Great Ferry Heist
From Gazette editions of July, 1935:
Almost six years have passed since the safe robbery on the Oak Bluffs steamboat wharf, and now come the mainland newspapers with sensational stories of Joseph Fisher, Rhode Island’s public enemy No. 1, who has pleaded guilty of the $129,000 postal robbery at Fall River last January. Joseph Fisher was one of the men arrested for the Oak Bluffs crime; but whereas Eddie Tracey went to the state’s prison where he has since remained, Joseph Fisher went free. His apprehension for the Fall River robbery is a reminder that the full story of the Oak Bluffs affair was never told, and it raises a question as to what Fisher’s part may have been.
Crime on the Vineyard is so rare that the occasional episodes have something of the flavor of mystery and detective stories, rather than of reality. An unusual phase of the Oak Bluffs case proved to be the friendships which Eddie Tracey made during the months he spent in the Edgartown jail, friendships, oddly enough, with children who played around the jail, and some of which have continued by correspondence until the present day.
While Fisher is confessing — the newspapers report that he is “taking the rap” alone for the Fall River robbery, absolving other defendants — it would be helpful if he would tell all he knows of the Oak Bluffs case. What was his part in the planning of the robbery? What would his role have been if a chance seizure of appendicitis had not fortuitously removed him to the hospital?
If he was a principal in the steamboat wharf affair, as the state contended, his acquittal at the time served only to give him a few more years of freedom and the opportunity to take part in a greater, more sensational robbery. And now, retribution.
Add distinguished guests: Ethel Waters, world famous Harlem singer of blues and other haunting melodies, star on Broadway last year in As Thousands Cheer, and familiar to radio audiences as well, is spending the summer in Oak Bluffs. Miss Waters ranks with entertainers of the calibre of Josephine Baker and Bill Robinson (Bojangles) and her advent on the Vineyard is hailed by music lovers.
I sing of the little wood-tick,
The Cape’s own rural pet,
Though he’s intimate and loyal, I’ve not learned to like him yet.
I sing of the little wood-tick
Clinging closer than a brother,
The rural vamp of field and camp
Than which there is no other.
I sing of the little wood-tick
A-sitting on a log.
I waged a battle with him,
Finding eighteen on my dog.
And that unhappy puppy,
Most miserable of curs,
Found the unwelcome insect
His “tic-doloreause.”
I’m praying now for August
When his family will decrease
And leave the clock of all my hours
In quiet, tickless peace.
West Tisbury village seeks to get rid of some of its wild rabbits and it appears probable that a number of the animals will be trapped and removed to some locality where the rabbit population is less dense, thus relieving the garden owners who are waxing wrathful over the damage to vegetables and flowers. Nelson Bryant, selectman, who has received numerous complaints and has himself suffered loss through the activities of the bunnies, has made this announcement, after conferring with State Game Warden Gordon Spofford and M.C. Hoyle, president of the Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club. According to the older inhabitants, there has always been some damage by rabbits in the village, but it has become more serious during the past five years. Areas of good rabbit cover exist in the village proper, and the rabbits breed there, sallying forth by day and night to dine on the crops of the inhabitants. All bunnies which object to deportation will do well to avoid the village.
The tuna have struck Vineyard waters and have been reported in tremendous schools in the vicinity of Noman’s Land. It is expected they will be in the mouth of the Sound by the weekend, and many parties have been planned by rod and reel fishermen. The tuna is becoming numerous in these waters, and is said to be even more lively here than in the warmer latitudes of the South. He is often accompanied by his first cousin, the albacore, and the fisherman who trolls for those fish is quite likely to hook the larger of the species which, according to the authorities, behaves very much like a runaway submarine.
Compiled by Cynthia Meisner
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