USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > Martha's Vineyard, summer resort, 1835-1935 > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24
Now the project of extending the railroad was agitated, and a proposal that the town of Tisbury subscribe to stock in the road to
.
75
SUMMER RESORT
make the extension possible was submitted in town meeting. The meeting was hostile. But what the town declined to do, the Oak Bluffs Company proceeded to do forthwith, subscribing for two hundred and sixty-six shares, representing an investment of $20,000 in the new link. Late in 1872 the railroad entered Woods Hole for the first time, and the puffing of the locomotive could be heard across Vineyard Sound. Dr. Daniel Fisher of Edgartown had also come forward with a subscription for thirty shares.
If the Oak Bluffs Company had done nothing else, three of its accomplishments would have stood as steps of first importance in the resort development of Martha's Vineyard : one was this aid to the railroad which rendered the Island more accessible and afforded a connection by rail which was to become the main reliance of Vineyard people; another was the building of the wharf at Oak Bluffs which, from the moment of its completion, cut almost an entire and wearying mile from the time and distance required to reach the camp ground and the bluffs; and the third was the signing of a contract with the Western Union Telegraph Co. in 1875 which brought about the laying of a cable from Falmouth to Oak Bluffs.
But of course the company did much more. The concrete listed among the assets in 1872 was intended for the surfacing of more avenues on the property of the concern; it represented part of an expenditure for street improvement which was to approximate $20,000. Altogether, in the provision of streets, the erection of hotels, cottages, stores, a monumental chapel, and in other perma- nent improvements, the Oak Bluffs Company was responsible for the expenditure of $300,000 at the new resort, most of it during the three years ending in 1872.
At the top of the bluffs a plank walk was built; by the summer of 1871 it extended 2,600 feet from the wharf. The walk ran directly through an octagonal pavilion, or pagoda as it was called at the time, where refreshments were sold. The pagoda had glass sides which could be raised and lowered, and there were tables at which promenaders might sit. The walk extended farther south to a new bath arbor above the bathhouses on the shore; this was soon extended into a high tower, an open observatory which loomed like a skeleton,
1
1
76
MARTHA'S VINEYARD
offering thrills and a wide, windy panorama of sea and land to the visitors who cared to climb it.
Cut off from the camp ground by the seven foot picket fence, Oak Bluffs was without a place of worship, and seemed to rest in a certain state of obloquy on that account. This was remedied by the construction of a new chapel with a spire (octagonal, of course) ninety-six feet above the ground, and with seating accommodations for eight hundred. The chapel stood on a slight rise of ground at the intersection of five streets : this mound-and it was in reality hardly that-was accordingly called Chapel Hill. The structure rose in successive angular roof planes, each broken by a high and steep gable end, topped with an ornamental peak of iron. On four of the eight sides there were entrances, and over one of them rose a steepled upper porch, with fretted woodwork and a balcony railing of orna- mentally pierced boards.
The high ceiling and spacious entrances, which opened high and wide to the fresh air of summer, adapted the chapel well to its purpose. It still stands today, but the decorative scheme has been hushed and softened. No more is the shrill pinnacled glory, no more the profusion of knicknacks, no more the bizarre crimson and yellow scroll work.
The chapel was dedicated on Sunday, August 20, 1871, eight clergymen participating in the service, and there was commendation of the liberality which made this institution possible. In 1880 an association known as the Oak Bluffs Christian Union was organized to maintain the chapel as it had been begun, a non-sectarian place of worship. Through the Union a devoted group of summer residents invited to the Island, year after year, prominent clergymen of many denominations, and provided church music of exceptional quality. The first cost of the chapel had been $16,000. What price now the superior pose of the camp meeting association?
The principal building for business purposes which the company put up was known as the Arcade : it stood on Circuit Avenue, the street which made a circuit of the camp ground just outside the fence, and it was, as the name would imply, a gateway structure. In fact, it was a gateway to the camp ground. Through the center of the building, beneath dependent triangles of elaborately pierced
-
W
77
SUMMER RESORT
boards and other rococo trim, one passed between shops into the green innocence of Wesleyan Grove. The Arcade was of two stories, except in the center where a third story was raised up with a fancy balcony and fretted boards high above the thoroughfare beneath. The cost of the Arcade was $6,000.
