USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > Martha's Vineyard, summer resort, 1835-1935 > Part 15
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For many years non-resident taxpayers' meetings were held, but sometimes the legal voters were inclined one way in summer and another in winter. Finally the meetings came to be indignation gatherings, and then they were dropped altogether.
Ironically, although the new town was justified a hundred times over, and although the law had been changed only to correspond with the fact, a great many of the aims of the secessionists were never to be accomplished from that day to this. Only a short time after division, Samuel Keniston suggested in the Vineyard Gazette:
"The non-resident property owners can only get what they want, without increased taxes, by calling on the original promissors to make good their word out of their own pockets. Let the Hon. I. N. Luce, for instance, the author of the famous declaration, 'It shall be as you say, gentlemen,' contribute, say, $2,000, the Rev. E. H. ' Hatfield a couple of dollars, Mr. Norris what he can spare, and so on to the end of the chapter."
XXV The Great Park Case
Up to the time of the division of the town of Edgartown, the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company stood in the unenviable position of having been responsible for the expenditure of some $300,000 in the development of a resort, and of never having paid a dividend. The difficulties, of course, had begun in 1873 with the passing of the boom market for lots. In this deflation, the promotion of Katama and the adventure of the Martha's Vineyard Railroad proved particularly costly for the promoters. Oak Bluffs itself con- tinued to grow, and summer life steadily increased in intensity, like the buzzing of bees over a field of yellow indigo in August; but the Katama Land Company was flat, and the railroad investment had been largely written off as a loss.
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Even in Oak Bluffs, the company had more difficulties than advan- tages. It had built up a town and was maintaining streets and a venues, more or less caring for parks, lighting streets (up to the year 1879, when it was relieved of this burden), meeting interest payments on improvements which brought no income, and occupying a place of the most uncomfortable civic responsibility. The company had most of the troubles, many of the expenses, and none of the satisfactions of a town government. It had to spend, but it could not tax or even assess anyone except its own stockholders.
Through a period of such trials, the directors found themselves out of harmony. Sometimes they quarreled picturesquely, in the public eye. There was, for instance, an episode in the fall of 1875 when the Hon. E. P. Carpenter sold his stock in the company, nomi- nally to H. A. Blood, but, it was assumed, indirectly to the railroad interests which Mr. Blood represented. This meant an alliance with the New Bedford and Vineyard Steamboat Company which was hostile to the Old Colony Railroad. As a counter-stroke, three; of the directors, including Mr. Carpenter himself, sold the Oak Bluffs wharf, the heart of the resort, to a friend of the Old Colony, at the same time binding the company not to build a new wharf. These trans- actions enabled a bystander to remark that the company was suffering from Blood poisoning.
With some difficulties the war was halted, and Mr. Carpenter and the wharf came back into the company fold. The public was notified of the peace in the following advertisement :
Notice
The trouble growing out of the sale of the wharf and other property of the Oak Bluffs Land & Wharf Company has been amicably settled and a good understanding and feeling now exists with all parties in interest.
Behind this formal truce, signed by Capt. Shubael Lyman Norton, was a long memorandum which bound the principals to peace, co- operation, and the payment of assessments in the Katama Land Company. It was stipulated, too, that the company should receive ten cents a head for all passengers landed by the Old Colony line at the Oak Bluffs wharf. The sale price of the wharf, now returned,
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had been $30,000; and Mr. Carpenter had sold his stock for $800 a share.
The memorandum did not settle where the money was to come from to get the company out of its difficulties. Not until June, 1878, did the directors conclude at long last an agreement which had been under discussion for some years, looking toward a reduction in the corporate debt by the sale of the Sea View hotel. The purchaser was Holder M. Brownell, he of the black side whiskers and ruddy cheeks, and he gave for his purchase $110,000 in bonds, on which he was to pay six per cent interest, with three per cent additional on the capital, the whole issue to be retired in nineteen years. Meantime the property was to vest in three trustees. The transfer included, besides the Sea View itself, the wharf, the celebrated plank walk along the bluffs, the pavilions and the bathhouses. This transaction helped in handling a debt which had been more than $98,000 in 1874.
