USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > Martha's Vineyard, summer resort, 1835-1935 > Part 19
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Then there were the clambakes at Mattakeeset Lodge; the smell
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of hot rockweed, the hiss of scalding rocks, the approaching suc- culence of clams, corn, fish, lobsters, and a multitude of edible things cooked in that salty smother. In August the rite of the clam- bake was wont to end with watermelon; and the visitors left the heaped clamshells, the desecrated corn cobs and a preposterous amount of litter, to return again to Cottage City.
Inland there were drives, either behind livery stable horses, in party rigs, or with one's own outfit; short drives through towns or partly open, partly wooded countryside; or long drives to Indian Hill or even farther. There was seldom such a thing as trespass, for every comer was welcome almost everywhere. True, there were numberless gates to be opened and closed; but there was no past experience of picnic litter, broken shrubs, downtrodden grounds and the like to rise up as a less tangible but far more effective barrier.
On the salt water one of the memorable institutions of the period was the whaleboat race. The first one, as a part of the entertainment of the resort, seems to have been held in August, 1875. Five whale- boats from New Bedford, one from Edgartown and one from Fair- haven were advertised to contend; and they did contend, but instead of racing along shore, in view of the great crowds on the bluffs, they started almost half a mile from the beach and rowed straight out to sea. Due to some inadvertence, the Edgartown crew was late, and only after a pull at top speed from the Highland wharf, about half a mile distant, did they reach the starting line, late for the signal. As it was, the Islanders overcame the gaps between their boat and all the others save one: the Vineyard was second at the finish, to the first of New Bedford's Sixth Ward. Isaac Norton, who rowed for Edgartown, became famous in whaleboat racing; and, in fact, the sport died years later because he and his crew could not be beaten.
A regatta was held in that same August, and among the more famous yachts and yachtsmen present were the schooner America, General Benjamin F. Butler; and Charles S. Stratton-better known as General Tom Thumb-in his sloop Maggie B. Yacht races were held in succeeding seasons, but they did not attain any great place in the scale of values and were not the centers of fascination for participants and onlookers that they are at Martha's Vineyard today.
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Yet yachting as a decorative and convivial pastime left its imprint, and the record of the years is brightened by sparkling white sails, by the anchor lights of the New York Yacht Club fleet in Vineyard Haven harbor, and by the laughter of yachtsmen fraternizing ashore on summer nights.
XXX The Katama Anti-climax
The Katama Land Company suffered the common fate when the boom went, despite the continued operation of the Mattakeeset Lodge and the popularity of the clambakes. Everyone who had pur- chased lots had been guided by one desire-to sell again at an advance. When everyone buys only to sell, there can be only one result. As for the hotel, there were taxes, interest, depreciation and maintenance expenses to be carried out of the earnings of a month or two-a few brief weeks which, it seemed, could be condensed almost into a few unreasonably crowded and abrupt weekends.
Ten years after the property was opened, it lay bare as before beneath the lofty sky, and the rote of the South Beach surf held its old domain. As early as March, 1879, the entire property of the land company was offered for sale to meet the taxes of the years 1876 and 1877. Samuel Keniston suggested in the Vineyard Gazette that the tract would make a good poor farm.
"To be sure," he wrote, "the climate possesses the attributes essen- tial to longevity, and this might be considered an objection in the eyes of some. But on the other hand, the healthfulness of the locality will tend to reduce doctors' bills, and it is possible that after having lived a hundred or two years in so salubrious an atmosphere, some of the individuals in question might develop intellect and energy enough to be trusted with a hoe. Then might the wilderness be made to blossom like the rose, and the wilds of Katama become the garden spot of the Vineyard."
Katama, untamed, and more magnificent in its solitude than it could have been as a second Wesleyan Grove, went under the ham- mer for $16,250.
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The major attempt to overcome the indifference of the public and to provide an entertainment which should attract great crowds to the empty plains, took place in August, 1881. Upon a clear atmos- phere burst the news that fox hunting was to be transplanted to Katama, and that it would become a vogue. The novel departure was launched in the name of J. C. Cary of New York and Cottage City, known (to his considerable pleasure) as "the Governor," and a committee which included Nicholas Van Slyck and several other summer residents of Cottage City. Preliminary plans were announced, and in an atmosphere of swelling expectancy, a date was set for the first hunt.