Greatest of all the achievements of the Oak Bluffs Company was doubtless the Sea View Hotel, which was built at a cost of $102,000, with a further cost of $30,000 for furnishings. The site of this struc- ture was the bluff immediately south of the steamboat wharf. Here the first Oak Bluffs hotel had been built, but this was cut in half and moved away.
What hotel anywhere has ever compared with the Sea View? It is a legend on Martha's Vineyard today. One saw it from the steamboat, dominating the waterfront; one walked past it on the plank walk, or sat on the broad verandas which completely encircled it; if one was lucky, one stopped there, and was conscious of enjoying the finest accommodations and the finest society that the resort afforded.
The Sea View was five stories high on the water side, and four on the inland elevation; it measured 225 feet in length, and 40 feet in depth. In appearance it was decorative, but not even today could a superior eye dismiss it as absurd : at the south end rose a tower 85 feet high, a tower with a steeply pitched roof from which projected little peaked windows, and across the top of which ran a fringe of fretted work. At the north end was a tower 100 feet high, rising squarely above the roof of the central part of the hotel, and then sharpening into a spire with a flagstaff 126 feet above the basement floor. From the long roof between the towers there were projecting dormer windows, and at the ridge two small towers, each with four diminutive gables. At the north, the hotel was connected with the gateway structure which had been built across the road at the head of the wharf.
The Sea View contained 125 rooms, office, parlor, spacious dining salons and reception suites. At Oak Bluffs it was a colossus, a marvel not only in itself, but because it transformed the whole aspect, the whole character of the community. Its towers were an imaginative flight, its whole effect was that of a fantasy, a wish-fulfillment, of
1
٢٥
78
MARTHA'S VINEYARD
the time. Like some chateau of dreams it stood, magnificent, and with an air. That is why no one can look upon it as absurd; it was what it should have been, a gesture successfully carried out, consistent, complete, satisfying at every point. Out of place on an Island of old whaling towns? But the Sea View stood at Oak Bluffs, guardian and boast of a city of cottages which grew out of a tented village, and knew no other precedents. For the time and place the simplicity of a Colonial or Georgian structure would have been gauche beside the appropriateness and happy fulfillment of the Sea View as it was built. Its towers linger in all the memories of the generation which knew it.
Speaking tubes connected every room with the office; the whole hotel was lighted by gas; there was steam heat to guard against cold snaps late in the season; there were bathrooms, although not a great many of them.
The formal opening of the Sea View took place on the evening of July 23, 1872.
"Such an array of distinguished gentlemen and ladies are seldom brought together anywhere-certainly never before on Martha's Vineyard," reported the Vineyard Gazette.
The visitors arrived in the late afternoon, being met by Smith's Brass Band which escorted them on a parade up Circuit Avenue and then back to the hotel. There was time for an inspection of the prem- ises, and at seven dinner was announced. The main dining room was filled to overflowing, and additional tables were set on the veranda overlooking the sea. Among the guests were the lieutenant governor, the secretary of the commonwealth, the state auditor, several members of the governor's council, the president of the state senate, the speaker of the house, several judges, the collector of the port of Boston, nearly all the state senators, the board of harbor commissioners, and so on through a long list.
After the dinner, Hon. Joseph Thaxter Pease of Edgartown deliv- ered an address of welcome, in the course of which he said :
"The Oak Bluffs Company, at whose invitation we have come, differs from most corporations in that it has a soul. Composed of gentlemen of intelligence, enterprise and energy at its head, we find an amount of brains and of executive ability which but few Car-
.1
-
Views from collection of Dukes County Historical Society
The glory that was the Sea View hotel. Upper left : in this parlor General Grant was entertained. Upper right : a vista across one of the broad verandas. Below: as the Sea View looked in its prime. The seventies knew nothing finer.
79
SUMMER RESORT
penters possess . . . In addition to the other improvements they have made here, they have erected this magnificent hotel; with their accustomed wisdom and foresight they have secured the services of those who know how to keep it, and here and to it, we welcome each of you. Here 'you may take your ease in your inn'. "
Then almost everyone made a speech. The collector of the port of Boston responded to the pun already delivered by saying, "May Pease be always with you."
When the speeches were over, the gathering gave three cheers for the Hon. Erastus P. Carpenter, cheers which rang out over the darkly mottled waters of Vineyard Sound and into the spaces of Ocean Park where Japanese lanterns were hanging at intervals in mellow illumination. After the tables were cleared, the evening ended with a social hop.
