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This coming Saturday Sep 19, 2009, is Tivoli Day in Oak Bluffs. For anyone who doesn’t know, or remember the Tivoli building in Oak Bluffs, I’m reposting a blog entry below of my memories of it.
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Every year in September, Oak Bluffs hosts its annual street fair and block party known as Tivoli Day. Where did the name come from… and where can you find the Tivol on MV ! You can’t, only memories of it remain.
The two story, full block Tivoli Dance Hall stood from 1901 until 1964 where the Oak Bluffs Town Hall is today. The bottom floor housed shops and an ice cream parlor. My godmother worked in the ice cream parlor and I always enjoyed visiting her there… one time in particular jumps to mind. I was 3 years old and had newly mastered winking and was anxious to put it to use. Sitting at a table behind my mother and facing me was a sailor. Being that I was wearing a sailor dress I figured we had something in common and so I began winking at him… it did not take long for my mother to notice. She turned around and as she did the young sailor headed for our table. He smiled and said he was alone on the Vineyard for the day and wanted to tell my mother how charming he thought I was. (Blushing here). Not only did my mother invite him to join us at the table but she invited him home for dinner (this was the mid 1940’s). I was amazed at how powerful this winking thing was. I don’t know if we ever kept in touch with him but obviously I’ve never forgotten him… but I do keep the winking thing to a minimum.
The entire second floor of the Tivoli Dance Hall was just that, the dance hall. It was huge, at least in the eyes of a 4 year old being dragged there against her will for a dance lesson. I loved all the windows and how far you could see out of them, I liked the clicking noise my shoes made on the floor, I liked the brand new sundress I had on… but, I did NOT like the group dancing part. I remember reluctantly getting in line with the other victims, er children, but my feet did not move, they planted themselves firmly in one spot and stayed there. Everyone danced around me but I did not care to join in. My mother was not happy with me… not only didn’t I dance or even talk… but we didn’t even come home with a sailor for dinner.
(This photo is meant to be blurry). The summer of 2009 in the Northeast so far has been sort of un-summerlike. The temps haven’t reached 90 since April, they’ve barely gotten into the high 80’s…which is super fine with me as I don’t like hot weather. It’s also been the eighth wettest June. So, wet plus low temps equals un-summerlike weather.
The summer of 1816 however is known as the ‘year without a summer’. Why? In April of 1815 the volcano Mount Tambora in the East Indies erupted and the sun was diminished by the ashy blanket spreading around the planet. You’d think then that the summer of 1815 would be the year without a summer…but no, it was a weather pattern, time lag thing that caused 1816 to be the summerless summer.
According to an article in the Aug 1991 Martha’s Vineyard Magazine , Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket experienced frost every month of the year. On the 4th of July people were wearing overcoats and on August 17 the temperature barely hit 38 degrees. Really not beach weather.
So I guess no matter how much we complain about the weather there has almost always been a time when it’s been worse. I’ve heard it said many times by knowing New Englanders that ‘if you don’t like the weather wait a minute and it will change’. And it does.
How often have you walked past these anchors by the harbor in Edgartown and given any thought to how or why they are there…
…other than being used as a great photo-op.
I know I never gave it much thought until I saw a little article about them in the Marthas’ Vineyard Magazine a couple of years ago.These four rusted anchors belong to the Norton family who owned a home across the street. But why are they there?
According to the article in MV Magazine:
“in the 1930’s coastal schooners would sometimes lose their anchors to accidents or storms… town fisherman would also occasionally snag and damage their nets on them. Whenever possible, the fishermen raised the offending anchor and brought it ashore. “
“Samuel Norton collected these anchors and sold or gave them to summer people who put them on their lawns or near their boathouses as ornaments.”
I guess now when I walk past them I’ll think about where they came from and about how many people have taken pictures by them over the years.
Another Ferry Tale …
The Islander wasn’t the first of the ferries that plied the Vineyard waters to find its potential new lease on life dashed (read article from Gazette here.) There was the Nobska.