The Martha's Vineyard Railroad ran special trains; residents and summer visitors came in carriages and on foot; the plain became more populated than any inhabitant could recall. No horse race, no ball, no exhibition of fireworks had attracted such a vast convo- cation. Katama was not only on the map again, but it was an im- mediate goal of all humanity. A band discoursed music, and the crowds milled about and hoped that the hunt would start soon.
But it was noised through the gathering that humane objections had prevailed, and that the foxes imported for the occasion could not be liberated. Instead, a fox had been humanely killed and the carcass was to be dragged about the countryside for a scent.
"The announcement cast a temporary gloom over the crowd," Samuel Keniston reported, "for, although it might be the way the thing was conducted at Newport and other places, it seemed to the average man a good deal like Hamlet with Hamlet left out." Yet the crowd remained, and still hoped.
At length, a pack of twenty-six straining hounds was led out by a man in white tights and red stockings. The hounds yelped, the ocean boomed, the sea wind blew over the plain. Three horsemen and one horsewoman, in garb such as Katama had never seen, rode forth in readiness, and the dogs were unleashed. The pack was off in full cry, followed by the riders. A cheer went up, and the crowds rushed forward to get a better view. But almost immediately the dogs began to lag and presently came trotting back to the hotel, in twos and threes, full of good nature. A few, however, went off into the bushes and scrub oak. Some of the more spirited hounds,
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Photograph by Augustus Bradford Merry
Stone walls and boulders against the sky on the Chilmark hills. This scene is near the North Road.
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perhaps aware that they had been badly sold, found the nearest sheep pastures and began to chase sheep. They were dissuaded with difficulty after one sheep belonging to Cyrus Vincent and another belonging to E. B. Vincent had been killed, and several others bitten.
The morale of the fox hunt was now reduced to zero, and when a single dog and a single horseman came trotting back to the lodge at a leisurely gait after a run of a mile and a half, the crowds expressed feelings of disappointment and returned to their homes. Those who were on the plain at Katama that day often remarked in later years that they had known of great happenings with few persons or no persons present, but this was the first time they had known nothing to happen with everyone present.
On the following day a couple of live foxes were led around the plain, and a better run was made by the hounds-but the spectators were few. After the prearranged hunt there was an episode which had possibilities of interest : a fox escaped from duress and, being pursued, made for a small pond into which he plunged. The hounds refused to follow, and attendants arrived and scooped the fox out with a net.
Not only was the promotional idea of the fox hunt a failure, but it cast discredit upon its sponsors. There was thereafter an added emphasis in the loneliness of Katama, in the warning of the ocean surf, in the accumulated spaces of the tall sky; and that fall the plain was received gratefully into the clean propriety of frosty nights.
XXXI
Flames in the Sky
The sale of the Sea View hotel to Holder M. Brownell was a temporary solution of problems not easily disposed of. The Oak Bluffs Company was relieved, but the bondholders were less for- tunate. In May, 1885, the trustees were moved to sell the property at auction for $32,000 to the Sea View Hotel and Wharf Company, a corporation formed among the bondholders. Mr. Brownell con- tinued as manager until 1888, when he retired after seventeen con-
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secutive and eventful years. He was succeeded by his steward, Louis Frenkel, who remained as manager for a season. Then a newcomer, Capt. Fred J. Hart, purchased the establishment from the bondholders, and spent some $21,000 on improvements. The bondholders con- tinued to hold a mortgage. Meantime the property was assessed for about $30,000, and there was insurance of about $40,000.
Shortly before midnight on September 24, 1892, Captain LaRoy S. Lewis, a former master mariner, but now night watchman of Cottage City, rushed up to a fire alarm box at the Arcade building and pulled the alarm. The air of the tranquil autumn night, which had been damp and sweet, with an intermittent drizzle, was jangling in an instant with the sound of bells, windows thrown up in haste, doors banging, excited yells, and the beat of hasty footprints on the concrete. The sky over Vineyard Sound lighted up swiftly, as if one red torch after another were being kindled and raised high. The clamor and the gleam increased, soaring into an ascendancy which altered the familiar scale of values and mingled with the sheer excite- ment of emergency the grandest of all the emotions, awe.
