An agreement to sell Edgartown’s handsome Dr. Daniel Fisher house on Main street, built in 1840 for that great whaling era figure, has been reached between Island Properties, who president is Dr. Alvin M. Strock, its owner for the past seven years, and a newly formed nonprofit corporation, the Daniel Fisher Corporation.
The old house on Main street, Edgartown, which has been referred to as the Edson house, has received an official and appropriate christening. It is now the Desire Osborn House, called after James Coffin’s youngest child, Desire Allen Coffin, who married John Osborn in 1813, and for whom the house was moved to its present site from the neighborhood of Mill Hill.
Beginning Sunday, Nov. 11, the Island steamboat schedule will be changed to eliminate the trips to and from Edgartown. The last boat in the evening will put into Vineyard Haven and remain there, leaving at 6:10 in the morning as has been the custom.
A new allotment has just been made by the Mass. Highway Commission for State highway work in this town, and it is estimated and hoped that the section now under construction will bring the macadam down to a point near the Nicholas Norton brook, sometimes called Burnside Fall. Stone to be used in the above work will be paid for, delivered at the crusher at the rate of $1.10 per ton. If the stone comes in promptly it is hoped this section will be completed to the point above named by July 1st.
Edgartown is in the swim with other resorts. The horseless carriage is here. The first to appear is the locomobile of Mr. Elmer J. Bliss, of the Regal Shoe, who brought this vehicle down from Boston Saturday night. Mr. Bliss had his locomobile out on Sunday, and it worked very satisfactorily on our streets.
The ropes which will sustain the weight boxes are made of the best steel, about as large as a man’s little finger, and each can sustain a weight of two tons.
The dials are 6 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 80 feet from the ground.
Like all other clocks and watches IIII indicates four, instead of IV; why? Oh, we give it up.
A plate on one side of the works is inscribed as follows:
Mr. Editor: As you have kindly consented to publish any communication from those interested in the public good and well-being of the community, I think a short review of the past, as well as our hope for the future, may be profitable.
One score plus one year ago, to wit, July 4, 1946, Borrowdale, “the smallest bookshop in the world,” opened its doors to the public in Edgartown. It was then, and is still today, the only shop on the Vineyard devoted solely to the purveyance of literature without resort to the lure of coupons or kickapoo juice or the like. Established by the late Gerald and Margaret Chittenden shortly before his retirement from the faculty of St. Paul’s School, Concord, N.H., Borrowdale quickly became known as the place you could purchase good books immediately, and order the other kind.
The Chappaquiddick Beach Club, historically important in the development of Edgartown and one of the key properties in its summer life, has been sold by Esther C. Conkling and Irene C. Wagenaar to Northam Warren Jr. and Dorothy C. Warren of New Canaan, Conn.
The Warrens in recent seasons have leased from Robert Marshall what is known as the Dr. Marshall house on Chappaquiddick. They will take title to the beach property on or before Oct. 1, and the beach club will be operated this summer, as in recent years, by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Conkling.
