African American History

Robert Tankard Named As the Interim Principal At West Tisbury School
Julia Wells
The West Tisbury school committee voted last night to appoint Robert A. Tankard as interim principal at the West Tisbury School, ending with smiles and expressions of success a search process which began just three weeks ago.
 
“I think you got a good man,” said Pat Gregory, a West Tisbury resident who served on an advisory panel made up of teachers, parents and other com­munity representatives.
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Heritage Trail: Island Project Shows Story of Black History
Yvonne Guzman
In the Waterview Farm area of Oak Bluffs is a boulder as tall as a man. Back in the 1790s, the Rev. John Saunders de­livered his sermons here, from atop “Pulpit Rock.” Mr. Saunders, who was African-American, was one of the first people to preach Methodism on Martha’s Vineyard.
 
But for anyone who doesn’t know the story, this is just a rock in an Oak Bluffs subdiyision.
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Open Door Club Finds Its Niche: For 12 Years It Has Played An Important Role
Edna L. Smith
Twelve years ago a group of men and women, domestic employees, who came to Edgartown, formed a club to provide a means of social contact which was otherwise lacking,. and to make possible pleasant use of leisure time. Fer the past five years the membership has been sixty-five. The idea of the club came from Louise Hayer of EngLwood, N. J.
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Open Door Club Now A Memory: Mrs. Edna Smith, Founder Sells Her Home
Vineyard Gazette
The little white house behind shrubs at the corner of Cooke street and Tilton Way that, for more than three decades, has been a home away from home for household help in Edgartown, no longer will be welcoming the lonely next summer.
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The True Story of a Fugitive Slave: Or the Story a Gay Head Grandmother Told
Netta Vanderhoop
It was a few years before the Civil War that the incident her related took place. A large vessel in the lumbor-carrying trade was north-bound from Charlestown, South Carolina, and thereon a slave had concealed himself, hoping that when Boston was reached he would find an opportunity to gain his freedom. All went well until he was discovered by the captain, who thought that perhaps some of the ship's crew had guilty knowledge of his concealment or had even gone so far as to assist him in making his escape from a land of ceaseless toil, where there was naught for him but the lash, the slave-pen and the bloodhound.
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Union Victory
Vineyard Gazette

The Anti-Slavery Amendment to the Constitution, passed the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, on Tuesday last. As the resolution has passed the Senate, nothing is now required but the endorsement of the measure by three-fourths of the States.

 

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H. T. Burleigh Was One of Music’s Great Figures
Vineyard Gazette
Harry Thacker Burleigh, eminent composer, singer, and arranger of Negro spirituals — and who was for more than thirty years a summer resident of the Vineyard — died in Stamford on Sept. 11 at the age of 82. He was one of the great figures in music in his generation.
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Powell Wins Nomination
Vineyard Gazette
Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York city, and a summer resident of Oak Bluffs, won both the Republican and Democratic nominations for congressman in the 22nd district in New York on Tuesday. He is apparently assured of election as the first Negro representative from New York.
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Priscilla Freeman
Cottage City Star

Mrs. Priscilla Freeman, formerly of Deep Bottom but now of Cottage City, one of the few remaining having Indian blood coursing in her veins, if her story is correct – and we believe it is – is a wronged woman. The great Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through its Commissioners of Inland Fisheries, is the oppressor. Mrs. Freeman's story is: She owns land bordering on the Tisbury Great Pond, hence is one of the riparian proprietors.

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Frederick Douglass
Vineyard Gazette

While upon this subject, it may not be out of place to state that Frederick Douglas, the colored gentleman and orator, will lecture before an “Association of gentlemen,” at the Town Hall on Saturday evening next. We are not advised as to his subject, but suppose from his antecedents, that he will treat mainly upon this subject of slavery in our country.

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