"Fire! Fire" ! sounded the cries, louder and more numerous. "Fire! The Sea View"!
Only those who rushed to the open spaces near the great hotel among the very first were in time to look upon it once more as a building. Almost every window was lighted from within, and quickly the bright candles of an onrushing conflagration were lit behind the sashes still dark. Of all the illuminations Cottage City had ever seen, there was none to approach this wonder, this awful glory of the Sea View preceding the end. The hotel gleamed and flickercd, the night was turned into a strident exaggeration of day : and then the entire north end fell in. The tall north tower sank slowly, lacking any support but burning timbers and bright flame. It sank as a vessel sinks at sea, and the flames rose about it, shot in new freedom into the sky.
There was not much wind, and what there was blew in fitful fashion offshore. But the fire made its own breeze, and the pennons of flame and sparks with the half-seen billows of smoke streamed out over the water. The lapping of the waves against the sand was hidden in the roar of the fire and the clatter of the firefighters; even
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the sound of cracking timbers and falling roof was softened, con- cealed and merged in the more urgent sound of released flame sucking and roaring.
The crowds gathered: women with hair in braids down their backs, wrapped hastily in coats over their nightgowns; old men, chattering with excitement; children, eyes radiant with a pleasant terror. Soon the numbers were swelled by arrivals from Vineyard Haven, two miles away. Against these crowds beat the hot waves of the fire, driving them back, holding them in check. In the front ranks firemen worked vainly, unable to reach any vital spot.
More than a hotel was burning that September night, and at least two members of the audience had reason to see more than a mighty fire. Capt. Shubael Lyman Norton stood gazing in silence; with what feelings did he watch the flames rise and the pride of Oak Bluffs recede? His eyes, at least, looked through the living red screen and saw again the barrens of the Great Pasture. In his mind rose memories of the magnificent dreams which had reached their flower in the Sea View. Between those old dreams and this new nightmare lay a troubled period of hope, trouble, bickering, success and failure. This was not the end anyone had seen or desired; but this was an end! The Hon. Erastus P. Carpenter of Foxboro, as it happened, had come to Cottage City that afternoon. He, also, stood in the crowd, and he, also, saw a meaning in the imperious surge of flames.
The woodwork fell away from the tall chimney -- the center of the building was a shell almost without substance-and for a few moments the stack stood incongruously alone. Then it began to tremble, it swayed, and with a fateful deliberation settled down into nothing which could be seen. Through the flames the bystanders saw strange glimpses of familiar objects, pieces of furniture, blackened doors, staircases-fragmentary scenes from what had been-smould- ering or flashing into yellow and red extinction.
Now the flames were in the south tower; the fire showed itself in little jets, and ran along the fancy woodwork, fondly, gracefully, tripping and flickering as it went. This prelude was soon over, and balconies and ornamented windows began to disappear behind formless fire which sprang from below. The whole tower burst into
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flames, and soon it fell, settling into embers. The Sea View of the great days was gone, gone to keep the company of the great days themselves, gone gloriously in fire in the night, streaking into a wind over the sea or falling back into dross.
The wharf and the buildings on it had caught fire at the beginning. The ticket agent, in fact, had run down on the wharf to get some valuable papers, and he had been forced to leap overboard and swim back through strangely dappled water. The tracks of the Martha's Vineyard Railroad reached to a destination from which onlookers shrank. Across the street from the Sea View, the casino caught fire, and the towers with waving flags disappeared. On the interior only two Japanese lanterns remained of many hundreds, and the arches and woodwork were blackened, so that the view opened to those who stood outside was grotesque and ashamed. The iron roof did not burn, but no woodwork was left fit for anything but-ironically -kindling.
During the next few days the blackened ruins of hotel, wharf and casino were visited by thousands. Smoke still rose, and the fire smouldered out. The Sea View, substantial and permanent as it had seemed, had taken flight. As for the railroad, it had been hurt in a vulnerable place : the old "Y" which was used to turn the locomotive around had been destroyed, and from that time forth the Active, as long as it ran, steamed to Cottage City head first, and steamed backward to Edgartown. When Edgartown watched for an incoming train, she had to watch for the hind end first, but Cottage City, as was perhaps more proper, could see the engine coming ahead of the cars.
For a time after the fire there was talk of a new Sea View. Cap- tain Hart asked for bids, and the town voted to exempt a new hotel from taxation for ten years; but nothing came of all the talk and all the plans. There was an end.
A little more than six months after the fire, Holder M. Brownell died of apoplexy, at the age of fifty-nine. The Oak Bluffs Club adopted resolutions in which it was set forth that "the history of Oak Bluffs was a part of his personal history, and he did much to help the town in its infancy, and was largely instrumental in its prosperity." He was, the resolutions continued, "a gentleman of
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sterling worth, unflinching integrity, unassuming bearing, genial and kindly presence, and all the essential traits of perfect manhood."
A year and a month after the Sea View fire, a group of Cottage City young people returning home from a dance in Vineyard Haven saw once more the flickering signal of a fire. The Highland House, second of the hotels of the resort in prestige and size, was being consumed. Before the firemen could arrive, the blaze had reached full headway. There were such showers of sparks that a general conflagration seemed imminent; Agassiz Hall of the Martha's Vineyard Summer Institute was saved only by a shift of wind, and slowly the peril passed from the town. Little was left of the High- land House.
This hotel carried small insurance-some six thousand dollars- which did not more than equal the expenditures made for improve- ments that season. No one knew how the Sea View fire started, although all the gas jets were found to have been opened but the Highland House fire was incendiary. A thief had plundered the empty hotel and attempted to conceal his depredations. He was later apprehended by Thomas A. Dexter, deputy sheriff of the county. At the time of its destruction, the hotel was owned by John D. Flint of Fall River, one of the original promoters of the Vineyard Grove Company, Clofus L. Gonyon, who ran the horse railroad, and Augustus G. Wesley, who operated another hotel under his own name.
Still another year passed, and there came a succession of fires which aroused a state of panic. In the season of 1894 not only the Cottage City schoolhouse burned, but also five cottages on Clinton Avenue. Householders looked about them suspiciously, and the first rumor of an alarm woke fear, suspicion and gossip. Where might the next blow fall?
On the evening of Tuesday, November 13, 1894, Augustus G. Wesley went as usual to prayer meeting in the chapel on the Taber- nacle grounds. He was superintendent of the Sunday School, and he knelt in prayer with the congregation among which he held a respected place The meeting was over early, and Mr. Wesley walked through the paths of the camp ground in the chilly air. As he did so, he looked about him. His hotel, the Wesley House, stood near
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the shore of Lake Anthony, a short distance from the great circle of the camp ground, but before he reached it, he saw over his shoulder that the pastor, Mr. Schub, was walking not far away. Mr. Wesley went past the hotel, presently turned, and came back; but now he saw the church janitor, and this time he hurried across the passage of Jordan and rounded a corner. Again he came back, and this time, seeing no one, he entered the hotel. Letting himself in with a key, he went rapidly to work.
Taking some kerosene, he saturated the stairs which led from the kitchen to the second story. Then he found a cigar box, wrapped the box with burlap soaked in kerosene, placed the whole in a closet under the stairs, and added a lighted candle. This donc, he went out of the building, locked the door and returned to his home.
As it chanced, a friend of Mr. Wesley's, Captain Shubael Hawes Norton, watchful as all Cottage City residents were in those days of fire, thought he saw a suspicious character and took pains to go into the center of town to notify the police. As he did so he passed the hotel and saw smoke pouring out in dense volume. He gave the alarm, and again the bells clanged. This time the discovery of the fire was so prompt that certain probabilities could be, and were, recon- structed by Sheriff Jason L. Dexter, and his son, Thomas A. Dexter.
As Mr. Wesley had watched the fire, someone among the by- standers had asked him, "Have you any enemy who would try to burn you out"?
"I don't know of anyone who would do such a dastardly deed," Mr. Wesley had replied.
"Well, I hope they catch the fire bug."
"So do I."
