Time Machine Terms
December 6, 1974
Gay Head Council Sues to Recover Lands from Town
An action at law to evict the town of Gay Head from 238 acres of lands within the metes - the cranberry bogs, the Herring Creek and its banks, and the colored cliffs that give the place its name - has been filed in United States District Court at Boston by the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head.
“It is our last hope ever to be able to think the Indians of Gay Head can have a piece of the land that they can call their own,” said Mrs. Beatrice V. Gentry, president of the council.
October 4, 1974
Jaws in Retrospect
In the words of the movies, Jaws has “wrapped,” struck its sets and stolen away in mammoth trucks. Filming of Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel, Jaws, was started by Universal Studios on the Island May 2, and for the rest of the summer caravans of trucks moved about the Island like nomads, shooting here or there - mostly there - and out at sea where no one could really get a good look at what was happening.
September 6, 1974
Two Sea Giants Swim Silently Northward, Their Species Protected and Their Path Free of Bombs
Nuzzling the shoreline with the curiosity and daring that made its ancestors easy prey for whalers, a young right whale is swimming slowly northward along the East Coast toward Martha’s Vineyard. The 20-ton mammal is keeping odd company with a giant sea turtle, and together the silent mammoths have been snooping lazily around Long Island for about two weeks.
August 16, 1974
Who but the Jaws Company Would Build an Orca Designed Not to Float but to Head for the Bottom?
Boats since the beginning of time have been built to float, or at least that’s the object, but Universal Studios (which of late does the unusual) has built a boat to sink. It sounds a bit odd, and frankly it looks a bit odd.
August 16, 1974
Again An Old-Fashioned Oak Bluffs Illumination
Stars sparkled, pink and gold and orange lanterns bobbed, and a soft wind played among the chimes in the Camp Ground Wednesday night for the 104th annual Illumination Night.
August 2, 1974
The Jaws Family and the Island People Got Together Monday Evening and It Was Great
While Washington has been putting on a continuing spring and summer show, Martha’s Vineyard has had one of its own, and the show is Jaws. Not only has just about every resident been fascinated by what is going on, but nearly half the population has been actively involved.
Therefore, when the Monday night lectures for the benefit of the Old Sculpin Gallery and the Martha’s Vineyard Art Association had a program this week on Jaws, it was a howling success. (The howling was done, unfortunately, by all those who just couldn’t get in).
July 30, 1974
Governor Sargent Signs State Bill
Gov. Francis W. Sargent came to Association Hall in Tisbury Saturday afternoon to sign the state land use control bill for the Vineyard - a bill that had its start in the same lovely white and blue meeting place in January of 1973.
July 19, 1974
Five Years and a Day Since the Incident, the Curious Still Come, with Opinions, to Dyke Bridge
“Could you tell me,” they ask, “how to get to the Kennedy Memorial Bridge?” Five years and a day after Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s black Oldsmobile lurched off the Dyke Bridge on Chappaquiddick, the senior Massachusetts senator at the wheel and the doomed Miss Mary Jo Kopechne beside him, tourists keep coming, at least 60 of them a day, to stand and stare at the scene of the Island’s - perhaps the nation’s - most celebrated automobile accident.
July 19, 1974
A Grisly Audition
This freshly-killed brown shark — a man-eater — was laid out on the steps of Universal Studios’ Edgartown office sometime before dawn Friday. Trickles of blood oozed from the snout and belly of the six-foot long fish onto the steps of the Christine Pease House, but several movie workers simply stepped casually over the mess as they went to work, muttering about pranksters.
Mrs. Robert W. Nevin said it was the second such gift the film company received from the community. The first shark, which was also dumped on the steps, was only three feet long.
July 12, 1974
For Jaws, Some Progress — For the 400, an Ice Water Romp
“We’ll go again,” said the assistant director, Tom Joyner, and into the valley of death waded The 400 with cameras to the right of them, and cameras to the left of them.
The water was cold, cold, cold, and what sunshine there was was most uncooperative. It was Sunday, the last day of June, and really not an ideal day to spend (all of it, every last bit of it) on the beach. The leftover northeast winds were still onshore and so were about 600 people.
