A remarkable picture of Beach Road (circa 1900) placed on Facebook by Martha’s Vineyard Antique Photos sparked a discussion among Shelley Christiansen, Tom Dunlop, Sam Low and others about erosion at End of the Wall beach in Oak Bluffs. The loss is even more deceptive given the absence of surf on Nantucket Sound and startling because even average northeasters close the road at the culvert we used to call first bridge, once a crabbing spot.

In 1912 Phidelah Rice and his wife Elizabeth opened the Phidelah Rice School for the Spoken Word, a summer school for acting, at Trinity Church adjacent to the Tabernacle. The school was moved in 1914 to Arlington avenue in East Chop and a playhouse was added in 1924.

We decorate with rocks, using them to landscape, cover driveways, mark parking spots or protect our grass from cars. We paint them — usually white but sometimes yellow — to attract further attention. Smooth purple rocks are sparingly gathered from a purposefully unnamed up-Island beach.

Tuesday, March 5 marks a moment in black history; on that day 243 years ago Crispus Attucks, part black, part Wampanoag, became the first person killed in the American Revolution. Seventeen years later, in 1787, the former slave John Saunders, with his half-white wife Priscilla, brought Methodism to Oak Bluffs, 48 years before its was established by the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association.