The 300-year-old Vincent House, perhaps the oldest home on the Island, is open once again to the public in Edgartown for the summer.
The remarkable aspect of this house is it’s architecture. There are only limited furnishings inside, and the restorers - John Warren Norton, Anne Baker and C. Stuart Avery of the Martha’s Vineyard Historic Preservation Society - have fashioned the house in the most interesting way possible.
The Dukes County Historical Society has solved the space problem it has been struggling with for most of its 66 years with the purchase of the John Vinson House on School street.
Saturday the society will open the property to the public as part of the Christmas in Edgartown celebration with a smattering of exhibits showing the Vineyard’s long and interesting history, as well as the history of the historical society.
A tale that reaches from settlement to commerce, from orthodoxy to schism, from one church to many, from faith to tourism, from industry to resorthood.
The citizens of Edgartown, opposed to the further extension of slavery in this country, assembled at the Town Hall on Friday evening last.
E. Marchant was chosen Chairman, and Henry A. Coffin, Esq., Secretary.
The following gentlemen were elected Delegates to the Worcester Convention, to nominate candidates for State Officers, viz: - John Vinson, J.R. Dillingham, Harrison P. Mayhew.
Approximately 500 buildings in downtown Edgartown, most of them wood frame houses of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, are now part of a nationally recognized historic district.
THE NEW COUNTY ROAD, between Edgartown and Holmes Hole, is in a good state of forwardness; that portion lying within the Tisbury boundary, we believe, is entirely completed. We passed over the road a day or two since, and are free to confess that we consider this the greatest improvement to locomotion ever made on the island. Through a considerable portion of the route, the road is already as hard and as handsomely finished as any turnpike we ever passed over.
This historic footage of a home movie shot in 1932 shows villagers attempting to dig a canal by hand to open Norton Point Beach to the sea, part of a town effort to invigorate the shellfish beds at Katama Bay.
The second annual Cooke and South Water streets house tour will be tomorrow, Wednesday. August 13, from 2 to 4 p.m. The tour will include five historic homes in Edgartown, all within walking distance of each other, followed by tea and refreshments. At each home, guests will be greeted by a docent who will share information about the history of the home and answer questions.
Excerpted from The Chappy Ferry Book: Back and Forth Between Two Worlds, 527 Feet Apart, by Tom Dunlop, with photographs by Alison Shaw and a short film on DVD by John Wilson (Vineyard Stories, 2012).
This excerpt is taken from chapter five which tells the story of James H. Yates of Edgartown, who owned the ferry from 1920 to 1929. He was the last man to run the Chappy ferry as a rowboat.
Folks on both sides of the harbor love Jimmy Yates. But folks on the Chappaquiddick side loathe the ferry Jimmy Yates runs.