The following morning the entire concourse of guests embarked on the steamer Martha's Vineyard for an excursion to Edgartown harbor and Katama, where a new land development was just getting under way. The wharves at Edgartown were crowded, and a salute was fired from a cannon, to which the steamer responded with tooting. No landing was made at Katama, and the Martha's Vine- yard steamed back across Vineyard Sound to Woods Hole.
The management of the Sea View had been entrusted to the firm of Bullock and Brownell, identified with the management of the Parker House, the principal hotel of New Bedford and the real home of the Parker House roll. The important member of the firm was Mr. Holder Milk Brownell, a host who stands in the same towering relationship to other hotel keepers as the Sea View to other inns. Mr. Brownell was inclined to be on the portly side; his cheeks were rubicund, his eyes genial, his face partly framed in plen- tiful black side whiskers. He seemd to personify the art of good living, the age-old secret of geniality. And he fitted into the need of the period, and particularly into the need of the cottage resort.
There was an apocryphal story that Mr. Brownell had been chris- tened by his father out of respect to a stubborn cow who would, despite everything, "hold her milk." But the fact was that "Holder" was a not uncommon given name in the New Bedford region, and
1
1
So
MARTHA'S VINEYARD
"Milk" was an important family name in Dartmouth, where Mr. Brownell's people had originated.
Such were the accomplishments of the Oak Bluffs Land and Wharf Company in this brief time. The largest obligations listed in the balance sheet had to do with the construction of the Sea View, altogether the grandest enterprise yet undertaken in the resort develop- ment of Martha's Vineyard. In addition to the financing by banks, there were the notes given to W. R. Penniman, contractor for the hotel. And there was the passenger elevator for the Sea View, the first on the Island, still to be paid for.
Lots were selling, the fame of the Sea View was spreading, and the future belonged to those men who had vision and energy. Or so it appeared in 1872.
As for the Vineyard Grove Company, its efforts were more or less modelled after those of the Oak Bluffs Company. The Highland Wharf had been completed, and there was great rivalry as to which wharf the steamboats should stop at first. The Oak Bluffs wharf had the advantage of location, for it was more convenient to the camp ground as well as to the premises of the company; but the Highland wharf had the advantage of religious background.
If Mr. Copeland, in laying out Oak Bluffs, had eschewed the straight line as if it were a deadly peril, Mr. Talbot, in laying out the Highlands, had gone him one better. The early plans of the Highlands resemble nothing so much as the whorls of an unsteady thumb print. This was largely because provision had been made for a large circle, copied after the Wesleyan Grove circle, in case the Methodists should need to flee over Jordan. The first plan prepared in the summer of 1869 was not wholly satisfactory, and Mr. Talbot made another, more inclusive than the first and differing from it materially. Both plans, however, were utilized, and both were made of record, with the result that an unborn generation was to suffer not a little confusion and inconvenience.
The street names on the Highlands were not particularly fanciful. They included Crescent Park, Beecher Park, Asbury Park, Schuyler Avenue, Chauncey Park, and Atlantic, Glenwood, Elmwood and Vineland Avenues.
Up to August 17, 1872, the Vineyard Grove Company had derived
81
SUMMER RESORT
a gross revenue of $71,666.93 from the sale of land. An inventory of the company's assets at this time showed a total of $72,924.37, against which there were notes and bills payable of $24,079.39, leaving a balance of $48,844.98.
The inventory account stood in marked contrast to that of the great Oak Bluffs Company. It included many such items as the following : "one horse, $100; one horse, $250; one ton hay, $20; one hay cutter, $10; three forks, $1.50; three harnesses, $50; one lumber wagon, $25; one buggy, $100; one express wagon, $20; one horse cart, $20; twenty-four street lanterns, $240; twelve round lanterns, $100; twenty pounds lead pipe, $2.20; five casks spikes, $25." The detail suggested the care of a meticulous housewife, and the substantial figures of the Oak Bluffs account were lacking. The largest items were as follows :
Estimated value of old hotel
$5,300.00
1
Furniture in old hotel
2,500.00
Labor added this year 292.00
New hotel or addition, cost
8,310.82
Furniture, cost
3,647.65
Cost for hotel
224.60
Total cost of hotel
$20,275.07
Cost of new office
Value of furniture
$1,806.00 205.24
Total cost of office $2,011.59
Cost of new building on New York wharf $735.70
Estimated value of new wharf and building
15,000.00
Estimated value of New York wharf
4,000.00
Chapel, tent and furniture 850.00
Wyoming House and furniture
2,000.00
Barn at hotel
1,196.56
A number of cottages built by the company were also listed.
