USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > Martha's Vineyard, summer resort, 1835-1935 > Part 16
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"The object of this circular is to inform you of the above facts, that I have concluded to dispose of the lot in question, and that I give the owners of adjacent lots the first opportun- ity to buy.
"In order to prevent any possible misunderstanding of my views relating to this lot, permit me to say, that in the event of sale for building purposes I expect to restrict all purchasers to the erection of such buildings as shall be an ornament to the excellent neighborhood in which the land in question lies."
Hartford Park, with its trees, greensward and select atmosphere, was a "lot of land"! The cottagers fumed and fretted before Mr. Abbott's excruciating blandness.
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In the fall of that same year, the Cottage City selectmen laid out Ocean Avenue for formal acceptance by the town, and in so doing they took from Ocean Park a strip of land varying in width from thirty-six to fifteen or twenty feet, and aggregating some 40,000 square feet. The town voted to accept the avenue, and Mr. Abbott at once demanded damages for the strip taken from his park. The selectmen held a hearing and voted to allow the sum of $200. But Mr. Abbott was in a position to show that these same officials, acting as assessors, had valued Ocean Park at a rate which would entitle him to $4,000 for the part of which he had been deprived.
Feeling ran high. The selectmen and assessors held their ground, and so began the celebrated case of Abbott vs. Inhabitants of Cottage City, the first major engagement in the great park case. Abbott's suit came to trial in the brick courthouse at Edgartown in May, 1886, before Judge Rockwell of the Massachusetts Superior Court. The courtroom was large, its pleasant rectangular shape suggesting integrity, its high ceilings and Venetian blinds adding scope and dignity. The judge's bench was massive and of shining oak, and behind the separating rail oak benches for the spectators were arranged in ascending ranks. The room was on the second floor, and one could look from the witness stand or from the oak benches upon Main Street and the Methodist church tower. Spring entered in trailing sunshine and drafts of fresh, seasoned air.
T. M. Stetson appeared for the Inhabitants of Cottage City with his partner, Hosea M. Knowlton, who, a few years later, was to figure in an even more challenging case, for he, as district attorney, was to assume the duty of prosecuting Miss Lizzie Borden of Fall River for the alleged murder of her parents.
Captain Collins testified for Mr. Abbott, maintaining stoutly that the parks had been sold for too little, and that he had been in favor of demanding $15,000 for Ocean Park. With the aid of other wit- nesses Mr. Abbott established readily that the park was of great attractiveness and value.
As soon as the town's case was opened, Mr. Stetson and Mr. Knowlton attempted to introduce evidence showing that Ocean Park rested under a burden of dedication to the public, and that this burden would reduce any damages which Mr. Abbott could right-
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fully claim, even to the vanishing point. Abbott interposed a prompt objection, on the ground that there could be no dedication of a public park in Massachusetts except under specific statutes of 1846 and 1882, and no one even pretended that these had been complied with. The court sustained the objection, as Samuel Keniston later observed in the Vineyard Gazette, "knocking the stuffing out of the case at the very beginning."
The jury remained out only half an hour and returned to award Mr. Abbott a verdict of $2,545.83 which the town of Cottage City would have to pay. There was chagrin and bitterness, and, despite the adverse ruling of the court, some Cottage City men de- nounced the award as "an Edgartown verdict."
The town's attorneys had saved exceptions, and these were taken to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, although no one had much hope. The whole dead weight of the law-and what a weight that was !- seemed balanced against the side of the town and the people. On February 23, 1887, the supreme court's decision was handed down. It was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (the "Jr." was convenient so long ago when the fame of the jurist had not yet added lustre to the name of the poet) who cited a num- ber of cases and proceeded to say: "The court ruled that no such dedication was possible in Massachusetts. We are of the opinion that this ruling cannot be sustained."
Justice Holmes went no further than necessary to decide the im- mediate issue, but he remarked that if there had been a dedication by an owner, it was plain that acceptance by express vote of the town in which the park lay was not necessary. In fact, he declared, the necessity of acceptance had been over-insisted upon. The verdict for Abbott was thus set aside. First knock-down for the people after many months of defeat! The dead weight of the law was not so great that it could not be shifted by a few words from a clear sighted judge.