Sheriff Dexter asked Mr. Wesley a series of questions, to which he returned denials of all guilty knowledge. He said that he had stopped at the hotel on his way home from prayer meeting to get a pail, and that he had spent about an hour looking for it before he finally found it in the kitchen.
"Did you light a match"? he was asked.
"No," he declared.
But he was told that there was evidence against him and that he would have to go to jail.
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"I am a good Christian," he replied to this, "and like many another who has been wrongly accused I can go to prison."
More of the evidence against him was revealed, and again there was the question, "Are you sure you didn't light a match"?
"Yes, I did light a match," he said slowly. "This thing has gone far enough. I will confess."
His written confession, preserved in the records, is as follows:
"I, Augustus G. Wesley, of Cottage City, in the Common- wealth of Massachusetts, hereby make the following voluntary statement, of my own free will and accord, without hope or expectation of favor by reason of so doing, viz : Nov. 13, 1894, Tuesday evening, I went from the prayer meeting at the Metho- dist Church in Cottage City, to the Wesley Hotel owned by me. I entered the hotel about half past eight. I saturated some burlap in kerosene and wrapped it around a cigar box in which I placed a lighted candle. I did this for the purpose of setting fire to the building and its contents in order to collect the insur- ance on them."
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Such was Mr. Wesley's high repute that, had it not been for his confession, Cottage City doubted whether any jury could have been found to convict him. But here was his own word, and the town turned against him with a thirst for vengeance. When he was released on bail, his bondsmen, Clofus L. Gonyon and Christopher Look, were moved to surrender him again, for, they said, public opinion held they were defeating the ends of justice, and all Cottage City wanted Wesley to have a taste of jail. He could not obtain other surety and he languished in the county jail at Edgartown, torn by remorse and shame.
As to the reason for his adventure in arson, the Sunday School superintendent gave an explanation with a touch of shrewdness. He said that if the old hotel was burned, he felt that he could build a better one, a real credit to Cottage City as well as to himself. The building of the new hotel would give work to many men, and arouse a spirit of progress. But it was generally believed that he had become too deeply involved in building himself a house; and his efforts to obtain additional insurance on the hotel dated back weeks into the summer. On the night of the prayer meeting and the fire he had accumulated policies of some fourteen thousand dollars.
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Mr. Wesley bore the name of the founder of Methodism by no accident. He had chosen it for himself. He was baptized Augusten Goupee by French Canadian parents, and he came to Cottage City first in 1874 as a cook. From the Washburn boarding tent on the camp ground he went to the Central House; then he cooked one season at the Sea View, saved his money, and went into business for himself as Augustus Goupee Wesley.
Arraigned in Superior Court before Judge Henry King Braley, the broken man was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. There was a popular clamor that the punish- ment was too light. Nevertheless, Wesley was pardoned eight months before the expiration of the sentence.
Harry Collins, who sold popcorn on the Martha's Vineyard Rail- road, and figured prominently in summer life for many decades, has a scriptural quotation on his tongue for every individual and every circumstance. Of Wesley he always says: ". . which destroy widows' homes or for pretense make long prayers, these shall receive the greater damnation." Whatever eternity may have had in store for him, on earth Wesley had received the greater damnation.
There is a postscript which must be added about the fires in Cottage City. They did not stop with Wesley's arrest. Six days later the alarm was rung again, this time for a small cottage on the High- lands. It was said that the fire must have been set by Wesley's sympathizers, in order to clear him of suspicion as the Cottage City firebug. There was a new reign of terror, and one householder took the tacks out of a valuable carpet in order to be able to remove it quickly in case the torch appeared at his door. But the mystery was solved by the Dexters, father and son, who traced the fires, all save that in the Wesley House, to Julia and Lulu Danzell, a pair of colored girls who were filled with a lust of incendiarism. While they awaited trial in Edgartown it is said that they spoke to Wesley.
"Damn you," they called out, "little did you think you would be in here with us."
Arson was a great leveler.
Some time later there was one more chapter in the series of Cottage City hotel fires : the Prospect House, which stood at Lagoon Heights, was burned to the ground. Its mansard roof and central
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tower disappeared from the sky line. Since the Wesley House was repaired and restored to service, this made the third of a trinity of famous hotels built at the time of the boom to be expunged by fire.
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