The Dukes County Intelligencer is well on its way, according to Gale Huntington, its editor. The quality of the publication may possibly be judged by a sample of some of its surplus. These items were rejected by Eleanor Mayhew when she wrote her account of Christiantown:
For 73 years, the Dukes County Historical Society has been the resource for those interested in the history, genealogy, culture and natural history of Martha’s Vineyard.
But institutions need to move with the times. At the society’s annual meeting on August 19, the membership voted to change the name of the organization. From now on, the gate house at the corner of School and Cook streets in Edgartown will read Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society.
“What’s in a name?” asked Romeo. The answer the Society expects, will be recognition.
Vineyard Voices: Words, Faces and Voices of Island People. Excerpts from Interviews by Linsey Lee. Photographs by Linsey Lee and Mark Lennihan. Martha’s Vineyard: the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society, 1998. 296 pages. $29.95, soft cover.
The Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society doesn’t have a whaling ship for its museum, nor a schooner. Although there is plenty of maritime history connected to the Vineyard, such great vessels would be too much of a burden to maintain. But the historical society does have an attractive old catboat and soon it will sail again.
Some of the relics from the Port Hunter that were salvaged this summer by a group of young and enterprising Vineyard skindivers from that “ghost ship” sunk on Hedge Fence Shoal in November, 1918, have been presented to the Dukes County Historical Society. They are now on display in the Squire Cooke House, and serve as real life illustrations of the two informative articles written by Sammy Hart Low which appeared in the Gazette recently, illustrated by pictures he had taken.
A new fireproof building to house the priceless records and collections of the Dukes County Historical Society is to be built on the land on School street, Edgartown, adjoining the grounds of the society’s Squire Cooke house. The new structure, although placed near School street on this lot, will face toward Cooke street, making an angle with the Gay Head lens tower and the Cooke house.
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.
