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
Oscar E Denniston
2025
March 27, 2025
The story of Reverend Denniston and his family is currently on display at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in an exhibit called Finding Our Way Home: The Denniston Family and 11 Masonic Avenue.
1942
March 6, 1942
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.
1941
August 26, 1941
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.”
1927
September 2, 1927
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 and fifty years of the Island’s existence as a colony and province. Not only did they preach the word of God to whites and Indians, but they worked energetically to promote various industries and acted as advisors in settling all manner of disputes which arose, besides writing wills and other legal documents and keeping records, in many cases, being the only ones now existing.
