USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > Martha's Vineyard, summer resort, 1835-1935 > Part 9
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MATTAKEESET LODGE kept by Mr. Stumcke,
recently of the house at Oak Bluffs which bore his name. Many cottages are going up, a splendid drive four miles long is being prepared, and the company, with Hon. E. P. Carpenter at its head, will with no stinted hand provide improvements that shall constitute this a most attractive resort. Additional drives will be opened as fast as they can be properly constructed.
Katama borders on the east on the charming Katama Bay where the facilities for smooth water bathing, fishing and boat- ing are superb. Fish of all kinds are plenty near at hand, or with- in one mile. On the south the ocean beats its ever reverberating surges on the
FAMED ATLANTIC BEACH
of Martha's Vineyard, beyond which there is no land for thous- ands of miles. The constant rolling surf fascinates all beholders, and after a storm is inexpressibly grand. Daniel Webster declared it superior to Niagara. The mountainous wave crests, many miles in width, topple and fall with a noise like thunder, rivet- ing the awe-struck gaze of all within sight.
The location of Katama is open to the southwestern breezes of summer, directly from the ocean, insuring
COOL NIGHTS
And days of less than superlative heat. In short, Katama is one of the most desirable Summer Resorts in the world. The soil is good, and grass grows luxuriantly, so that the place is
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Clean and Clear of Dust
The lots are of ample size, and sold at prices that will en- force attention.
The stockholders include many of the leading men of south- ern Massachusetts, and the state of society is assured to be always pleasant and agreeable.
For particulars address
NATH'L M. JERNEGAN Agent, Katama Land Company, Edgartown, Mass.
The new hotel was opened early in August, 1873. It stood only a few feet from the water, spanning the approach to the wharf. The frontage of the building was 125 feet. At the north was an octagonal tower, sloping and sharpening into a spire with a flagstaff; windows with steep gable roofs projected from the eight sides. At the south was a high mansard gable. Between these two loftier parts of the hotel a low roof ran, accented in the center by a slight peak and a staff from which a pennon flew above the gateway. The center part was three stories high, and an outside balcony ran the length of the building, between towers. There were individual balconies at some of the windows of the north tower, and a second story balcony above the gateway.
On the whole, the manner of the hotel was like that of the Sea View at Oak Bluffs. It asserted a character and a determination to do things well, with a flourish. The ornamentation, although every- where manifest, was consistent, and it was a pleasant flight from severity and chasteness.
In the north tower were dining room, office and large kitchen on the first floor; billiard room on the second; and lodging rooms above. A ball room and promenade were in the central section, as well as more rooms. The south tower held guest rooms and, on the ground floor, an office for the land company.
The principal parlor was "splendidly furnished in black walnut and plush, with heavy Brussels carpet." The billiard room was pro- vided with two elegant tables, and was "furnished as tastefully as a lady's boudoir." Many of the guest rooms were furnished with
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black walnut sets with marble tops and trim; others had chestnut furnishings. In all there were seventy-five guest rooms.
All day long the carriages drove up to Mattakeeset Lodge on the opening day, tired from the tedious journey from Oak Bluffs- whither most of these visitors were drawn-but not too tired to thrill over the new wonder of the hotel. In the afternoon a steam- boat arrived with a band and a full passenger list from the main. In the evening a grand ball sent sounds of waltz music, chatter and laughter out over the bay, and lights dappled the downtrodden grass of the plain.
So ended the season of 1873, with Katama about to come into her own. That fall General Warren opened his South Beach channel into the teeth of a southeast storm, and the sands closed again almost as soon as the sea touched them, burying full deep enough the $20,000 of the federal government. Katama Bay and the Atlantic lay as before, divided by a beach.
That fall, too, a man with a long gray beard, a man named Jay Cooke, declared himself unable to meet his obligations. Agent of the federal government with $4,000,000 of deposits and $15,000,000 of the paper of the Northern Pacific, he closed his doors. This event was not unrelated to Oak Bluffs, Vineyard Highlands, Bellevue Heights -- and to Katama.
XV A Railroad Built Upon Sand
In February, 1874, a call was issued to the public by a group of men, prominent among them the founders of Oak Bluffs and Katama, in the interest of a new railroad from Oak Bluffs to Edgartown and Katama. The first signature was that of the Hon. Erastus P. Car- penter of Foxboro. Then followed an array of names which included several whaling captains and outfitters of whaleships, among them Captains Jared Jernegan, Richard Holley, William S. Lewis, and John O. Norton of Edgartown, Samuel Osborn Jr. of Edgartown, and William Wing of New Bedford.
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Between 1862 and 1873, thirty-three thousand miles of railroad had been built in the United States, but none on the Island of Martha's Vineyard, unless one counted a horse railroad line completed for the Vineyard Grove Company in the summer of 1873 at a cost of about $8,000. This horse railroad ran from the Highland wharf, over Jor- dan, and made a loop about the rim of the great circle on the camp ground.
The project of a railroad connection between Oak Bluffs and Edgartown had been talked of, but it had never seemed within the chance of reality. Now, suddenly, the venture was set in motion. The most successful promoters of Island property had taken hold. Compared with the slow maturing of most ambitious plans, its development was amazingly rapid.
In March an informal meeting of proposed stockholders was held, and there was a discussion of possible routes. The meeting voted to favor building along the beach, generally parallel with the new beach road. There was a rumor that a spur would be built to Lagoon Heights, the development of the Wings, and to Vineyard Haven. This last was probably an offer of bait which the Tisbury capitalists refused to take; no more was heard of a Vineyard Haven connection.
Sea captains had fairly large sums of money and were a vigorous, independent lot, willing to make investments. There were other capitalists, such as the ship owners and agents. But the financing of a railroad was too great a task to be accomplished easily or in a few weeks. The opinion grew that the town ought to participate in the project : with town assistance, and with the credit of the Old Colony Railroad-operating the lines on the mainland which brought visi- tors to the Island-it seemed that the enterprise could be handled. There was a great deal of figuring, and plans became more and more detailed. The town of Edgartown was to be asked to invest the sum of $15,000.
The Vineyard Gazette of April 17, 1874, carried at its masthead in large display type these words: "When we have a railroad, we shall see improvements made in our village never before thought of. The 'snort of the iron horse' will arouse men from their lethargy and infuse new life into their veins."
The utterance was in the style of Edgar Marchant, the Old Editor
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of the Vineyard Gazette, who had returned to the editorial chair after ventures in other journalistic fields. Age had not dimmed the fire in his eye or the gallantry of his crusading spirit. With his clarion call to the citizens ringing clear, they gathered at the town hall in early April.
The Edgartown town hall was inherited from the Methodist con- gregation when it moved into its larger and finer edifice; at first glance it was an ugly structure, for it had a makeshift steeple for the fire bell, and no proper tower at all. The entrances were reached by long flights of stairs, mounting from the sidewalk together and then turning left and right. But the doorways were and are beautiful, and the inside of the auditorium had a comely appearance, lighted by tall windows of plain glass. A cast iron stove at the rear furnished a pale and uneven heat to counteract the early spring chill.
Joseph Thaxter Pease was chosen moderator as soon as the warrant for the meeting was read, and there was immediate consideration of the matter of the railroad.
Samuel Osborn Jr., square jawed and forthright, rose to offer a resolution. He had served as state representative and as sheriff, and had been a member of the Governor's Council in 1863 and 1864, a trusted friend of the war governor, John A. Andrew. At the time of the meeting he was fifty-one, and had extensive interests in whaleships for which he acted as agent. His resolution provided that the town should subscribe $15,000 on condition that $25,000 be first subscribed independently. On a stock subscription of $40,000, he said, a road costing $75,000 could be built, the company bonding the road for the balance. The statutes provided that a railroad com- pany could bond its property for an amount equal to the capital subscribed. Mr. Osborn assured the meeting that the Old Colony Railroad would take $40,000 worth of bonds if necessary; and he went on to say that nine miles of narrow gauge road over the level Vineyard countryside could be built for $75,000, which he considered a surprisingly low sum.