In the matter of wharves, the Vineyard Grove Company had one more than the Oak Bluffs Company, but neither was so good as the Oak Bluffs wharf. The "new wharf" was that at the Highlands, from
1
-
عددالدول
Y
82
MARTHA'S VINEYARD
which the plank walk led along a street, now called Commercial Avenue, over Jordan to the camp ground. The New York wharf was at Eastville, extending to deep water in Holmes Hole harbor, not far from the old camp meeting landing, but much nearer East Chop.
The "new hotel" was the Highland House, the most serious rival of the Sea View; yet how far short it fell may be seen in the figures. Still, the Highland House stood on a slight rise of ground-there was no bluff at this short stretch of beach north of Lake Anthony (formerly Squash Meadow Pond)-immediately on the salt water. And it, too, was an imposing structure, despite a composite appear- ance due to the manner in which it had been built on two different intentions. In the center rose a high tower, two full stories above the mansard roof of the structure proper, which was three stories tall: an open observation platform with a railing and canopy capped the tower. Upper and lower piazzas crossed the front of the hotel, and turned partly around the sides; and a broad staircase occupied nearly the whole ground frontage. The mansard roof-then in the height of fashion-and the decorative effect of its square tower, were the principal claims to distinction. The Highland House had sixty rooms.
As for the chapel, it was hardly more than a shed-small even in this settlement of small structures. Box-like, with four plain windows on either side, it supported above the front entry an open framework for a belfry, with a steep angle of roof immediately above the bell.
The so-called Wyoming House was a small building between the plank walk and Lake Anthony. It still stands today.
Although the expenditures of the Vineyard Grove Company had been relatively frugal, there was, nevertheless, a possibility of diffi- culty if lots should stop selling. But what simpleton would predict such an unlikely thing as that?
Aside from the building of cottages and the eager bidding for cottage and tent rights on the camp ground, there was one major development undertaken by the camp meeting association which deserved to rank with the enterprises of the two land companies. This was the canvas tabernacle which was first raised in August, 1870, to replace the great oaks which now were all gone. Into the
---
SUMMER RESORT
83
mammoth tent went 4,000 yards of sailcloth, weighing 1,980 pounds. The necessary guy ropes and lines weighed 770 pounds. There were six sections, sewed together like a circus tent, or, a more apt comparison, laced like the bonnet of a vessel's jib. Three main center poles, 54 feet long, a foot and one inch in diameter supported the big top, the ridge of which was forty-five feet above the ground and the benches of the worshippers. The outer edge of the canvas came to an end nine feet from the ground, and from it depended a curtain two and a half feet wide trimmed with red worsted. Altogether, the tent covered sittings for four thousand persons.
From the middle pole, where it projected through the canvas, to the peak of a topmast surmounted upon it, the distance was twenty- five feet; and at this altitude flew a white flag with a red cross. The whole cost of the tabernacle was $3,000.
On the first Sunday evening after the canvas was raised, a praise service was held, with the chorister of Mr. Beecher's church in Brooklyn taking a leading part. The tunes of Antioch, Turner, Bethany, Exhortation, and Coronation were sung, and five hundred voices were raised in the chorus of Come Ye Disconsolate. The light of an August evening came dimly through the canvas, and the slant poles reached upward over the heads of the people; the air was sleepily warm, and laden with a new fragrance of sailcloth and cordage.
It was about this time that the directors of the camp meeting association petitioned the postmaster general to have the mails brought to Martha's Vineyard by steamer instead of by sailing craft.
"The Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting Association," they wrote in all truth and modesty, "is, probably, the largest of the kind in the country; and in connection with the great Oak Bluffs Company annually draws a larger number of people together than Newport, Saratoga, or any other place of summer resort this side of the Atlan- tic, with which we are acquainted." This should, they thought, justify delivery of the mails with celerity, certainty and security.
