Thanks to the Methodist founding fathers of the Campground who established Oak Bluffs as a tourist resort in 1835, religion has played a large part in our history. Slavery was prohibited in Massachusetts in 1783 and John Saunders, a former slave, brought Methodism to Martha’s Vineyard in 1787. There’s a plaque dedicated to Saunders on The African American Heritage Trail at the Pecoy Point Preserve where he preached at Pulpit Rock to the ‘coloured’ and original people in the Farm Neck neighborhood.

Robert C. Hayden’s book, African Americans on Martha’s Vineyard & Nantucket, accounts for Father John F. Wright who preached at the Campgrounds in 1856. Josiah Henson, a fugitive slave believed to have been the person Harriet Beecher Stowe based Uncle Tom on, preached there in 1858. The Baptists built a wooden octagonal tabernacle of their own in 1878 in the Highlands that was widely used by black worshippers who were welcomed there and which is why the surrounding area of the Highlands became home to many black Vineyarders. Receiving little use, the tabernacle burned down about 10 years later and today the grounds remain a quiet sanctuary for the neighborhood called Baptist Temple Park. Thanks to financial contributions by the Camp meeting Association, the Baptists built a church on the corner of Pequot avenue and Grove in 1878.

Born in 1875, the Rev. Oscar E. Denniston came to Oak Bluffs in 1901 and assisted Susan Bradley at the Oakland Mission that, after her death, Reverend Denniston renamed the Bradley Memorial Church in her honor in 1907. Outgrowing the small quarters, Reverend Denniston moved the church to the old Noepe Theatre across the street at the corner of Circuit avenue and Masonic street. The Noepe was used in season and the Bradley in winter, but maintenance costs made it prohibitive.

In 1956 the organization bought the Baptist Church on Pequot avenue and held services as the Bradley Memorial congregation until 1966 when it disbanded. Meanwhile, from about 1944 to the early 1960’s the Rev. Charles L. Johnson hosted summer churchgoers at the Gospel Tabernacle at the corner of Dukes County avenue and Garvin street. There is some apocryphal evidence that the Reverend Leroy C. Perry, a Chief of the Wampanoag’s from 1928 to 1960, may have preached at the Gospel Tabernacle located only a few doors down from his home on Dukes County avenue. Today, apparently still owned by the Johnson family, the building crumbles in disrepair, much of its potentially rich history unrecorded.

The park commission has applied for Community Preservation Act funds to restore Pennacook Park which requires a positive vote at the annual town meeting in April. The park department plans public discussions with all interested neighbors and residents to assist with the final design, and there is additional information on the town website. Noted as Pennacook Park, today the small neighborhood greenspace is in fact one of the original nine parks on the 1871 map designed by Robert Morris Copeland. Interestingly, on the Oak Bluffs Property Map of 1986 it’s called “Park Park” a place evidently so nice it was named twice. Split by Niantic avenue, the park commission plans for the removal of several dead and dying trees that are to be replaced, grass to improve the open field, benches and a walkway. There is also a provision for a boulder at the eastern end with a name plaque for the park. I do hope it winds up as Park Park which would be deliciously consistent for we who reside in Dukes County County.

Martha’s Vineyard Community Services is offering training for obtaining CPR Certification, a three-hour course in the community services boardroom on Saturday, Feb. 18 from 9 a.m. to noon. Pre-registration is required at 508-687-9182.

Congratulations to Oak Bluffs’ Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree who received the 2017 Chairman’s Award at the NAACP Image Awards on Feb. 11. The prestigious award is bestowed in recognition of individuals who demonstrate exemplary public service and use their distinct platforms to create agents of change. Prof. Ogletree, who taught Barack and Michelle Obama at Harvard, is also the author of numerous books on race relations.

Keep your foot on a rock.

Send Oak Bluffs new to sfinley@mvgazette.com.