The next voter who rose to his feet was also a former represen- tative, Ichabod Norton Luce. He had been born in 1819, and as a youth had learned the trade of boatbuilder. Then he had gone to sea and served for three years as sailing master and navigator on a
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German whaler. In 1849 he had joined a gold seeking company which had gone to California from Edgartown in the Walter Scott. Ten years later he had been elected to the state senate for the Cape district. He was an ardent Free Soiler; and it was he who computed the difference in time and at the exact moment of the execution of John Brown, rose in the Massachusetts senate and moved adjournment because of the solemn significance of the hour. He, too, was a friend of the war governor who had appointed him commissioner of aliens. From 1862 to 1866 Ichabod N. Luce was keeper of the Gay Head Light, cooling and steeling his gaze against far horizons, drawing upon his own reflections through long vigils. Then he had become inspector of customs for the Vineyard district.
As he made ready to speak, many who knew in what tenor he was about to declare himself scraped their feet and talked noisily. He looked about him calmly.
"I have a word to say, Mr. Moderator," he began, "and I intend to say what I think, and not talk to please the crowd who stamp and clap their hands on this floor."
Ichabod Luce was tall and bearded like James G. Blaine; his coat, held by one button above, parted slightly below. He began by moving to amend Mr. Osborn's resolution by striking out everything after the word "resolved" and inserting "that the town will not subscribe."
"Towns which mix themselves up in private enterprise commit a fatal blunder," he declared. "Take care of your poor, your schools, your roads-these are the legitimate functions of a town govern- ment. Let private projects take care of themselves. It is as absurd to ask the town to develop Katama as to ask it to keep Mr. Osborn's ship in repair and find her in spars and rigging. The Katama Land Company is abundantly able to develop their property, and if they want a railroad let them build one. Katama has money enough and ability enough, but lacks confidence in its own scheme.
"Some of my best friends are in favor of subscribing to the stock of this road, but that is no reason why I should be. No one is so easily deceived as to the prospective profits of any given enterprise as a town. Not long ago it was announced that a carriage road down the beach was all that was necessary to insure the building up of the
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إسلام
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town and the prosperity of its inhabitants. The road was built, but the results have not been what was promised. There has been a heavy increase in the town debt, but no increase of taxable property resulting therefrom. As for myself, it is for my interest, personally, to play second fiddle for this road, to electioneer for it, to vote for it, and all that, but my conscience will not allow it."
Benjamin Luce, brother of Ichabod, was on his feet; they all liked to listen to Ben, who was an eccentric but pregnant with pat remarks.
"Mr. Osborn has no equal for bringing light out of darkness," said Ben, "but there is one point on which he failed to enlighten his hearers. He went on to say how much the road would cost, but did not give any hint as to whether it will pay. I am astonished that the gentleman should have overlooked that little point."
Ben started to sit down, hesitated, remarked, "I'm done for the present, but not for the future" in an impressive manner, and yielded the floor.
The moderator recognized Captain Nathaniel M. Jernegan who said, "The road will cost about $80,000, and money can be had for seven per cent. The establishment can be run for thirty dollars a day, one half the cost of running a steamboat. About fifty thousand people come to Oak Bluffs and the vicinity during the summer, who would average at least one ride apiece. Everyone who has noticed the success of enterprises similar to this will have to agree with me as to the probable success of this one. The horse railroad at Vineyard Grove, which starts from the Highland Wharf, swings around the camp ground and comes back again, forming a figure nine, sold forty thousand tickets last year. Our summer population is a community of idlers, and they grasp at everything that offers which is calculated to vary the monotony of existence. Fifty thousand people will ride down to our South Beach every summer, and at fifty cents apiece, or even half of that, will afford a handsome profit."
Mr. Osborn regained the floor to say that he knew the principal opponents of the railroad were well disposed toward the town- remarkably so (with irony)-and they were men who would give the town all the aid and comfort in their power. But they had sug- gested nothing to get Edgartown out of her difficulty, nothing which
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would extricate the town from its mire of indebtedness, and the citizens would have to adopt what seemed feasible.
"We may be mistaken," he went on, "-nobody is infallible- but we must do what seems for the best. I shall be very happy to hear all that may be said against the project, for we are in need of all the light we can get. But something has got to be done, or we shall go under."