The Nobska was launched on March 24, 1925. She made her maiden voyage on April 9, 1925 and sailed the waters between New Bedford, Woods Hole and Martha’s Vineyard until 1973.
As this article from the June 2, 2006 Vineyard Gazette mentions, she was state of the art for her time and the Islanders immediately fell in love with her. The Nobska was one of the last coastal steamers in America, she made her last run in September 1973…the following May of 1974 she was listed on the National Register of Historical Places. In June of 1975 she was sold and stripped of everything except her main engine and became a restaurant in Baltimore. The restaurant failed and the Nobska sat alone and neglected for several years.
In 1988 the Friends of the Nobska acquired her and she returned to New England. During the next 10 years support for her ebbed and waned but eventually efforts to restore her came to an end. In 1995 the Nobska was towed from New Bedford to the Charlestown Navy Yard and there she stayed until June 2006 when the dock was needed for the Constitution.
The Friends of the Nobska changed their name to the New England Steamship Foundation you can visit their website and read about the Nobska by clicking here.
I remember trips on the Nobska and the Islander and to me they were vessels of dreams and promises of adventures to come. There’s just something about that 45 minute sail from Woods Hole to Martha’s Vineyard that transports you not only physically but mentally to another time and place.
(Counted cross-stitch done by my daughter Deb)
Martha’s Vineyard has an airport and it certainly has its share of cars. But did you know there once was a railroad on the Vineyard? In the the book: The History of Martha’s Vineyard by Arthur R Railton, you’ll find that indeed there was one, the Martha’s Vineyard Railroad.
It was built in 1874 and ran along the beach from Oak Bluffs to Katama. Storms often washed the tracks out and expensive repairs were needed. It had its share of problems and eventually in 1900 the bankrupt railroad stopped running.
There is actually another railroad that’s sort of connected to MV. The old New York/New Haven/Hartford railroad. Its Old Colony line used to go all the way to Woods Hole. The station was located where the parking lot for the ferry is today.
On May 14, 1846 the Vineyard Gazette, founded by Edgar Marchant, published its first issue.
According to the Gazette’s history -
“At first, the Gazette carried a good deal of news from across the country and around the world. It was the only paper many Vineyarders received with regularity. In the last decades of the 19th century, though, its mission narrowed and its focus came home. It became an Island paper through and through, covering shipwrecks in Vineyard waters that killed hundreds, freezes that made travel across the water impossible for weeks, and the devastation wrought by gales and hurricanes and fires.
The Gazette wrote these first drafts of Island history, but from the start it recognized that Island news, at bottom, is different in size and scope from news that happens everywhere else. The best stuff in the paper, its editors believed then and now, concerns the commonplace – the comings and goings of the citizenry, the way the seasons change, how the crops grow, who marches in the Fourth of July parade, how the fishermen are faring, what the boatyards are up to, and how the quahogs are doing in the Great Ponds along the Atlantic. For the length of its life, the Gazette has covered what most other papers would overlook.
The Vineyard Gazette is published year-round every Friday, from June through September there’s also an issue published every Tuesday.
The New England Press Association named the Vineyard Gazette ‘Newspaper of the Year’ five times in the 1990’s, then again in 2001 and 2004.
Subscribers to the Vineyard Gazette are world-wide… it’s a great way to stay in touch with the Vineyard when you can’t be there.
The devastating Bunch of Grapes/Cafe Moxie fire of last weekend was not the first disasterous fire in Vineyard Haven history. In December of 2001 the Mansion House hotel burned to the ground… it reopened in August 2003.
According to the book: The History of Martha’s Vineyard by Arthur R. Railton.
On Aug 11, 1883 a fire started at Crockers harness factory on Main St in Vineyard Haven. Within minutes flames fanned by northeast winds engulfed buildings on both sides of the street.