The full significance of this decision was in doubt. In general the reverse for Mr. Abbott did not seem at all final. However, the case could not be tried again for some months, and meantime Abbott began to train his guns on the witnesses who had taken the stand against him. He seemed to recognize as one of his chief foes the
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Hon. Erastus P. Carpenter of Foxboro. Accordingly he negotiated with Captain Collins and purchased all the Collins stock in the Martha's Vineyard Railroad, soon putting himself in a position to oust the Carpenter management. The test came at the annual meeting of the road held at the old United States Hotel in Boston. Mr. Car- penter, Mr. Hills and their allies retired to an upstairs room and locked the door; Mr. Abbott and his satellites stormed the fort, burst in the door, and achieved a victory with total casualties to the enemy of one bloody Adam's apple. A truce was arranged, and just before the call for the meeting expired at noon, the Carpenter group came tardily to the Abbott group, owning defeat.
When the case of Abbott vs. Cottage City came to its second trial, the town introduced a great volume of testimony as to dedication. Mr. Carpenter, Captain Norton, W. S. Hills, Joel Hills and William Bradley-all the original directors of the Oak Bluffs Company except Capt. Ira Darrow who had died, and Captain Collins who was of the Abbott side-declared that the parks had been dedicated to public use from the beginning, to remain open forever. Captain Collins said he never knew of any dedication, or of any authority under which dedication could have taken place.
Addressing the jury, Mr. Stetson, for the town, invoked the spirit of the multitudes in the great cities.
"Mr. Abbott asks you to give him all the ten beautiful parks and twenty-seven avenues of Cottage City, which he says belong to him. If it does, then God save the Commonwealth, for our cities will be ruined . . . I speak not simply for the town of Cottage City but for every baby carriage and the little occupant that goes out to the park . . . I care not for rich people, they can buy their own, but for the poor, the poor use the parks, the slums of Boston get their breathing space on Boston Common . . . The public will use that land. That is all the poor public can do to assert their rights and that they have done for fourteen years on Ocean Park without an objection until Abbott hove in sight and delighted the Island with his presence."
Lewis W. Howes, associate counsel for Mr. Abbott, used a "pecul- iar power of sarcasm" and charged that the whole aim of the town was to win a case for rich men. Ocean Avenue was widened, he
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declared, "to steal this land from Mr. Abbott." As to dedication, he reminded the jury that it did not see the words "Public Park" in any deed.
The jury retired, and the courtroom fell into untidy somnolence. The sky far beyond the Methodist church tower turned red and then dark, the jury went to supper and returned, twilight ebbed. Spectators dispersed to their homes. At four o'clock the following morning, the twelve weary men declared that they could not agree, and they were discharged. The case of Abbott vs. Inhabitants of Cottage City was once more just about where it had started.
All this time Mr. Abbott had been enjoying the offensive, but now, emboldened by the decision of Mr. Justice Holmes, the town undertook an action of its own. The case of Attorney General, by information, vs. George C. Abbott began with a jockeying for posi- tion in which Mr. Abbott showed himself quick of thought and action. The case was marked for trial in New Bedford in Novem- ber, but Abbott hastened to the city and asked the court to refer the matter to a master. This was resisted and argued by Stetson and Knowlton, but Abbott prevailed.
The master appointed was Henry King Braley of Fall River, destined to be not only a judge of the Superior Court but of the Supreme Judicial Court of the state, and near the end of his life to be concerned with the fate of two foreigners named Sacco and Van- zetti. The purpose of this new suit at law was to establish that the Cottage City parks were parks, and not private property. Mr. Abbott came into court with what was, perhaps, a unique advantage -an opinion from the opposing counsel to the effect that he was unquestionably right. But this was the opinion rendered by Stetson and Knowlton to the town long before the state supreme court, through Mr. Justice Holmes, had declared itself; and these attorneys now were pinning their hopes upon a broader judgment than their own. As the new case proceeded, the old case of Abbott vs. Cottage City continued on the docket, and Mr. Abbott, as a lover of liti- gation, found himself happy in being a plaintiff before the Superior Court in an effort to obtain damages from the town, and at the same time a defendant in an action before the Supreme Judicial Court charging him with an invasion of the public domain.