A few years passed, and the company was about ready to wind up its affairs. Oak Bluffs as a resort community was on the high road of favor, but Oak Bluffs as a land development had already lasted beyond its natural term. Therefore in the summer of 1882 a grand sale was announced, and all remaining lots were offered at auction. The circulars of the sale were confessional in tone. They declared :
"The history of the Company throughout furnishes an example of steady and successful progress in the face of bitter opposition. To detail the circumstances which prompted the antagonism and the means by which the Company overcame and rose superior thereto, would occupy too much space in this narration . . . The Com- pany, in closing its affairs and retiring from the management of Oak Bluffs, does so with every regard to the future welfare of the new town, which in a great measure it claims to have been instrumental in establishing. In disposing of its possessions here, it desires only what is right . . . The town has grown to be amply able to care for itself, and requires no longer the fostering care of its projectors. Under these circumstances, the Company retires with every convic- tion that its course is founded on principles of right and justice, the propriety of which will commend itself to every careful thinker."
This statement was restrained and dignified, in contrast to a
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للف وأسند
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communication signed with the pseudonym "Taxpayer" in the columns of the Cottage City Star. "Taxpayer" began by citing the origin of the Oak Bluffs Company, and alluding to the camp ground, as "a small, comparatively unknown spot, visited yearly for a short season of religious service by a few hundred interested people from the mainland." When the "open handed generosity" of the company began to bring new fame and prosperity, he went on, "the Camp Ground people became imbued with a spirit of envy and hatred, and by every means of opposition in their power, endeavored to throw obloquy upon the Oak Bluffs management."
"Cottagers dwelling on the Oak Bluffs territory were termed 'heretics,' and a wooden picket fence, eight feet (sic) high was built by the Camp Ground authorities to separate the outside residents from the fold within, lest contamination should en- sue. Hundreds of visitors to the Island were repelled by this unseemly conduct, while within the Camp Ground very many fair-minded people left abruptly and sought a residence outside, preferring to live under the fairer policy and more Christian spirit of the Oak Bluffs Company. Meantime the Company proceeded in its work of improvement . pursuing also the most liberal policy toward the Camp Ground people, by extending them the free use of their wharf, and presenting them with a strip of land about half an acre in extent, in order to straighten their boundary line. That this gift was appreciated (?) by the Camp Ground management was evinced by its immediate use as a location for a colony of public out-houses."
After rehearsing the details of rivalry between the Highland and the Oak Bluffs wharves, the communication inquired, "Where is the ordinary worldly device beside such priestly craft as this"?
The sale of assets was, therefore, a liquidation of old resentments no less than of cottage lots. The auctioneer of the sale was Capt. Frank C. Smith, a native of Chilmark, who had gone to sea at sixteen, sailing in the ship Java. In nine months the Java had returned with 1,900 barrels of oil. Then he made voyages in the Triton of Portsmouth, as fourth mate in the Samuel Robertson, and as second mate in the Heroine. At twenty-three he sailed as master of the Heroine, and was home in a year and a half with nearly 2,600 bar- rels of whale oil. His next cruise, in the same vessel, lasted only
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twenty-two months, during which time he took 350 barrels sperm, 2,200 whale oil, and 17,600 pounds of whalebone. Then he sailed as master of the Metacom, and later made successful voyages in the Navy and the Eliza Adams. In 1855 he commanded the ship John and Edward and returned with a good voyage in 1858; but the next year this vessel was burned at her dock. Captain Smith then sailed in the merchant service until 1864 when he returned to whal- ing. He commanded the ship William Thompson which was burned by the Shenandoah. Then, after one more voyage, this time in the James, of New Bedford, he returned to Edgartown and Cottage City, first as sheriff, and then as a realtor, although that particular designation was some years in the future. Captain Smith had been around the world three times, around Cape Horn eleven times, and seven times around the Cape of Good Hope: and it was he who showed the cottages and lots of the summer resort to inquiring visitors.
The gross yield of the sale was $22,422, computed to be just $70 more than the appraisal figures for the land thus disposed of; but lots worth $29,785 were not sold.
