The Dukes County Historical Society has purchased from Edward B. Meyer the lot of land on School street, Edgartown, adjoining the society’s present property. The acquisition will make possible the eventual construction of a fireproof building for the society without marring or destroying the appearance of the present premises which preserve an important bit of the historic town.
The Meyer lot, used as a garden in recent years, was formerly owned by Capt. Manuel V. DeLoura.
The Tisbury building inspector has been cleared for work on the Martha’s Vineyard Museum project, following a written disclosure to the state ethics commission filed last week.
An autograph letter from John Hancock to James Athearn, a prominent citizen of Tisbury in the period just preceding the American Revolution, has been acquired by the Dukes County Historical Society. Not only does the letter bear Hancock’s signature in the same clear style as that which adorns the Declaration of Independence, but it gives a picture of a business transaction in that early era.
A quantity of customs house records, all that can be found of the invaluable files of the former Edgartown customs house, have been acquired by the Dukes County Historical Society, Marshall Shepard, the society’s president, announced at the quarterly meeting held at the West Tisbury library Wednesday afternoon. The documents, which Mr. Shepard described as a pile three or four feet high, are a remnant of eighteen large packing cases in which the papers of the customs house were packed and shipped to Boston when the office was discontinued in 1912.
Hiding from the Nazi regime, escaping across the Iron Curtain, fainting at Beatles concerts, these stories and many others were recorded by sixth graders at the West Tisbury School while interviewing Islanders who had immigrated to this country.