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The testimony taken by Mr. Braley and reported by him to the court was eventually to fill a bound volume of 1,070 pages. Unlike many extended court records, however, this anatomy of Attorney General vs. Abbott was monumental enough to deserve its thousand odd pages and its canvas and leather covers. The question "when may a park be sold for house lots"? could not be answered in a para- graph. Mr. Braley heard all the testimony which had been adduced in the two trials of Abbott vs. Cottage City, and a great deal more besides. He had put before him the books and records of the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company, a number of confidential letters written to Capt. Grafton N. Collins, photographs and plans of Oak Bluffs and the parks, and he heard, not once but several times, the questioning and cross questioning of the Hon. Erastus P. Car- penter and the associates of the Oak Bluffs Co.
Among the new material presented was testimony by which Mr. Abbott hoped to show that Mr. Carpenter, Joel Hills and William Bradley had, independently, uttered the vulgar threat that they would "fix him." With the aid of Captain Collins and others, Abbott had obtained claims for prosecution against these three, and had forced them into insolvency. Mr. Carpenter was now fresh from having taken the poor debtor's oath, and Abbott referred to him and his friends as "out on bail." He sought to establish that their testimony was influenced by a desire for revenge against him. But the records showed that Abbott had brought his suits against Carpenter, Hills and Bradley only after they had given their testimony against him in the trial of Abbott vs. Cottage City. The revenge motive, there- fore, seemed to be on the other side.
Another minor offensive was launched by Mr. Abbott against Hosea M. Knowlton who had, he testified, attempted to purchase from him a cottage lot on Ocean Park. Mr. Knowlton, in his brief to the court, delivered a counter stroke.
"It is difficult to characterize temperately," he wrote, "the spirit that prompted Abbott to pursue these men after they had testified against him, and then spread details of their poverty upon the record, under the pretence that his revengeful persecution of them was the cause of their being witnesses against him, when the converse was the fact."
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Summer residents of Cottage City played an important part in the accumulation of the big book of evidence, all of them staunchly in behalf of the town and the public. Among those who gave testi- mony were George M. Landers, Dr. Harrison A. Tucker, Philip Corbin and Col. Nicholas Van Slyck.
:. In the final arguments, Mr. Knowlton hammered away at weak- nesses in Abbott's case which nice technicalities of the law could not protect. Had not Abbott bought for the sum of $7,500 property which, if free of the burden of dedication, was easily worth $60,000? Himself not a cent out of pocket-since Neal had advanced the money-he stood to pocket half the proceeds and emerge from the transaction comfortably rich.
"Such a transaction is noteworthy," declared Mr. Knowlton. "This trade by quitclaim deed and without any covenants at all and a trifling consideration, shows the conviction of the vendors as clearly as if their vote had read: 'Whereas, we have no title in the parks and avenues, but can get ten per cent of their value from a speculator in law suits, we release, etc.' "
Against this, Mr. Abbott marshaled his ambiguities and contra- dictions : the parks had been taxed by the town, and the town had allowed him damages for the strip taken from Ocean Park. Moreover, Cottage City had refused to accept the parks when it could have had them for nothing. Unless he, Abbott, owned the parks, were they not orphans, for which no one was responsible? Who would or could keep them up, prevent nuisances, and see that they fulfilled the function of parks?
The final decision in the case was handed down by the state supreme court on Sept. 21, 1891, and Abbott was routed, hopelessly and forever. Moreover, a host of other Abbotts with their specu- lative eyes on park lands elsewhere were routed as well. There had plainly been an intention to dedicate the Cottage City parks to the public, said the court, for "if the corporation had an intention to reserve this right (to cut up and sell the parks for building), the course pursued was inconsistent with common honesty."
As to acceptance of the parks, the court went on, no assent of the town was necessary because no burden was placed upon the town. The acceptance of such a dedication at common law-already
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recognized by the decision of Mr. Justice Holmes-need not appear of record, nor need it be by the town. In fact, the acceptance was by the public at large, and the principal thing needed to show it was use by the public. So simply were the legal intricacies invoked by Mr. Abbott now scattered to the winds. - ...
