For a few minutes on Sunday afternoon, the Vineyard seemed supremely apathetic to a visit by the President of the United States. But that was because his arrival was unheralded, and when word got out that the cabin cruiser which had tied up at Edgartown carried a boatload of Kennedys - starring Caroline toward the bow - pandemonium broke loose around the harbor.
President Kennedy Slept in Room L at Ocean View, and This Is How It Happened, Rep. Sylvia Recalls.
The Visit of young Jack Kennedy to Martha’s Vineyard as a young yachtsman in the summer of 1941 hasn’t been forgotten. The adventures of the future President and his brother began before they reached the scene of the regatta at Edgartown.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the nation’s first real seagoing chief executive, made port at Edgartown Sunday afternoon in the midst of the nor’west squall, and lay there at anchor until the following morning when he got under way for Nantucket. The visit was entirely impromptu weather conditions making it highly practical that he seek shelter, and the president did not himself land, although invitations to remain overnight ashore were extended to him. But his son James landed and made the acquaintance of the town, exchanging friendly remarks with various persons he met.
Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York, Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States, sailed into the waters of Dukes County late Wednesday, although not into the waters of the Vineyard. The Roosevelt yawl, Myth II, slipped into Cuttyhunk after logging fifty miles from Stonington, Conn., where the previous night was spent, and Mr. Roosevelt stepped ashore, his arms aching from a long day at the wheel.
Twice the thirty-first President of the United States came close to Martha’s Vineyard, into Vineyard waters, once a few weeks after his first inauguration in 1933 when he skippered the yacht Amberjack II into Edgartown harbor and lay overnight, and again in August 1941, when on the yacht Potomac, bound for the meeting with Winston Churchill which resulted in the Atlantic Charter, he kept rendezvous at Tarpaulin Cove.
The death of Calvin Coolidge was the occasion for much sorrow and sympathy on the Vineyard. The former president had visited the Island many times and several Vineyarders had close ties of friendship and association with him over a period of years. Ulysses E. Mayhew of West Tisbury served with Mr. Coolidge in the state house of representatives in 1907 when the future president was beginning his legislative ecperience.
On account of press of public business Governor McCall was not able to be the guest of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association on Friday last. It was the first time in a long term of years that the people of the Vineyard have not had the pleasure of an August visit from the chief magistrate of the Commonwealth.
Republican State leaders swarmed on the island last Friday. Conducted by the ever energetic Fred. W. Smith of Oak Bluffs, who was assisted by many of the Vineyard’s local politicians, next Governor McCall and his company were taken to every town on the island, and were unanimous at its close in declaring it to have been “a most delightful day.”
Last week’s Gazette guessed that Grover Cleveland landed on the Vineyard more than once when he was President. Joseph E. Howes of West Tisbury supplies the information that he did - more so than the Island’s other Presidential visitors. Here is the story:
