Gunpowder was invented by the Chinese in the eighth century during the Tang dynasty and was used in fireworks in the year 1040. While it isn’t clear when fireworks wound up on American shores...

Last week’s Gazette Chronicle by Hilary Wall on Vineyard names made me think about the preponderance of places named by the original Oak Bluffs people. With so many of our streets derived from...

Certainly Sen. Edward W. Brooke (Oct. 26, 1919 to Jan. 3, 2015) was the most renowned of Oak Bluffs’s African American elected officials as the first black senator since Reconstruction....

Oak Bluffs connections with black elected officials extend at least to 1881 when attorney James W. Pope became the second black person on Boston’s city council. The councilman often visited...

Councilman Herbert Loring Jackson’s friend and neighbor, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., was born just after him on Nov. 29, 1908 and lived until April 4, 1972. Mr. Powell was one of the more famous...

It’s so unlikely that Oak Bluffs, the biggest tiny town on the rock, would have made valuable contributions to black American history. With the demeaning political season underway to replace...

It’s not yet apparent that a new town hall will make the cut for voting this April despite how badly it is needed and how much will be saved by getting it done now as opposed to later. Some who...

The last time Oak Bluffs built a town hall was in April 1966. Abandoned in 2000 (as a town hall) it lasted 50 fewer years than the first one on Pequot avenue that became Cottagers Corner. The new...

 In February 1879, the year before we seceded, 136 years and one month ago this coming Sunday, Oak Bluffs was a town of 150 families that included 132 voters. According to A. Bowdoin Van Riper...

The new year is a time for reflection. 2015 was a great year for Oak Bluffs, among the best since secession in 1880. According to the census, as of January 2015 we’re a town of 4,810 people...