Replying to Mr. Abbott's question, the court said that, technically, if a nuisance existed on one of the parks, the original owner would have the right to abate it. For the fee remained in the owner, the dedication carrying only an easement to the public at large. This, then, was what Mr. Abbott had gained for his expenditure of time and Mr. Neal's $7,500-the fee of the parks, and the presumptive right to stop a nuisance if one should occur.
The parks have been won these many years, and time has dis- counted the victory. Generations enjoying liberties won for them in the past are slow to understand how easily the balance might have been turned in the other direction. In this instance, the public right to the parks hung by a hair for years, with able lawyers and the lower courts adding to the weight of opposition. At the end the issue turned upon that slender and intangible quality of the human mind, liberal construction, the will and the ability to look beyond small logic and adherence to technicality.
The news of the victory reached the Island on a day of threatening weather. Bells were rung, bonfires burned, fireworks were detonated, and a parade of citizens was led by the Cottage City Drum Corps in a triumphal march. A man's figure, bearing no resemblance to the sartorially impressive Mr. Abbott, was borne around the avenues and parks on the shoulders of a celebrant, and afterward burned and dragged smouldering around Ocean Park, leaving a trail of fire which was quickly drenched by a fall of rain. A pyramid of tar barrels was set on fire in the center of the park, and burned with a brilliancy which defied the storm until the staves fell in. Standing over the burning mass as a solemn warning was an illuminated trans- parency upon which were the words, "We are the People." This was regarded as a boast, but it could as easily have been taken as an admission. After all, the people had figured in the great park case only as something for the lawyers to talk about, as guardians discuss their pathetic or feeble minded wards. The cottagers burned colored
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lights and red fire; but soon the rain dispersed the crowd, the streets emptied, and all the parks and avenues lay soaked and dripping in the thick night.
Mr. Abbott did not accept defeat without several rearguard actions. He brought suit, asking damages of $225,000, against the directors of the Oak Bluffs Company, based on the fact that before the incorporation of the concern, the directors had transferred the property to two of their number as trustees. The trustees had later reconveyed the property to the company. The original warranty of title, Mr. Abbott declared, should have been passed along to him. This case also was carried to the state supreme court, and Abbott's contention was briefly denied. Yet once again he sued, this time the heirs of Capt. Shubael Lyman Norton just after the turn of the century, still harping on the old string. But this case he did not pursue.
As for the Martha's Vineyard Railroad, over which Abbott had acquired control in his feud with Carpenter and Hills, it did not long remain under his management. There had been chronic defaults of interest payments, and the Old Colony stepped in, took the road from Abbott, and gave it into the hands of Joseph M. Wardwell. That was the last, on Martha's Vineyard, of the saturnine Mr. Abbott, his sandy hair, his cutaway coats, and his love for the sharp, prickly points of the law.
XXVI Liquor Is a Problem
One of the problems of the camp meeting in early years had been to suppress the sale and, indeed, the use of intoxicants. Now and then a cache of liquor would be found in some grove or woodland glade, and destroyed with cxultation. But when a town replaced the old camp, and the resort of Cottage City rose to popularity with an avowed round of summer gaiety, the nature of the problem changed. No one, apparently, cared to see open sale of liquor; but, on the other hand, there was some fear that suppression of liquor
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entirely might injure the material interests of the resort. "Let sleep- ing dogs lie," said many upright citizens.
Yet there was an increasing tension which was bound to result in some kind of lightning. The growth of a camp meeting into a summer resort was not to be accomplished without an open combat between this form of worldliness and the old ideals of strict control -control even of private conduct in matters such as these. Among those who had no idea of allowing sleeping dogs to lie was the Rev. E. H. Hatfield, first a camp meeting preacher, then a fire- brand of the division struggle, and later a permanent resident of the town. There had been arrests for selling liquor, and seizures of contraband supplies; these took their course without stirring the resort. Mr. Hatfield, however, conceived a law enforcement effort on a grand scale, and carried law enforcement into places where the arm of the law had not yet reached.
