From the October 13, 1972 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
Robert L. Renear will announce next week the closing of the automobile business of which he has been president and treasurer since 1962. A history of 66 years and of a family business which has carried through three generations on the Vineyard will come to an end because of changed conditions in the industry and in the merchandising of cars which, in Mr. Renear’s experience, make it impossible to continue in the tradition and with the standards adhered to in the past.
In 1909 the late Walter H. Renear, grandfather of Dixon B. and Robert L. Renear, acquired the agency for Reo automobiles. Who remembers Reo today? The car and name were widely known in those early automotive days, but two years later, in 1911, Mr. Renear took the Ford agency and the history of modern popular motoring on the Island began, to be carried on through all its technical marvels and changes brought about in the life of civilization everywhere and introduced here by him, his son, Leland W. Renear, and his grandsons.
The transition to succeeding eras of automobile development was part of the day to day and year to year experience of the Renear business before and after the introduction of the historic Modal A Ford. The period of Ford jokes, so many of them that they were published in books, added spirit and humor to the introduction of Ford cars, and the founder of the Renear business relished them and recounted the latest one to customers and friends.
In 1906 the property in the rear of Masonic Hall was acquired for the growing automobile business. In 1910 a Gazette correspondent reported as follows:
“Mr. Walter H. Renear has purchased from the Henry W. Coyes the cottage east of Masonic Hall. It is supposed that Mr. Renear intends to considerably enlarge his garage which is in the rear of his house and extends to the new lot.”
A time came in the years before World War I when a Ford could be bought for little more than $300. The Ford had acquired a wholly new kind of universality.
The main Renear garage building facing Church street was built in 1922. In 1960 Leland W. Renear retired, passing along the business to his two sons.
Throughout the years the Renears won many sorts of recognition — for instance a sales record of 23 new cars in a few weeks at the close of 1954, a Distinguished Achievement Award from the Ford Company in 1967, a plaque and commendation in the traffic and highway safety program in 1966. But most of the satisfaction all the while, as Bob Renear made clear this week, has come in dealing with people — with the people of the Vineyard.
Plans that the Renears have for the future will be made public shortly, and it is a good guess that they will involve a relationship with Vineyarders and Vineyard visitors.
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The Edgartown Inn, famous for generations for gracious hospitality, is to pass into new ownership next spring. An agreement to sell the 172-year old hosetlry has been reached between Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Chirgwin and Mr. and Mrs. Earle K. Radford Jr., of Kansas City, Mo., and Chappaquiddick. The transaction is being handled through the office of John C. Nevin.
Mr. and Mrs. Chirgwin have operated the inn since 1940, and for years after the turn of the century, Mr. Chirgwin’s grandmother, Mrs. Anne Chirgwin, conducted it, establishing a fine name of its food as well as its lodging, with her piping hot cream of tartar biscuits and raised buns. In the years since 1800 when it was built as a residence by Capt. Thomas Worth, father of Maj. William Jenkins Worth, a hero of both the War of 1812 and the Mexican War and for whom Fort Worth Texas was named, it has seen many notable visitors. Among them were Daniel Webster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sen. Charles Sumner, and John F. Kennedy.
The Worths were only briefly, Edgartown residents, although the major-to-be was christened there in 1804. Then the house became an inn called the Gibbs House, then the Norton House, then the Edgartown Inn. In the early days of this century, it became a private residence again, the home of Capt. William H. Roberts of the Revenue Cutter Service.
Its buyers say they hope to continue to maintain “the high quality of service” that the Chirgwin family has offered.
Mr. Radford, a partner in the Valentine-Radford Advertising Agency, Kansas City’s second largest advertising firm, has had his own home on Chappaquiddick for the past three years. Although he has never been an innkeeper before, he is looking forward to the prospect. In addition to his advertising work, he is a painter of landscapes and portraits.
Mr. Radford says that he and his wife are planning an antique-hunting excursion into northern New England soon to look for possible additional furnishings for the inn, but, otherwise, they are not expecting to institute changes, unless, eventually, to the barn.
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
library@vineyardgazette.com
This article appears in October 9, 2026.