Addressing himself to the gentleman who wanted to know if the road would pay, Mr. Osborn said, "Fifty thousand people come to this Island and land at the north end of town, for whom our South Beach, with its magnificent surf, has as strong an attraction as would Niagara Falls for us if we were anywhere near the falls. To run over a few figures, a train can complete a round trip in an hour. For the first six weeks of the season, with only one trip a day, there would probably be an average of two hundred passengers a trip, or 7,200 for six weeks, which at fifty cents a ticket would amount to $3,600. The following six weeks would be, say, five trips a day with an average of one hundred passengers a trip, making eighteen thousand passengers who would pay $9,000. The total would be $12,600, and the cost of operation $2,500, leaving a net of $10, 100. I expect a net return of ten per cent.
"What is good for individuals is good for a town. A gentleman has said that this project is only in the interest of Katama, but the same gentleman only a short time before told me that the construc- tion of the railroad across the township would be similar in its results to the casting of a stone into a pond, the primary waves therefrom extending their influence to other waves, until the move- ment reaches from center to shore."
Ichabod N. Luce said, "It must have been my brother Ben who said that."
"No, sir. You're the man," retorted Mr. Osborn. "Every acre of this township will feel the revivifying effect of this enterprise. But today the gentleman is pulling back in the traces like certain animals going over the mountains. In truth, we might as well argue that the sun's beams warm the earth and encourage vegetation as to spend our time in attempting to show what the effect of railroads is on a community or a country Men shouldn't come in here
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feeling as though every one of them has got to pay the whole town debt himself. If it all had to be paid up at once, it would be divided into comfortable little parcels that every man could take care of as easily as his supper."
Mr. Luce said it was a pity the gentleman had not argued a little more and been less funny.
"The point I wish to make," continued the old abolitionist, "and the point which should be kept in view, is this: the road may be a good thing, but, if so, let those build it who believe in it. They have no right to force me or my neighbor, Silas Daggett, to con- tribute to it. Once more, are the voters willing to involve the town further in debt? Are they willing to present these things to the non- residents? I venture to declare that no town has ever invested in a railroad which was entirely within its own limits."
Constant Norton of Farm Neck-almost as alien as Eastville- was of the same opinion as Mr. Luce.
"A short time ago," he observed, "the cry of retrenchment was heard in the land, and the people were clamorous for reform. Accord- ingly, they came together in town meeting and cut down a few sala- ries, and before the week was passed a warrant appeared in the Gazette calling upon the town to convene and vote to subscribe to the stock of a railroad company ! It reminds me of a man who had been in the habit of taking a drink at every saloon on his way to work, but he resolved to reform. After that he passed two taverns but stopped at the third and took three drinks as a treat to his resolution.
"The same kind of talk we have heard this afternoon came up when we were voting on the Beach Road, but the predictions were never verified. I doubt whether the fact of a part of our town being a watering place has proved of any advantage to us, because the expenses keep pace with the revenue, and I doubt whether we shall be any better off with another watering place which this railroad is intended to build up."
Said Captain Jernegan : "A good deal has been said about 'voting away people's money,' 'forcing others to pay taxes for what will not benefit them' and the like. I would like to know how we raise any of our money. Isn't every motion in town meeting to appro- priate money opposed by somebody? Don't we have to pay money
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for schools with no children to reap the benefit therefrom? And I have heard a good deal about Silas Daggett. Who is Silas Daggett?" "One of our nice men," said S. H. Norton.
"A man whose money is all in government bonds and savings banks," ejaculated the captain. "Nice man!"
Ben Luce was up again to say, "One feature of this thing sticks out very prominently and makes it look like a dead suck. If the investment was as good as they say it is, every dollar would have been taken before the town could get together. The fact is the Katama Company is desperate and has staked everything on this single throw."
"Not much !" exclaimed Captain Jernegan.
Ben Luce concluded by saying he was friendly to the road him- self, for it would pass within thirty feet of where he kenneled.
The debate went on, and presently the Old Editor stood up, deliv- ering himself of words like a flail, but not without dignity and a certain patriarchal grace.