In the summer of 1887, Mr. Hatfield and his committee engaged spotters to explore the possibilities of Cottage City hotels, 'drug stores and doctors' offices. The spotters had no difficulty in buying liquor, and when the trap was sprung the resort found, to its dis- may, that the trail ran not only into common places but into the Sea View. Holder M. Brownell himself was a defendant in the district court on a charge of unlawful sale of liquor. And Mr. Brownell was not only one of the most important men of Cottage City in summer, but he was the intimate of the leaders of the Oak Bluffs side, and a trustee of the Episcopal Church which had been established a short time before.
The embarrassment of the situation was felt keenly : no one could pretend to believe that Mr. Brownell was innocent, although there was a tendency to dissociate liquor selling from the Sea View host himself; but, on the other hand, it was unthinkable that he should be found guilty, like an ordinary person. For to find him guilty would be to suffer an unpleasant cloud to fall over a major part of Oak Bluffs summer life, a part important not only in a material sense, but in the pride and prestige which everyone felt. The case was passed along to the Superior Court, and there, in September, Mr. Brownell faced a jury.
As the case was about to be called, a remarkable document was
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presented to the judge, who scanned it with a curious expression on his face. It was a memorial signed by Dr. Harrison A. Tucker, Dr. John Crane and the Rev. J. B. Shackleford, acting rector of Trinity Episcopal Chapel, Cottage City, representing that "the best interests of the town do not require this proceeding, that the best public sentiment has not demanded it," and protesting against further pros- ecution of the complaint.
Expressing some surprise that the paper should have been handed to him, the judge declared that the only question before the court was whether the defendant was guilty. The trial therewith began; and the atmosphere of the courtroom wrapped Holder M. Brownell and detached him from the events and relationships of Cottage City society and summer life.
Two detectives-Hugh Montgomery, said to be a clergyman of Norwalk, Conn., and one VanBuren Kinney-gave evidence for the state. They had entered the Sea View, passed the office where Mr. Brownell was busy, and had proceeded to buy liquor. Seven men were produced to testify that the reputation of Montgomery and Kinney in their home community was bad, and that their verac- ity was held in low esteem; four others were produced to testify that their reputation was of the best. The prosecution intimated that the slurs against the detectives originated because of warfare which the two had carried on against rum.
Mr. Brownell did not take the witness stand. There seemed to be little hope for an acquittal; but his attorney, Mr. Brown, swept into a bit of oratory in which he said to the jury : "But, gentlemen, if you acquit Mr. Brownell of this charge, how will you answer the questions of your neighbors and friends as to why you did it? You will answer it as your own consciences must feel here. It was not proven. The government failed to convict him."
Here Judge Hammond interposed, saying that such a line of argument was improper. Mr. Brown inquired whether the court would put this ruling in writing, to which the judge assented, framing it in this form :
"Insofar as counsel for the defendant desires to instruct the jury what reasons they may hereafter give to anybody who chooses to talk with them about their verdict, for giving their verdict, the counsel for defendant is stopped by the court."
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Photograph courtesy of Miss Emily Worth Gay Head excursion, old style. The Monohansett at Gay Head wharf. Visitors were driven to the top of the cliffs in an ox cart.
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Mr. Brown thereupon saved an exception. He excepted also to the charge which the court made, alluding to the fact that Mr. Brownell had not taken the stand. The jury, which had tasted Sea View liquor, returned a verdict of guilty.
This was a further blow at the reasonable compromise by which Cottage City existed and held its summer satisfaction; but Mr. Hat- field did not see it that way. He proceeded to denounce the gentlemen who had signed the memorial to the court.
"Are you aiming to fasten on it (Cottage City) the vices of the criminal classes that are inseparable from liquor selling"? he de- manded. "Liquor selling in Cottage City is the same evil, ruinous and devilish business that it is everywhere it is allowed to exist." And he pointed out that the town had voted by odds of twelve to one against licensing the sale of liquor.
There was no reply. But when the exceptions saved by Mr. Brownell's attorney were considered by the Supreme Court and a decision handed down, there was a great sigh of relief. The convic- tion had been overturned. For an attorney to anticipate the social pressure which might be brought against a jury in a case of this sort was proper; and for the court to deny this reasonable argument deprived the defendant of his rights. The secrets of the jury room were not involved, the decision declared, since the whole purport was one of the jury's backbone. The second exception, however, was not sustained, and it was held proper for the court to comment on the defendant's failure to take the stand.
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