Well, we have distracted your attention long enough to get across the creek, and here we are right in front of what is known today as the Franklin Tilton house. This, I understand, was the first house where now stands the cluster known as Menemsha.

The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank reported revenues of $198,015 for the business week ending on Friday, Feb. 28, 2014. The land bank receives its funds from a two per cent fee charged on many Vineyard real estate transactions.

O.B., she of the calico coat and disdain of other cats, is still available at the shelter. A newcomer, Lucky, tips the scale at 15.8 pounds and is a handsome orange cat.

Fire personnel from Oak Bluffs, Edgartown, Tisbury and West Tisbury were called to a house fire in Oak Bluffs Wednesday night.

The townsfolk have managed to keep up with their chores...workmen have missed only a few days of outdoor work on the new house growing on Crick Hill; the U.S. Coast Guard boathouse is still under construction; shell fishermen have harvested and transported oysters and mussels; school buses and VTA buses have kept to schedule most days and the business of the town has gone on regularly at town hall.

The Vineyard Conservation Society and Sense of Wonder Creations are collaborating for a short trip to West Chop lighthouse and beaches.

There is a new StoryWalk at Long Point Wildlife Refuge in West Tisbury.

Thoughts of spring, just 14 days away, should fill the air with milder temperatures. Sunday night’s sunset will happen close to 6:30 p.m.

Fabric artist Nancy Katz will guide Making an Heirloom on Sunday, March 9.

In May 1879 a group calling themselves the Vineyard Publishing Association started the Cottage City Star in Vineyard Grove. The Star, a weekly newspaper (bi-weekly in July and August), was expressly founded to spearhead the effort of Oak Bluffs’ seceding from Edgartown.