Thus was progress made toward liquidation and retirement. Be- sides the unsold lots, two important items in the company's schedule remained intact. It was a question to what extent they could be regarded as assets, and to what extent merely responsibilities. They consisted of some miles of avenues, concreted with a tar preparation at an expense of $20,000 to the company, and twenty-five acres of parks. By name the parks were : Ocean, Hartford, Waban, Penacook, Niantic, Hiawatha, Naushon, Nashawena and Petaluma. Ocean Park was the gem of the collection, for it included seven acres of the best land at Oak Bluffs, separated from the bluff and the Vineyard Sound shore only by a street. Facing this park in a curving line were some of the most pretentious cottages, including that of Dr. Harrison A. Tucker. Hartford Park was a close second to Ocean, for although it had no commanding water view, it was an exclusive sylvan re- treat and the joy of the summer residents who looked out upon it from their verandas.
The company was willing to present the avenues to the town, but the town refused the gift. At one time Mr. Carpenter, in the name
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of the company, offered both the avenues and the parks without qualification, but still the town remained suspiciously aloof, partly because of a vigorous denunciation of the proposal by Capt. Grafton N. Collins, who insisted the company had given no authority for it.
For a time it was the hope of some of the directors that cottagers facing on the parks would pay something for them, and take them over. Capt. Shubael Lyman Norton wrote of this desire in a letter to Captain Collins, in August, 1882. He said :
"I have done more towards helping sell the Park than any one of the Co. I have talked with more than one hundred men & explained to them that it was better for the cottage owners to buy all around on the front circle and have it for flowers I have . said to those around me such as Tucker, Landers & Corbin that we have spent all we ever made here and hoped to sell out what rights we had here and make some- thing at the last end . . . I have hired a lawyer & has cost ine hundreds of dollars for what I do not know, but to make expense & trouble keeping me in a state of excitement. You know I ought to have been settled with years ago. But for the $4,000 bonds I took the Co. would have gone over the bay. Mr. C. told me if I did not take the bonds the Co. must fail &x the Co. having property to sell today is due to me, and yet as soon as I took them and mortgaged my farm to do it, he, Mr. C., commenced a line of persecution & for three years I cannot get anything but from his attorneys I do not care any more about the town having the Parks than you do; they do nothing for me & I do not intend to help them; if they want the parks, let the town buy them. I think now as I always have that it was an outrage for the O. B. Co. to spend $20,000 for concrete and give it to the town & they not so much as say thank you; you and I have been of one mind in this matter & now is the last chance; get what we can and close up. You are aware that only one man runs the O. B. Co., and has always done so, & what I get I must look after or it will be all gone, hook & line . .. if you should see Ripley prevail with him to make the most of it & hold on to the fag end with a tight grip and so end the chapter now and forever."
The idea of selling the parks, although it seemed natural to the directors, struck the summer cottagers as incongruous. How could anyone sell a public park? Yet there was no record anywhere that
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the parks had ever passed from the ownership of the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company, hence they must belong to the company still, and could be sold whenever the company could find a customer. This argument was usually unanswerable except with indignation, and the attitude of the public became one of stubborn resentment .. Anyway, what good would it do anyone to buy a park? Parks in private hands seemed to be white elephants almost as much as avenues.
Sooner or later there was bound to be a further question, and in the squeezing of the fag end of the company's assets the directors came to it : could not the parks be sold, like any other land, for building purposes, to be cut up into cottage lots?
Capt. Collins was certain that they could. The captain knew that he, for one, had never voted to let the parks out of his hands. To be sure, the parks were shown and marked on plans filed at the registry of deeds, but were these anything more than illustrations? There was no mention of parks in any deed. If the parks were public, at just what point had they passed out of the possession of the company and into the domain of the public-which, it was plain, had paid nothing for them and taken no action to receive, accept, or maintain them? It was hard to say. Three new directors had come into the company : Henry Ripley, the contractor, and John B. Worth and Joseph W. Donaldson of Edgartown. They agreed with Captain Collins. The parks could be sold for a price, and they could be built upon.
