From the April 22 1949 edition of the Vineyard Gazette: Easter came and went quietly, unmarked by much of the traditional pre-summer bustle, but with a lifting influence that was noticeable everywhere.

A lowery day, as the oldest inhabitants would have said, with a chill east wind blowing from the stranded bergs on the Grand Banks a thousand miles away, and bringing a touch of the atmosphere of the Baffin ice, it discouraged many of the traditional activities of Easter.

The sun shone fitfully throughout the day, peeping out through ragged rifts in the gray clouds and quickly vanishing, as if also discouraged by the lingering of winter. It was no day for the displaying of Easter finery, and in many cases the churchgoers wore overcoats and heavy garments.

Flowers, especially those associated with the spring season, were not at their best. Daffodils and narcissus being hardy blooms, were gay and full-blown, yellow and white, or in combination. But there were many other varieties which were not as well laden with blossoms as usual.

This did not apply to the Easter lilies, which were magnificent. Seldom, if ever, has the Vineyard seen more of them, and they were truly wonderful.

Easter somehow always seems to signify certain trends and sentiment on the part of the public, and in many ways this Easter Day, cloudy and cold though it was, seemed to reflect more of the traditional joyousness and well being than the observance has for years.

Twenty-one years ago, Fred Briggs, now of Edgartown, planted a bushel of oysters in Kidder’s Cove, on Anthier’s Pond. He had a camp there for a couple of years at the time, and he brought the oysters, three inches or so in size, from West Tisbury Great Pond, and put them out where he figured the fresh water draining into the cove from the old cranberry bog would do them good. It did.

On Wednesday Stanley Smith took a couple of buckets of oysters from Kidder’s Cove, regular old grandfathers in size, and Fred is sure that they are the ones he planted that long ago. He knows because he had them located by a stake on the land. One of the shells, eight inches long and four and a quarter inches wide, he says ­— with a straight face — gave him three meals: one-third fried, another third in a stew, and the rest fried again, for breakfast yesterday morning. The shell will be made into an ash tray to serve Mr. Briggs and also to be a reminder of this bit of history.

As a matter of fact, this is not Mr. Briggs’ sole attempt at oyster planting. He has deposited a number of bushels in various places in the town harbor, all the way up from the mouth of the herring creek, and Mr. Smith acknowledged he has had some of these too, although the others were not so large as the steakers taken Wednesday. Fred, himself, has enjoyed the delicacy only through the courtesy of Mr. Smith; he never went back to get any for himself. It was just a labor of love.

The wind blew with a March-y chill, there was fog hanging between the hills, and the brooks and ponds were high, flooding the banks and surrounding marshes, but the anglers of the Vineyard went forth to whip the waters last Friday, the opening day of the trout season.

How many went is a question, but the number was better than average. Many went to the stocked ponds, some to the favorite holes in Chilmark Pond, still others followed the brooks and a few had private ponds or streams of their own.

Taken altogether, the luck was below that of a year ago. Fly-fishermen suffered losses of their lures, due to the high wind. Pond fishermen complained that due to the high water, the fish were scattered over the new feeding grounds and were not to be found massed in the favored holes. But many got their limit of brown or brook trout, and only a few, perhaps no more than two anglers, returned with empty creels.

Benjamin Maderios of Oak Bluffs lifted the Leonard prize for the second consecutive season. His fish weighed in at 1 pound, 11 ounces. It was not the largest fish taken, but it was the largest weighed in from opened ponds or streams. John W. Mayhew and James L. Richards, fishing in a private pond, got seven fish, one weighing 1 1/2 pounds, and another weighing 2 pounds. A probable 3 pounder was also reported, but this report was not verified.

Ted Henley had a 15 ounce fish, Lester Nerney, one of 11 ounces, Richard Flanders, one of 13 ounces, all weighed in.

M. C. Hoyle took nine fish, partly from Chilmark Pond and the rest from his own brook, the best one weighing 3/4 of a pound. Jules Ben David, one of the deans of the first-day group, was reported to have landed a fish from the narrowest and shoalest stream. Ed Bannister, game warden, who was an eye-witness, claimed that a duck could have stepped across this stream dryshod, but Papa Jules hauled out a trout just the same.

Best fishing reported in an open pond was at Homer’s where twenty-one trout were landed during the morning.

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

library@vineyardgazette.com