1
1
S4
MARTHA'S VINEYARD
XIII
The Days of the Great Boom
In August, 1871, the Vineyard Gazette spread before its readers one of the most inflammatory phrases in the English tongue : "One of your keen business women recently made a purchase of a small lot of land, and within a period of six weeks from the date of pur- chase she refused an offer of $1,200 advance on her investment." A landowner had "refused an offer"!
Now the acceptance of an advance of $1,200 in six weeks from the time a lot was purchased would seem exciting enough; but the refusal of such an advance represented another full turn of the screw. The banner of the speculative fever was shaken forth with all its folds unloosed. A handsome profit in pocket is finite and con- clusive but a handsome profit refused is an invitation and a challenge to the future, the limitations of hard fact are broken down, the whole matter is translated into new terms, with infinity beyond. Another turn of the screw-indeed, the screw is set whirling dizzily, and no one can guess where it will stop. The handsome profit goes begging : come, handsomer profits, come higher prices, come more lots, more paper cities !
Now Tarleton Cadwallader Luce, who had sold the tract of land laid out by the Vineyard Grove Company, went into the business of development on his own account. The whole region extending from the Highland property to what had been Holmes Hole harbor (and was now to be Vineyard Haven harbor-the inhabitants of Tisbury having decided to change the name of their village to a more eupho- nious one-) was changed overnight into Bellevue Heights. The land was high and undulating, with ravines and declivities, sandy links and downs dotted with small pine trees and bayberry bushes; near the harbor it embraced a large pond which was called Crystal Lake. Bellevue Heights was laid out in lots and avenues and parks. Four hundred large lots are designated by one Jackson, a Providence surveyor, and seventy, it is said, are sold at once.
"Don't call it chop, East Chop, or Barbary Coast any more, Mr. Editor," writes a correspondent of the Vineyard Gazette. Bellevue Heights is on the map.
85
SUMMER RESORT
Before that exciting summer had run out, a developer named Z. Pratt of North Middleborough had acquired a tract of woodland southwest of Wesleyan Grove, directly in the rear of Sunset Lake. The lots, it was said, were to be forty by a hundred feet, and avenues were to be fifty feet wide.
During the winter, Tarleton Luce added to his holdings. In the spring reports came of the sale of 125 acres of land near Lagoon Pond. A tract bought for $3,000 was sold for $7,500; land worth $20 an acre six weeks earlier was being held at $250 an acre. There was another magic phrase : "held at."
The daffodils had not started to bloom when Tarleton Luce paid $2,400 for a single acre of land near the East Chop lighthouse. And nine of his lots on Bellevue Heights had been sold in a single week for $2,000.
Here and there the developments appeared. In February, 1872, Thomas Hine of New York, proprietor of the New York Insurance Monitor, bought the point of land in Lagoon Pond, within the town of Tisbury, known as Cedar Neck. He paid $10,000. But Thomas N. Hillman, who sold the Neck, had purchased it himself for $800. Mr. Hine proceeded to build a $3,000 cottage for himself, and to construct a 700 foot bridge over the Lagoon to connect with the Vineyard Haven road, this at the cost of $2,000.
It is reported that Tarleton Luce has sold a half interest in a tract which cost him $14,399 to Samuel B. Parker of Providence for $20,000 cash.
On the side of the Lagoon near the camp ground, Lagoon Heights is laid out. Here is built, two years later, the Prospect House, another of the major hotel properties of the resort. It is to have twenty-two rooms and a cupola commanding a wide panorama. Surrounding it is a small community of new cottages. More than four hundred lots are sold. The principal promoters are J. & W. R. Wing of New Bedford, outfitters of the whaling trade. A wharf is built in the Lagoon.
Across the pond on the Tisbury side, Howes Norris of Eastville buys a hundred acres, and plans to lay it out in acre and half acre lots. This becomes Oklahoma, and shortly Mr. Norris sells a half interest for $10,000.
1
1
-
86
MARTHA'S VINEYARD
At West Chop, too, the boom has struck. Captains James L. Smith and Shubael H. Norton purchase a tract for $4,000 and in a few weeks dispose of it for $10,000-an advance of one hundred and fifty per cent in a brief period. The purchasers, representing pro- moters from Boston, New Bedford and New York, proceed to orga- nize the West Point Grove Company. The land is to be laid out in lots, avenues and parks, and a wharf is to be built.
Adjoining the West Point Grove is another development, Cedar Bluff, launched by promoters of Vineyard Haven.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.