From the August 21, 1874 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

The illumination of Clinton avenue Saturday night was fully up to the high standard of excellence, established last year. It is difficult to give a satisfactory description of a display of character. One gets tired of characterizing it as a “scene from fairy land,” or words to that effect, but after all that is the only descriptive that seems adequate to the occasion. The sea of variously-colored lights, the weird shadows of the trees scattered along the lone, the arches and festoons and actual walls of lanterns, the half spell-bound throngs gliding along all seen against the dark back-ground of the night, conspired to throw a kind of glamour over people and locality. The cottages seemed to have fairly run riot with lights and lanterns, and in ingenious devices for displaying the same to advantage. Mottoes and transparencies abounded. Some that did duty last year — “With light and song we greet you,” “The Vineyard is our resting place, Heaven is our home,” and others. On one of the cottages near the entrance to the avenue was the Salutation, “Ohio greets the Cottage City.” Further along was a huge transparency midway of the likenesses of three “representative” men, with “New York,” “Ohio” and “Rhode Island” written under them respectively, and under the whole — “our Committee.” The illumination extended the whole length of Clinton avenue and a little way down Wabash.

At a little after nine o’clock there was a cry of “here they come!” and a remarkable procession, headed by a tin band, moved up the avenue. One would have thought a band of goblins had gotten into the wrong shop, mistaking fairy land for their own horrible country. On they came, every form of man and beast, historical and otherwise, of local and worldwide interest. Nancy Luce was there in all the glory of an ancient hen. So was the Comet with “what a length of tail behind;” Santa Claus put in an appearance; Gay Head, with head-gear of magnificence; a pair of gigantic frogs; the Jack of Clubs and a lot of kindred spirits, a detachment of the Mulligan Guards, and other curiosities too numerous to mentions. The procession was vastly amusing and occasioned a good deal of merriment.

Everything passed off harmoniously, and the dwellers on Clinton avenue are entitled to a vote of thanks for providing the public with so agreeable an entertainment.

President Grant will, it is said, visit the Camp Ground and Oak Bluffs on Wednesday, the 26th instant. He, together with his friends, will leave New York on Tuesday next, on the steamship City of Pekin, for Newport. They will arrive on the Vineyard at 3 P.M. The event will be celebrated, and thousands will participate in the festivities.

Should President Grant visit the island, he will be the guest of Bishop Haven and Dr. Tiffany, on Clinton avenue.

Still another chapter in the history of the Martha’s Vineyard Railroad. The locomotive arrived at Woods Hole Monday night. Tuesday, it was run down on the wharf and prepared to be taken on board the steamer Martha’s Vineyard on her last trip for the Bluffs. A few minutes before the arrival of the steamer, a couple of loaded freight cars, belonging to a train that was making up, were switched from the main track to a side track, at the lower end of which stood the locomotive. On came the cars, the breaks refused duty, the cars became unmanageable, and dashed against the ill-fated locomotive with force enough to send it into the dock. The men at work on the engine heard the breakman’s warning cry barely in time to escape being carried over with it. Wednesday morning the work of raising the locomotive was commenced, and at about 6 P.M., it was raised to the wharf. It was found to be not very much damaged; the cowcatcher was considerably shattered. It was to be taken to Boston the same night, and the foreman of the O.C.Co’s machine shop said that as many men as could possibly work should be put on to it if it took twenty, and it should be delivered at Woods Hole Saturday night ready for shipment. The tender, which was also pushed overboard, was nearly out at 6 P.M.

Mr. Editor, As your people have manifested considerable enterprise in providing conveniences of travel for those who seek your shores temporarily, allow me to suggest to them that a guide board on or near the Wilbur house, at the “Four Corners,” in Edgartown village, is something which seems greatly needed. The number of teams which pass through the village, bound for Katama, is very large, and we notice that, owing to the lack of any indication of the route, many of them pass on by the corner referred to, down towards the wharf, when they should turn up Water street, and are thus inconvenienced and annoyed by their natural mistake. A plain, simple guide board, with “To Katama” upon it, placed on the Wilber house, would remedt a real defect in the facilities you offer travellers. — Capawock

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com