In 1901, Rev. Oscar Denniston moved to Martha’s Vineyard from Jamaica with his wife Charlotte and two sons. He had never been to the United States before, but arrived on the Island at the age of 26 after being invited by a chaplain from Vineyard Haven. 

He settled in Oak Bluffs and soon became a community and spiritual leader, presiding over the first African American church on the Island.

The story of Reverend Denniston and his family is currently on display at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in an exhibit called Finding Our Way Home: The Denniston Family and 11 Masonic Avenue. 

Anna Barber, the curator of the exhibit, said that the family’s journey highlights the Island’s history with immigration.

Exhibit continues at the museum through May 4. — Ray Ewing

“Of all the stories we’ve told here, it feels like one that’s so true to the spirit of particularly Oak Bluffs, but the Island,” Ms. Barber said. “It feels particularly resonant right now with how we are thinking about immigration in the country and how we have embraced immigrants in the past on this Island.”

Reverend Denniston was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1875. He worked as a chaplain at Kingston’s Seaman’s Mission, which is where he met and became friends with Madison Edwards, who led the Seamen’s Bethel in Vineyard Haven.

Mr. Edwards invited Reverend Dennison to work with him on the Vineyard, where he soon began helping Susan Bradley at her mission at 11 Masonic avenue in Oak Bluffs. Ms. Bradley helped Portuguese immigrants, who made up around 20 per cent of the town’s population at the time, learn English and prepare for naturalization. 

In 1907, she gave the mission over to Reverend Denniston.

Under his direction, the mission became the Bradley Memorial Church. The Baptist church had a diverse congregation, including Portuguese immigrants, the year-round Black population, members of the Wampanoag community and Black domestic workers who came to the Island to work for wealthy summer residents.

Reverend Denniston created a schedule of services that would be available to all the working class members of the Island.

“There’s this kind of hidden story of Black domestic workers who would come with the wealthy summer residents and they would be working all the time,” Ms. Barber said. “He would design services to accommodate when they had a day off or when their work was done, and he would arrange for transportation to pick them up.”

Reverend Denniston returned to Kingston for a few years following the death of his wife. While there, he helped rebuild the country after an earthquake hit Jamaica in 1907. 

Following the marriage to his second wife, Medora, Reverend Denniston and his family returned to the Vineyard to continue his work at the Bradley Memorial Church.

The church became so popular that Reverend Denniston purchased the old Noepe Theatre on Circuit avenue in the 1920s to use as a second location.

Bradley Memorial Church was located on Masonic avenue in Oak Bluffs.

“It speaks to the need for this community, this kind of place where people who weren’t accepted at other churches, weren’t able to make the services because of their work schedule, were able to come,” Ms. Barber said.

Like Reverend Denniston’s congregants, he also faced racism. In an oral history interview that is part of the exhibit, his son, Dean Denniston, spoke about the discrimination his father faced while trying to run for a school committee.

“It was said that if Mr. Denniston gets on the school committee, we’ll have Black school teachers. Can you imagine a Black school teacher?” Dean Denniston recalled people saying.

The museum exhibit also highlights the accomplishments of Reverend Denniston’s seven children, several of whom pursued higher education. One of his sons, Baron, obtained a patent for a noisemaker he made at age 14.

“We have a lot of his letters to scientific equipment companies where he was ordering things,” Ms. Barber said.

Reverend Denniston died in 1942, and in the decades that followed, family members died or moved off-Island and visits to the Island became less frequent.

The house was sold in the early 2000s, but many of the family’s belongings remained intact. In 2008, museum staff were able to archive items from the home through an agreement with the Denniston family and the owners of the house at the time.

“It was a very hot summer and we were looking through every piece of paper, everything,” Ms. Barber said. “It felt a little intrusive in some ways because there’s clothing in the drawers, there’s medicine in the cabinets in the bathroom, but it felt like an incredible opportunity to really be able to understand the day-to-day life of a family in Oak Bluffs during this time in a way that we’ve never been able to do before.”

Linsey Lee, the museum’s oral historian before she retired last year, was also a part of the archival process. She said the museum staff and several volunteers spent more than 300 hours combing through the home and church.

“When I walked in there the first time . . . I went with one of the cousins into the house. It was untouched,” Ms. Lee said. “There were boxes of cereal and canned goods. There were pamphlets and hymnals and books . . . . It felt like the family was there. So was the spirit of the church. It was very much alive.”

An item that still stands out to Ms. Lee was one of Reverend Denniston’s wallets. Based on the dates of the documents in it, Ms. Lee could tell it was the last wallet he owned. Inside, he kept a photo of his son Osmund, who had died at 13 in a drowning accident. The photograph included a pledge, signed by 10 year-old Osmund, to be a good Christian.

“His father carried that on him for 40 years,” Ms. Lee said.

The property on Masonic avenue was demolished in 2017 after a years-long debate as to what to do with the house, which included potential plans for a community center and affordable housing.

Although the Denniston family no longer lives on the Island, their Vineyard history is still important to living descendants. Sean Denniston, grandson of Reverend Denniston and son of Baron Denniston, now lives in the D.C. area. He said he hopes that visitors to the museum will be able to understand his family in its historic context.

“I think it’s important to see how they persevered and prospered despite the setbacks they were in,” he said. “They were certainly aware of racism and suffered it....I think they tried to make it better within what they understood of the times.”

Finding Our Way: The Denniston Family and 11 Masonic Avenue continues through May 4. Visit mvmusuem.org for more information.