The conscience of Captain Collins was not seared, for he had sold no lots on promises that the parks were forever to remain open. Captain Norton and some of the others had. In fact the parks had been one of the most important selling points, and lots facing on the parks had commanded substantial premiums. All the surviving orig- inal directors agreed now that the parks had been promised to the public and could not be closed-except Captain Collins. But whether parks or house lots, the feeling of the company was that someone ought to pay something for them.
Lawyers were consulted. The Oak Bluffs Company communicated formally with its general counsel, George A. Torrey, a distinguished trial lawyer of the day. Mr. Torrey went into the metaphysics of the
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situation, pointing out many loose ends and unanswered questions. If the parks were to be forever parks, could they be left as waste lands? Or if they must be beautified, who was responsible for beauti- fying them and deciding their proper condition? Suppose the com- pany had shown pictures of fountains and shrubbery on its plans, would it be obligated to erect and maintain fountains and shrubbery forever? Mr. Torrey thought it likely, that all such things as parks, statues and decorative effects could be considered as simply showing what the property would admit of, in case the interested parties should later care to provide for their execution. On the whole he made the situation, which had seemed clear cut to the lay public, as confusing and doubtful as principles of mediaeval theology. And he concluded by informing the company that he believed the case for outright sale of the parks was strong.
In September, 1884, the company offered the parks and avenues to the town of Cottage City for the sum of $7,500, payable in twenty-five years, without interest. This was intended to be the equivalent of a price of $5,000 payable at once. Captain Collins believed the figure much too low.
The town moved slowly. Public opinion was against paying anything for the parks, but some disinterested individuals thought it well worth while to spend $7,500 for them and have the matter settled for all time. Eventually a committee was appointed, and the committee wrote to the firm of Stetson and Knowlton for a legal opinion. The reply was far more direct than the advice Mr. Torrey had given to the company.
"Replying to your questions so far as they relate to parks, we say first, the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company has full and unrestricted right of control and use of the parks in its proposition, as against all persons. Second, the town purchasing as proposed would acquire the control and title which the Com- pany now has in the parks; and at present the town has no title in them whatever. Third. None of the grantees of the Oak Bluffs Land & Wharf Company have, so far as we have been able to discover, any right or interest in the parks . . We find upon examination of the title of the Oak Bluffs Land & Wharf Company to the parks that it is good, and that they have good right to sell and convey the same."
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If there was ever an antithesis to a bill of rights or a charter of liberties, this considered opinion was exactly that. The law, apparent- ly, recognized none of the circumstances which seemed to the lay eye as clear as day. All the parks of Oak Bluffs could be taken away without so much as a by-your-leave, after the public had enjoyed them freely for considerably more than a decade. Yes, and the implications were broader even than that: other parks in other places, similarly set apart, could be alienated by private owners and exploited for profit.
As it happened, the opinion did not become public for some time. There was a desire on the part of the town committee to keep it as ammunition, or to safeguard the strategy of the situation; and while it was suppressed, the time slipped by and the offer of the Oak Bluffs Company was about to expire. The committee made a frantic effort to obtain an extension, but there was no hope of this, for some directors of the company were beginning to feel the strength of their position and to seek a better price. Shortly a better offer was made.
George C. Abbott of Boston, an attorney representing what he termed a syndicate, was willing to pay $7,500 in cash. The syndi- cate consisted of Mr. Alvin C. Neal of Portland, who had the $7,500, and Mr. Abbott himself, who had a passion for suits at law. The two were to undertake the purchase as a speculation and divide equally what they were able to make.
"Now I don't want the property to pass into the hands of the parties that have made this offer, and neither Mr. Hills nor myself will vote to sell them when the matter comes up," wrote Mr. Car- penter to Captain Norton, ". . . but there is a majority of the board that will do so."
