For 42 years, Dukes County clerk of courts Joseph E. Sollitto Jr. has called the Edgartown superior courthouse to order.

Last week, Mr. Sollitto, who is retiring after serving seven consecutive terms at the beginning of January, had the chance to do the same thing two blocks over on South Summer street as part of the Tuesday in the Newsroom series.

“Here ye, here ye,” Mr. Sollitto bellowed before a small crowd gathered in the Gazette newsroom as he banged his courtroom pole and called the building to attention. “The court is now in session. You may all be seated.”

Mr. Sollitto went on to hold court for the next hour and a half, telling stories laced with history and laughs about his often misunderstood position. He spoke with the nostalgia and expertise of someone who has been a fixture of the Edgartown courthouse for the past four decades.

“It’s been a position that I really enjoyed,” Mr. Sollitto said, “and it’s been a lot of fun.”

He was working as an Oak Bluffs police officer and eating breakfast at the Pit Stop in July 1969 when his partner got a call telling him to go over to the boat dock in Chappaquiddick.

“The rest is history,” he said.

When the Kennedy trial began, Mr. Sollitto took his seat in a crowded courtroom, more focused on finding a seat than who was around him. When he looked up, he realized he was siting next to Joan Kennedy.

In classic small-town fashion, his seat was meant to be short-lived. “The Oak Bluffs police chief came over and said, rank has its privileges, get up. And I did,” he recalled, referring to Oak Bluffs police chief Peter Williamson, who would become a longtime friend.

Mr. Sollitto did get his moment of fame, appearing on the front page of the Boston Globe as he escorted Judge James Boyle out of the Edgartown courthouse.

Soon after, he received his law degree from Suffolk University and took a position as assistant to Sophia Campos, the superior court clerk of courts for Dukes County.

“Sophia said, I see you doing titles and know you work for Jeff Norton, but she also said I see you in church in Sunday mornings, so why don’t you come help me out,” he recalled. “That’s how I got my experience.”

A few years later, the 40-year veteran Ms. Campos retired, and Mr. Sollitto took her spot. He would never look back, serving as clerk through dramatic changes to both courthouse and the Island over which it presided.

“You learn it as you’re going along,” he said, describing the job.

As clerk, he serves as the court’s top administrator, helping judges and lawyers with cases, filing documents, signing search warrants and swearing in attorneys.

Mr. Sollitto also showed off his encyclopedic knowledge of the Dukes County court’s history, naming every prior clerk since the early 19th century. He shared fun facts, including about why the County of Dukes County is the only county in America with that term in its name, and why the courthouse is in Edgartown. It might have been in West Tisbury but for a campaign to get out the vote.

“They drummed up the vote,” he said, describing an 1888 election when the sheriff refused to let Edgartown boaters leave the harbor.

“I’ve always been interested in history, and I’ve always been interested in politics,” Mr. Sollitto said. “And my job as the clerk of the courts gave me a little of both. I think that if I hadn’t gone to law school I might have ended up being a history teacher.”

Beyond giving history lessons, Mr. Sollitto also shared some stories and wisdom about the more nuanced aspects of his job, such as selecting juries and posting bail. He said jury systems work and bail is to make sure people show up in court.

After 40 years, Mr. Sollitto learned to navigate one of the most hair-splitting parts of his job — parking ticket hearings — with the tact and wit necessary of his station. He told one story about a longtime Edgartown resident who received a $15 ticket for parking half outside the white lines and half inside the yellow ones.

“She wanted to pay $7.50,” he recalled. Her persuaded her to pay the ticket.

Mr. Sollitto’s sense of justice could be one of the reasons he’s won seven straight elections as a Republican on Martha’s Vineyard.

“Justice is treating people fairly. Justice is doing what is right. It doesn’t mean doing convictions,” he said. “I’m a public servant, and I always say, public in front of it.”