Oak Bluffs Town Column

September 14, 2012

Sarah Wilbur’s headstone (April 15, 1792 to March 20, 1875) is in a small graveyard with several unmarked stones just off the Vineyard Haven-Edgartown Road, almost hidden behind the “County Road Oak Bluffs Next Right” sign. I don’t know who Mrs. Wilbur was — or indeed, if in fact she is actually buried there, understanding there is a ceremonial graveyard in Sengekontacket in remembrance but without remains. There’s a family graveyard along Barnes Road near Featherstone. On land owned by the State of Massachusetts, where the John T.

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September 7, 2012

Prior to 1648 when Thomas Mayhew Jr. proselytized Hiacoomes, the first of the original people to adopt Christianity at Pecoy Point, the neighborhood was called Pohqu-auk, meaning open land. As a major campsite, the area was used for gathering shellfish and eels, and growing corn, squash and tobacco.

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September 7, 2012

Prior to 1648 when Thomas Mayhew Jr. proselytized Hiacoomes, the first of the original people to adopt Christianity at Pecoy Point, the neighborhood was called Pohqu-auk, meaning open land. As a major campsite, the area was used for gathering shellfish and eels, and growing corn, squash and tobacco. The main source of fresh water was Weatauque (place of the boundary spring) near the Land Bank’s Weahtaqua Springs Preserve at the southernmost point of the lagoon, where the Oak Bluffs water department’s first pumping station is. The original people traversed between these places by way of an ingenious pattern of trails. Pecoy Point is connected by Pulpit Rock Road, which crosses County Road at one of the entrances to Meadow View Farm, where begins the Chase Road that intersects with the Cross Oak Bluffs Trail, which extends south to Holmes Hole Road and across Barnes Road near Featherstone to Weatauque. The trail systems have been adopted as Special Ways, and are protected and conserved. While rarely used, you will find they are easily — instinctively — seen during a highly recommended walk or trail bike ride. Post-mosquitoes and other flying annoyances, this time of year is a good time for a healthy new adventure — but the poison ivy hasn’t fully disappeared so tall pants and socks are a good plan.

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August 30, 2012

The Tabernacle and Cottage City Historical District are the jewels of Martha’s Vineyard. Recognizing that wholly chauvinistic comment — even from the writer of said town’s column, an elementary historical review illustrates how they helped to make the Island so popular. Some came to pray, some came to play — and many chose to stay. Sally Dagnall’s remarkable book, Circle of Faith (I got a signed copy at Cousen Rose) has a “List of Firsts & Important Dates” of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association, a fact-filled chronology of the years 1835 to 2006.

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August 23, 2012

The lack of spring rain may be causing Oak Bluffs oak tree leaves to brown early — portending an end to a colorful and busy season. I say season, not summer, because that, like beauty, is difficult to define. Some say summer ends Labor Day, 10 days hence, some may say Tivoli Day in 21 days, and others say Columbus Day in another 44. The truth is that summer ends on your last day on the Vineyard if you’re seasonal —or upon your last outdoor shower if you stay year-round. We all agree the start was Memorial Day weekend and it can be said that July people come for the Vineyard and August people for the additional diversions of events. This year the July people got the weather, including preternaturally warm water, and the August folks certainly got events. And of course there’s still time for a little excitement if the Island gets another “faux-icane” or hurricane that doesn’t quite live up to its billing.

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August 16, 2012

Oak Bluffs has 33 named parks, four Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank properties (Tradewind, Pecoy Point, Southern Woodlands, Farm Pond), three small islands (Woodie in Farm Pond, Brush and Great in Sengekontacket), one Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation property (Dodger’s Hole), one golf course (Farm Neck) and a tremendous set of wooded trails between County and Barnes Roads, or 43 pristine, protected parks encompassing perhaps 20 per cent of the town’s land. The math computes to about 581 people per park when you include our summer guests.

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August 9, 2012

John Saunders, a former slave, brought Methodism to Martha’s Vineyard in 1787, 48 years before the Wesleyan Grove settlement that established the Oak Bluffs Tabernacle grounds. Mr. Saunders — with half-white wife Priscilla — was brought from Virginia by Captain Thomas Luce, hidden beneath corn that Luce was transporting. A plaque dedicated to Mr. Saunders is on the African American Heritage Trail at the Pecoy Point Preserve, where he preached at Pulpit Rock to the “coloured” and original people in the Farm Neck neighborhood. Mr. Saunders and his wife lived in Eastville until 1792, when they moved to Chappaquiddick. She later died, and he married Jane Diamond, a member of the tribe, whose members killed him, aggravated about his race and religious teachings. Some stories have happier middles than beginnings or endings, which makes me think about what a happy ending it would be if someone would officially designate a single rock as Pulpit Rock. Right now, confusion still reigns as to which of two specific rocks is Pulpit Rock.

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August 2, 2012

“The history of one’s own locality should be known to each of its citizens, since one cannot appreciate the present conditions without some understanding of the causes which have produced these conditions.” This prefaces Martha’s Vineyard, History-Legends-Stories by Henry Franklin Norton in 1923.

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July 26, 2012

Of 52 Island beaches (by my count—e-mail yours and I’ll e-mail mine), only the Inkwell has been the subject and title of a movie, bad as it was, with not a frame shot on the Island. The 1994 feature film about a young man coming of age in 1976 included such visual malapropisms as sand dunes and palm trees on the beach, and a lobster (apparently on Xanax) caught by hand. One redeeming feature of The Inkwell was that it was recent visitor Jada Pinkett’s second film.

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