The directors met, and Mr. Abbott's offer was accepted. On March 3, 1885, the Boston attorney visited the courthouse at Edgar- town, paid $7,500 to the representatives of the Oak Bluffs Company, and received a deed which he recorded promptly. It was a quit- claim deed, no more. Mr. Abbott did not look like a feudist. His attire was punctilious, from a cutaway coat which he wore by habit, to well polished shoes. He was tall, and made an effective courtroom appearance. His hair was sandy, and his whiskers reddish. He was, as events proved, a foeman worthy of the best traditions of combat,
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THE VILLAGE OF DAK BLUFFS, MARTHAS VINEYARD.
MADE BY ROBERT MORRIS COPELAND
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From original owned by Mrs. Arthur W. Davis
Study for town planners: the first plan of Oak Bluffs, dated Oct. 25, 1866. There was no Ocean Park. This map was an important exhibit in the great Cottage City park case. It is now a rare item.
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and his favorite weapon was the law. Upon occasion he sued his father for a sum less than a dollar, and he was to bludgeon the bowed head of the Hon. Erastus P. Carpenter with forthright strokes.
Five days after this visit, William Bradley, of the Oak Bluffs Company, wrote to Captain Collins :
"The Oak Bluffs Co. has sold the Parks etc. to George C. Abbott for a syndicate for $7,500 cash. I do not suppose that it is any news to you, but I guess it will be to some when it is made public. Not only news but a stunner. I rejoice that it is so, most especially that the inhabitants of Cottage City will have something to discuss and something to regret. The non- residents will have something to fight and other parties than the Oak Bluffs Co. Should they fight the syndicate, they will find it uphill work. They have got the best advice to be obtained and from many eminent lawyers, and they decide all one way, that those parks can be built upon. They have bought the parks to make money out of and will make all they can. They propose to get a certain sum of money out of every cottage owner fronting Ocean Avenue, and a certain sum from Cottage City. Abbott said to me there is thirty-eight cottages, fronting Ocean Avenue and $1,000 from each will be $38,000 and then $7,500 from Cottage City. Ideas quite high, they will never get those sums. Abbott says if terms cannot be made, into building lots they go, then the fun will begin in earnest. I do not admire his position. The non-residents did not care for the interest of the O. B. Co., but got everything out of them possible and were fighting the Co. at every point. Cottage City never had any sympathy for the Co. and always done everything they could against it, therefore I am glad there is trouble brewing in the near future for them, and shall rejoice when they realize what they have neglected."
As Mr. Bradley predicted, the news was a "stunner" to Cottage City, particularly as the opinion of the town's attorneys was made public just at this time. The special committee was roundly abused for having suppressed it, and many stalwarts who had favored sitting tight and defying the company were now aggrieved that the town had lost a chance to buy the parks at a price far lower than any likely to be demanded in the future. Ocean Park alone, for building pur- poses, had an estimated value of $40,000; and Mr. Abbott soon let
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it be known that, for a quick sale, he would take $60,000 for the entire property which had just cost him $7,500.
While the directors and former directors of the Oak Bluffs Com- pany looked on with mingled malice, curiosity, relief and envy, Mr. Abbott, without waiting for a reply to his general offer of $60,000, proceeded with the details of his business enterprise. The owners of cottages around Hartford Park, that tree-shaded retreat, found an unwelcome circular letter in their mail. Ironically, one of the recipients was Capt. Shubael Lyman Norton, who owned a Hartford Park cottage, and he, who might have kept all this land for himself, was never let off anything. Since the circular letter was not only an unusual document but one of the most staggering bits of affrontery in summer resort history (no less so because it was so glitteringly legal), it is reproduced here in full :
"I am the owner of a certain lot of land situated in Cottage City, Martha's Vineyard, and lying between Massasoit and Pequote Avenues and in front of property owned by you and about forty-five others, each of whom is equally affected by the disposition of the property in question.
"The lot is about 800 ft. long, and from 50 ft. to 120 ft. wide, and would probably make sixteen very large and compara- tively valuable house lots which might sell for an average price of $300, a total of $4,800.
"I am the owner of other property in Cottage City which would be benefited by having this lot conveyed to the owners of the surrounding property as a Park to be forever kept open; and for the purpose of such use I am willing to dispose of it for $4,000 on or before June 1, 1885, subject to such taxes as may be assessed.
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