete age!

Mrs. Manter is past ninety, but you would never guess her age. She might be anywhere from sixty up. A visitor said to her, “You have a pleasant place to grow old.”

“Why there’s no pleasure in growing old,” she came back as quick as a flash. “No pleasure in growing old!” She said it with a note of surprise and in a matter-of-fact way; no complaint or affectation of philosophy about it. There are many persons who recite the afflictions of age, but Mrs. Manter seems never to have made an affliction out of anything and she is truly one of those who have lived long enough to know some of the rare secrets about life.

Mrs. Manter’s home is close by Roaring Brook where there is beautiful country and where ruins of the old brick mill tell their story of industry in vain.

Skiff’s Island has once more been called to public attention. This island which is sometimes not an island at all but a shoal, has a way of coming into view and then submerging itself. It is an amphibious piece of sand, basking for a time in the sunshine and exposing itself to the salt air; then going under with an indifferent attitude and remaining underwater until some future uncertain day.

For those who may not be familiar with the name, it may be said that Skiff’s Island is off the south shore of Martha’s Vineyard and that it, with outlying shoals, seriously interferes with fishing boats going to Nantucket or out to the fishing grounds. More than once fishermen have petitioned for a buoy of some adequate kind.

It is narrated that Skiff’s Island once stayed above water for a rather long consecutive time. It even developed more or less vegetation. The part of the story which is most difficult to believe is that some visiting capitalists decided on the place as a novel spot for a summer hotel. Finally when they went out to survey the island and to lay out their plans, they discovered that the island was nonexistent. A storm had come up and the island had gone under and become a shoal.

A Program For Martha’s Vineyard Development:

1. Protect and Improve the Island’s Natural Beauties.

2. Maintain Good Boat Service and Provide Facilities for Carrying Automobiles.

3. Push Through the Island’s Highway Projects; rebuild the old roads.

4. Advertise Martha’s Vineyard.

5. Improve the waterways; encourage the fishing industry.

6. Make the Island attractive for Fall Vacationers; lengthen the summer season.

7. Keep the Vineyard’s old friends always in touch with the Island.

Some places are ruined because the inhabitants move out and do things over the face of the globe. Not so the Vineyard. Once a Vineyarder, always a Vineyarder. Those who were born here, and those who have lived here never seem to lose the home touch.

Few spots owe so much to the regard in which they are held, and to the love borne by the visitors who come their way. The Island of Martha’s Vineyard numbers its citizens of the heart by thousands, and they live everywhere upon the earth. The Island grows as its friends abroad increase and keep up their interest.

Perhaps this began years ago when Vineyarders went whaling and sailed every sea. The Islanders never could sit quietly by their home hearths, and this state of things seems oddly enough projected into another day of the country’s history.

No conspiracy of effort and design could have made the Vineyard the home for so many people in so many places; the Island spirit which somehow holds them together, and they in common share, could never have been invented or induced. It just happened; and now it is something valuable for the Island to carry and maintain.

For the building up of a better Martha’s Vineyard there is no better course than to keep the Island’s good friends and have them come back often enough not to forget.

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com