An Auction Bridge Club has been formed in Oak Bluffs.

 

Some of the sportsmen have been fortunate and several geese have been the result.

 

Miss Mary Hayden, who has been the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence P. Hayden, has returned to the mainland for the winter.

 

The Baptist minister and his wife have moved into the “Baptist Parsonage” and are getting comfortably settled in their new home.

 

The young folks had an enjoyable time on Hallowe’en. Grotesque figures paraded the streets, some of the younger children being “rigged” in sheets and carrying ghostly lanterns. All seemed to be having a good time in a more quiet way than usual.

 

Mr. John McGrath has bought the “Dyer Cottage” and two lots of land, one facing Penacook avenue, on which the house stands, and the other lot facing Tuckernuck avenue. Mr. McGrath will improve the house and move from Waban Park where he has lived so many years and make his new purchase his permanent residence.

 

We hear that Mr. M. J. Keagan has bought Mr. Billings’ interest in The Pastime Theatre and is having steam heat put into the theatre which will make the place comfortable for patrons during the cold weather. This is a move in the right direction and he deserves success in this up-to-date enterprise.

 

 

Last week reference was made to the departure of the William H. Harts for their New Britain home.

 

Mr. Hart visited here during the early days and can remember when there was but one house to be seen from the tabernacle. It was before the days of the present iron tabernacle, when we had what was known as “The Preachers’ Stand,” with the big “Society Tents” all around it. The wooden building then seen by Mr. Hart was the Campmeeting Association’s office which stood in its present location.

 

In 1871, Mr. Hart bought a cottage and lots on Pequot avenue in the new section of Oak Bluffs which had been purchased of Captain Shubael Lyman Norton, by a syndicate afterward becoming known and bearing the name, Oak Bluffs Land & Wharf Company.

 

Mr. Hart bought his cottage and three lots from Timothy W. Stanley of New Britain 53 years ago. It is situated on the southeast corner of Pequot and Waban avenues. He improved the property by building an ell to the wast end of the house, broad piazzas, large chimneys with capacious fire places, hard wood floors, and cellar the entire size of the house. Mr. Hart also bought five lots of land on Massasoit and Penacook avenues, two and a half lots on Massasoit, and the other two extending through to Penacook avenues.

 

Later he had a small cottage built on the Penacook avenue lots, but the Massasoit avenue lots have remained vacant all these years, as great cost to the owner, but gave an added breathing or air space to those living on each side of the lots.

 

Later Mr. Hart also purchased about forty acres of woodland on the wet side of the Beach Road, with about two and one-half miles of shore front on the east side of the road, (now known as the “State Highway”). This section has been named “Hart Haven” and the lake or large pond which served as a breeder of mosquitoes has been dredged at great expense, and an opening made from the pond through the beach into the sea with stone jetties on either side. This makes a fine harbor for sail boats, and a few year ago we saw a large schooner loaded with lumber for a new bungalow to be built for Mr. Hart. She was anchored almost up to the edge of the pond, quite near the State road.

 

If some of our early inhabitants could come back and see what has been done in the section where they use to build their “stands” and shoot duck and geese, they would have “food for reflection,” and wonder why they had never thought of utilizing this beautiful location for residential purposes.

 

Mr. Hart’s beautiful residence is located on a lot about 300 feet back from the highway on a reservation of about six acres of his purchase with the house standing on a high part of the land and the grounds extending in a beautiful lawn, with the green grass and enough trees left standing, to give a cool and refreshing outlook to the picture, and extending to the State road on the front.

 

In the rear of Mr. and Mrs. Hart’s extensive grounds (about 2 acres) there is a lovely park of about six acres with a fine growth of oak and pine trees, and with a circular road, or driveway, extending around the entire park and connecting with the circular driveway in front of Mr. Hart’s house, and leading to the State highway.

 

There is enough land left on the outskirts of the driveway about the park, and beyond the lawns and groves about Mr. Hart’s residence, to show what nature can do in the line of the growth of tree, shrub, vine, grass, and huckleberry brush and there the birds can sing unmolested, and the squirrels can run from tree to tree in happy freedom.

 

This large park in the rear of Mr. Hart’s grounds, is named “Martha’s Park” in honor of the three Martha’s of his family: Martha, his wife; Martha, his daughter, and Martha, his granddaughter.

 

During the Fall Mr. Hart has had the beach protected from the inroads of the sea by a strong plank wall, before which immense stone has been placed to keep the waves from washing out the sand and injuring the beach and harbor.

 

All the sand which was thrown up o n the beach and sides of the pond by the dredger has been used for “filling in” and grading the low land. Upon this, good soil has been placed, and grass seed strewn, and next year we expect to see beautiful green lawns where nothing but strands of beach grass ever grew before.

 

All this improvement is of benefit to the town and the expense has been great. Mr. Hart’s sons have built lovely homes on parts of the land mentioned, some close to the edge of the little harbor on the east side, others on the high land or bluffs on the west side of the State road.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Hart’s daughter, Mrs. E. Allen Moore, has her bungalow set in the pine grove on the east side of the road with the front of the bungalow facing the waters on the little harbor and of Vineyard Sound. Two of Mr. Hart’s sons are on this same side, and also the new large white houses which Mr. Hart lets to friends of the family.

 

We wish Mr. and Mrs. Hart a pleasant winter in their New Britain home and later in the Sunny South where they will go about Christmas time to escape the cold weather. They hope to return in the early springtime to their Island home.