The student of Vineyard history, at least such history as has been published, will recognize the fact that it was largely through the clergy that things were accomplished during the first hundred
Peggy King Jorde, an expert on African burial grounds, has dedicated her life to ensuring memories of the disenfranchised are kept alive.
Linsey Lee emerged from what was once the Vineyard’s first African American church last week peeling a respirator from her face. By her count, she had spent more than 150 hours in the Bradley Memorial Church in Oak Bluffs, and the mask stood as a shield between her and decades of dust.
The Bradley Memorial Baptist Church of Oak Bluffs is happy now to be in possession of a new church home where services have been held the past three Sundays. The structure which stands opposite the Oak Bluffs town hall on Pequot avenue, was built by the First Baptist Church and I used for many years until this congregation disbanded and sold the property to the Odd Fellows Fraternity.
The old Oak Bluffs Baptist church, lately re-purchased by the New England Baptist Convention from the Vineyard Lodge of Odd Fellows, has been officially transferred to the new owners, and will be occupied by the Bradley Memorial Church of Oak Bluffs, as soon as some slight changes can be made to the interior.
Representatives from the convention were on the Island over the weekend, attending to the final arrangements, and services will start in the church before summer, according to the announcement.
Members of Bradley Memorial Church, Oak Blufs, are greatly distressed over the report which has circulated to the effect that their church building has been condemned as unsafe. Mrs. Mabel Hughes, one of the extremely active members of the church, approached the Gazette this week with the request that this might be publicly denied. Mrs. Hughes was furnished with official statement signed by all three members of the board of selectmen of Oak Bluffs, .which stated that the building has not been condemned for this or any other reason.
Rev. Oscar E. Denniston, founder of the Bradley Memorial Church, Oak Bluffs, and pastor for the past forty years died at Martha's Vineyard Hospital early Tuesday morning, following a brief confinement which came at the end of some nine years of gradually failing health. He would have been 67 years of age on April 5. He had devoted his life to religious teaching.