The fire was spotted around 9pm, church bells were rung to alert the townspeople. Vineyard Haven had no fire department. One of the few phones in Vineyard Haven was at the grocery store, from there a call went out to Cottage City (Oak Bluffs) which had two fire engines. It took more then an hour for the fire truck to reach Vineyard Haven as the heavy equipment had to be pulled by men on foot. In the meantime a bucket brigade was started in Vineyard Haven by its townspeople using leather fire pails that were required to be kept in every home. Despite their valiant efforts, after the fire raged for six hours, 60 or so buildings had burned to the ground.
Down a dirt road in the woods of West Tisbury lies Christiantown.
Christiantown was established in 1659 by Wampanoag sachem Takemmy as a home for Native American converts to Christianity.
A plaque on the above boulder commemorates “the services of Governor Thomas Mayhew and his descended missionaries who here labored among the native Indians.”
By 1600 there were two or three congregations of Native Americans on the Island.
The Christiantown Meeting House, or chapel was built in 1829. There is a tiny altar and six pews inside… nearby is an old graveyard.
The Wampanoag tribe now owns the memorial, the chapel and the burial ground containing graves of early converts.
Christiantown is off the beaten track but worth the effort to find.
Every year in September, Oak Bluffs hosts its annual street fair and block party known as Tivoli Day. Where did the name come from… and where can you find the Tivoli ! You can’t, only memories of it remain.
The two story, full block Tivoli Dance Hall stood from 1901 until 1964 where the Oak Bluffs Town Hall is today. The bottom floor housed shops and an ice cream parlor. My godmother worked in the ice cream parlor and I always enjoyed visiting her there… one time in particular jumps to mind. I was 3 years old and had newly mastered winking and was anxious to put it to use. Sitting at a table behind my mother and facing me was a sailor. Being that I was wearing a sailor dress I figured we had something in common and so I began winking at him… it did not take long for my mother to notice. She turned around and as she did the young sailor headed for our table. He smiled and said he was alone on the Vineyard for the day and wanted to tell my mother how charming he thought I was. (Blushing here). Not only did my mother invite him to join us at the table but she invited him home for dinner (this was the mid 1940’s). I was amazed at how powerful this winking thing was. I don’t know if we ever kept in touch with him but obviously I’ve never forgotten him… but I do keep the winking thing to a minimum.
The entire second floor of the Tivoli Dance Hall was just that, the dance hall. It was huge, at least in the eyes of a 4 year old being dragged there against her will for a dance lesson. I loved all the windows and how far you could see out of them, I liked the clicking noise my shoes made on the floor, I liked the brand new sundress I had on… but, I did NOT like the group dancing part. I remember reluctantly getting in line with the other victims, er children, but my feet did not move, they planted themselves firmly in one spot and stayed there. Everyone danced around me but I did not care to join in. My mother was not happy with me… not only didn’t I dance or even talk… but we didn’t even come home with a sailor for dinner.
These are the kind of signs you expect to see on MV. But another kind of “sign” is also associated with the Vineyard… signing for the deaf.
There was an unusally high number of deaf people on Martha’s Vineyard starting as far back as the 17th century. Some early settlers carried the gene for deafness and over the years generation after generation of children were born deaf.
Hearing Had to Learn Sign
If you could create a deaf utopia, what would it be like?Everyone would communicate in sign language, both deaf and hearing. Many, if not most, children would be born deaf.Deaf Utopia Did ExistThere actually was such a place once. It was an isolated island off the Massachusetts coast – Martha’s Vineyard…
Martha’s Vineyard created MVSL (Martha’s Vineyard Sign Language) which later merged with the American Sign Language.
Sign language was used freely on the Vineyard by hearing and deaf residents alike. Deafness on MV peaked in 1854 and around 1952 the last person born deaf died.
The book “Everyone Here Spoke Sing Language” by Nora Ellen Groce is an interesting and informative telling of the deaf community on Martha’s Vineyard.
