SKIP FINLEY508-696-3742(Sfinleyis@gmail.com)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...

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...

SKIP FINLEY508-696-3742(Sfinleyis@gmail.com)John Saunders, a former slave, brought Methodism to Martha’s Vineyard in 1787, 48 years before the Wesleyan Grove settlement that established the Oak...

SKIP FINLEY508-696-3742(Sfinleyis@gmail.com)“The history of one’s own locality should be known to each of its citizens, since one cannot appreciate the present conditions without some...

SKIP FINLEY508-696-3742(Sfinleyis@gmail.com)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...

SKIP FINLEY508-696-3742(Sfinleyis@gmail.com)“How about a coin?,” we used to entreat passengers aboard the ferries while visitors from America embarked and disembarked at the dock in Oak...

OgkeshKuppe (the wet or damp woods) was the name the original people gave Oak Bluffs, whose original settlement was in the Farm Neck/Eastville area. The first white man living in Oak Bluffs was...

SKIP FINLEY508-696-3742(sfinleyis@gmail.com)Whaling was about oil — not fishing — and Martha’s Vineyard/Nantucket was the “Middle East” until shale oil was discovered in...

SKIP FINLEY508-696-3742Sfinleyis@gmail.comMy Best Job Ever had to have been ring boy at The Flying Horses! There could not possibly be more prestigious and influential employment in the Great...

On Jan. 23, 1790, Wampanoag Robert Seaton put his X on the deed, selling what became the Cottage City district of Oak Bluffs to Samuel Norton for 10 pounds. On June 22, 1870, 142 years ago today, his...