Time Machine Terms
December 12, 1941
Rod and Gun Club Ready to Form Shotgun Brigade
The Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club, more than 200 strong, will report, in case of emergency, as a shotgun brigade, according to a resolution adopted by the club on Wednesday night. The club discussed possibilities of an invasion with grim and practical earnestness before adopting the resolution, taking a report of the arms owned by its membership which consist of at least one shotgun to a man and a number of rifles. Given any sort of break, the club felt that its membership could add considerably to the unpleasant situation of an enemy should one appear.
December 12, 1941
Vineyard Boys Serving in Far Eastern Forces
A tremor of mixed excitement and dread swept the Vineyard on Sunday when the first news of the Japanese attack on the Pacific islands became known through the radio broadcasts. Not for eighty years has this Island scene been duplicated, when the opening of the Civil War found Vineyard men at sea and in or near the war zone. The opening of this Far Eastern war likewise finds Vineyard men in or near the scene, not merely in ships of commerce, but in the armed forces of the country.
December 12, 1941
Island Accepts Challenge of Air Alarm Quietly
Civilian Defense organizations of the Island responded to their first real call to duty about 1:30 Tuesday afternoon, when air raid signals were sounded the length of the coast, following the report of hostile planes off New York city, a tip which proved unfounded and which some reports say was planned by the government as a test of the air raid facilities of the northeastern coast.
December 12, 1941
Island Quota $4,250
Martha’s Vineyard’s share in the $50,000,000 war fund asked by Norman H. Davis, national chairman of the American Red Cross, is $4,250. Mr. Davis’ appeal was broadcast Monday night and alluded to the destruction wrought at Hawaii and other points attacked by the Japanese.
December 12, 1941
Editorial: A Century Lies Between
One wonders what Nathaniel M. Jernegan would think if he were alive. Or his wife. They were together on the whaleship Eliza Mason in 1851 when Captain Jernegan sailed his vessel into Hakodate while Perry was still there. This was one of the first of the treaty ports when Japan was opened, reluctantly, to the world, and Mrs. Jernegan was the first white woman to sleep ashore in Japan for more than two hundred years.
October 17, 1941
Peaked Hill Contours Undergo Marked Change
The contours of Peaked Hill, as viewed from the Middle Road, have changed almost beyond belief, due largely to the construction of the road which winds around its steep sides and has been carved deeply into them. The hill is topped by one of the skeleton towers so largely used for signaling purposes, and is now manned by a detachment of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The handful of men assigned here, presumably in connection with the tests now going on to prove or disprove the effectiveness of coastal defenses against invasion, is quartered in tents on the hill.
October 17, 1941
Vineyard Tests Its Strength in Mock Bombing Raids
The Vineyard called out its civilian defense organizations on Friday and again on Tuesday to tackle actual problems such as might follow the dropping of bombs by hostile planes. The whole affair was a kind of sham battle hitherto unknown, in which men, women and children were summoned from peaceful occupations in civil life to show how they could defend their community against the demoralization and damage of bombing. No planes roared overhead, but the practice was none the less realistically carried out.
September 5, 1941
Investigate Purchase of Beach by the State
A representative of the state Department of Conservation made an investigation on the Island on Friday, in company with Rep. Joseph A. Sylvia, in order to prepare a report on the matter of state purchase of the beach between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown. The sentiment of those who were approached was strongly in favor of the project, which is for purchase of the beach with stipulations that no buildings shall be placed upon it. There seemed no doubt that the preliminary report would be favorable.
August 26, 1941
His Dreams of America Have Been Realized Even If It Isn’t as Rosy as His Visions
On Thursday, Rev. O. E. Denniston, founder of the Bradley Memorial Church, celebrated his fortieth anniversary as pastor of that Baptist church in Oak Bluffs. Mr. Denniston is the oldest minister in the service of the Massachusetts Baptist Convention.
“I’m not the oldest minister in service in Massachusetts,” he hastened to say, “but the oldest member of the convention, because I have stayed in the same place while other ministers have moved from state to state.”
August 8, 1941
President Nearby: Roosevelt’s Yacht Anchors in Tarpaulin Cove
While mainland newspapers and radio scouts hunted in vain, to use their own expressions, for President Roosevelt, on Tuesday and Tuesday night, the Chief Executive was lying snugly and quietly aboard the Potomac, anchored in Tarpaulin Cove. The presence of the presidential yacht in the cove was known on the Vineyard in the early afternoon, but so far as is known no one attempted to approach the craft and certainly no one who knew of her presence there, tipped off any institution or individual that might have invaded her privacy.
