From the February 24, 1928 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
“One-half of the world knows nothing of the other half,” an old adage says in effect, which might well be added, for man does not know his neighbor, and the career of Samuel E. MacDonald of Oak Bluffs offers a striking example of this fact.
Everyone is familiar with the round, rosy gentleman, somewhat past middle age, who presides as court officer at the sittings of the district court, and drives a taxi between times. But few who have looked upon his unruffled genial countenance would imagine that he has lived a life of thrills and least of all that he is one of that breed of men who have furnished the inspiration for song and story, the knights of the Johnson-bar and throttle, the “hoggers” of the steel road. For along with other things, Mr. MacDonald is a railroad engineer of the old school when gaily painted, brass trimmed locomotives were the style.
Although he offers no vouchers for it, Mr. MacDonald believes that he is entitled by birth to membership in the famous Scottish clan, but evidently his family were far removed from the “banks and braes of bonny Doon” and took no great interest in the clan of their forbears.
At all events, he first saw the light in Fairhaven, and was reared a staunch Methodist, which accounts in part for his presence today in Oak Bluffs.
He recalls coming to the Island with his family as a very small boy to attend the camp meetings and he remembers when there was no wooden structure, aside from the association building, on the camp ground. At that time, the campers landed at Norris wharf at Eastville and walked over the sandy road or were laboriously hauled in horse-drawn barges. Neither method of travel offered much comfort, but it was pretty good fun, he says, to live in a tent under the trees and like all other boys he enjoyed it.
“I got my early education in a livery stable,” he says, explaining how it happened that as soon as he had finished school he was employed as an omnibus and hack driver. Previous to that he had spent some of his vacations in the tack factory, feeding machines, but his first real job was sitting on the box.
Those were the days when strings and hacks attended funerals and there was always a row of more or less battered silk hats on a shelf in the stable office, which were dusted off and donned by the drivers on such occasions.
At twenty he decided to try something different and tackled steam-fitting first, but disliking it he went to firing on the government buoy-setting steamer Verbena. This employment was greatly to his liking, but it furnished work only in summer. There was one summer when he shipped as fireman on the Vineyard steamer Monohansett also.
Choosing the profession of fireman with its prospects of better things, yet desiring year-round employment, he sought employment with the Old Colony Railroad and was put to work in the engine house.
He was soon sent out on a locomotive and for eight years he fired on the Fairhaven branch line.
“Those were the days,” he says, “when an engine was run by just one man and that man thought as much of his locomotive as he did of his wife, sometimes more. Every engine was painted in bright colors and had a name painted on it, and they were all covered with brass trimmings. It was the fireman’s job to keep this brass polished and I used to lie awake nights thinking about it.
During the time that he had been a fireman, Mr. MacDonald had lived in Fairhaven, but at the end of eight years he was promoted to engineer and given a freight train, For four years thereafter he lived at Hyannis and for eight years after that in Provincetown, as he was again promoted, this time to the passenger service.
It was in 1896 that he came to Oak Bluffs and having a stationary engineer’s license, worked in the gas and electric light plant. Later he was employed to run the boiler at the bathing beach, which position he held for many years.
For the last five or six years he has been driving a taxi, and has given up more laborious labor. But he has a number of other occupations which call for more or less of his time.
For thirteen years he has been deputy sheriff and probation officer, and he attends all sittings of the district and superior courts. He had charge of Oak Bluff’s steam fire engine for twenty-five years before it was eliminated from the regular equipment.
Living comfortably with his wife, whom he married fifty-two years ago there is not much to mar the happiness of this veteran of the road. He is contented, yet, but as he will tell you “railroading gets into a man’s soul and I would go back today if I could.”
Then it is that the listener realizes the thoughts that are surging beneath the snowy hair, when the far-away look comes into his eyes.
He is hearing once again the clang of his fireman’s shovel against the firedoor, the hiss of the gauge-cocks, and the deep rumbling of the exhaust as the steam gauge rises before the run begins.
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
library@vineyardgazette.com