"We want a railroad and we are going to have it," he began. "As for manufactures, they will come with some of the men this road will cause to come here. Build this road and manufactures will come along, Katama will grow, everything else will grow, and we shall become a very Vineyard indeed. Refuse to encourage and lend our aid to this enterprise, and this town will disappear into the darkness of oblivion. All spirit of improvement will depart from our borders, men of brains will go where they can use them, and for aught I can see to the contrary, the town will become a waste, a howling wilderness; rats and mud turtles will crawl over our streets, and owls and bats sit in our high places."
The vote was taken by ballot. The tellers called out the names and checked the voters as they dropped their slips of paper with one of two words, "Yes" or "No," upon them into the box. Then the count, deliberate and slow. At last the moderator announced the result : the vote stood yeas, 149; nays, 72. Yet the resolution was carried by a slender margin indeed, for a two-thirds vote was required. Thus the town entered the railroad enterprise with one and two- thirds votes to spare.
Ichabod N. Luce had the last word, for he contributed a letter to the Vineyard Gazette which went, in part :
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"It is not pretended that many if any more people will come to the Vineyard because we have a narrow gauge road some seven miles long with a dummy engine running from the Bluffs to Katama. Talk as we will about 'the snort of the iron horse' and the 'vivifying influence of the sun's rays on vege- tation,' 'Niagara Falls,' 'the surf on the South Beach coming sheer in from the Great Atlantic,' or 'an ugly jackass in the harness that backs when it should go ahead,' etc. etc. etc.
"Now, in solemn truth this is all fudge, and has no more connection with the merits of the matter than has Andrew Jackson with stick your head in the fire. The fact is that no more people will come to the Island with than without a road. Then the only thing to be attained or affected is to make a differ- ent distribution of those that do come. In order to effect this only probable result, the town is to sink for all practical pur- poses the costly beach road; costly to the town in more senses than one. First it cost a large sum of money, but more and worse than that was the demoralization that came to the men, learning that there was no connection between their pay and the amount of labor done, and that they could vote themselves and their old horses into a good job, to be paid for out of the town treasury. Then the fifteen thousand dollars to be paid for the stock, not one dollar of which will ever be returned to the pockets from which it was drawn by the stern and inexorable demand of the tax collector, and this is equally true whether the road makes or loses money.
"Now is not this too much for the town to pay for the good to be derived : namely, the more equal distribution of its sum- mer visitors? I think that if laboring men voted for the road with the idea that the making of the road would furnish them with work, they will find themselves much mistaken; the fact is the work will be done with imported Irishmen, and enough of them will remain after the road is completed, to compete with them, so as to seriously affect their wages.
"This much is sure; but when you take into the account the number of men and horses employed in carrying passengers to the South Beach and that vicinity, with the carting of merchan- dise, all to be done by the iron horse fed with fire, it is to the laboring man a very serious matter."
Before the adjournment of that epochal town meeting, the voters resolved that it was the sense of the meeting that the new railroad should be built on the west side of Sengekontacket Pond, instead of
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along the beach, and that it should run to the west side of the camp ground. This matter of the route was to prove a vital issue. There was a substantial public opinion that if the railroad ran near the Beach Road, the engine would frighten every Island horse and render the road useless. But it was argued by some of the promoters that the shore route was three-quarters of a mile shorter than the inland route; there was no more than a twenty-six foot grade to be overcome anywhere on the shore line; and the only bridge or trestle work of consequence required would be across the Sengekontacket inlet. Moreover, there would be no land damages and no fencing. The only grade crossing would be in Edgartown proper, two weeks less time would be needed in construction, and the scenic qualities of the beach route were a surpassing asset to the future road.
By the west side of the pond there would be a fifty foot grade, at least; extra land damages; much fencing; a bridge of perhaps seven hundred feet across Kidder's Cove, which might add as much as twelve thousand dollars to the construction cost; and the extra distance of three quarters of a mile would amount in sum to nine miles a day for six trains run. The extra power used to operate over this needless distance and to overcome the difference in grade would prove a considerable item. Besides, two grade crossings would be involved. The experienced railroad men who inspected the alter- native routes were much in favor of the beach.
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