The Martha’s Vineyard Preservation Trust announced this week that it will buy and preserve the Norton property on the Edgartown harbor that includes the Osborn building, the oldest structure on the Edgartown waterfront.

The trust will buy the Dock street property owned by the Norton family which includes two buildings and a dock adjacent to Memorial Wharf. The boathouse was built after the 1944 hurricane. The Osborn building is much older and dates to the 1830s.

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.

None of the houses on North Water street in Edgartown are small. But tucked among the old whaling captains’ homes, with their broad lawns stretching down to private docks on the outer harbor is a comparatively diminutive Greek revival building known as the library. The fate of this home has hung in the balance since September, when plans for its demolition were first presented to the Edgartown historic district commission in the wake of strong neighborhood opposition to the project.

A leading opponent is neighbor John Connors.

More and more ghosts are being drawn to Oak Bluffs’ attractive summer housing. “Some spirits have a sliver of their psyche attached to some place where they were happy,” explains Holly Nadler, Haunted Island author, bookstore owner and part-time ghost-hunter. As these properties change owners more frequently, some are becoming crowded. “This place is gooey with ghosts,” said Ms. Nadler, conducting a tour of the Camp Ground last weekend.

East Chop residents mourned the end of an era this week, reacting to news that an old Victorian in the heart of Oak Bluffs' Highlands district may fall to a wrecking ball in the coming months.

One of the Island's most historic mansions, the Corbin-Norton house on Ocean Park burned to the ground in the midst of a heavy gale Monday night.

By the time firemen arrived, the house was fully involved, fanned by northeast winds as high as 40 miles per hour. Oak Bluffs fire chief Dennis P. Alley said it took firemen from three towns more than four hours to gain control of the fire and prevent it from spreading into the neighborhood. Mr. Alley said he determined the cause of the fire to be electrical wiring in an outlet behind the wall in the first-floor living room.

The Vineyard Gazette this week completed its first major building expansion and renovation at South Summer street and Davis Lane in Edgartown, the newspaper’s home since early 1939. This Sunday, as the newspaper enters its 139th year of publishing without missing a single issue, the Gazette will open its doors to all the Vineyard community from noon to 5 p.m. for a house warming and public inspection.

On Aug. 26, 1869, the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company, an energetic corporation which had bought up acres of the lovely woods and meadows and shore front stretches of what is now Oak Bluffs, sold one of those lots, 69 Pequot avenue, to Lydia B. Smith of New Bedford.