From Gazette editions of March, 1962:

Chilmark voters disposed of their annual warrant, voting on twenty-one articles. Sixty voters attended, and might well go on record as being one of the most harmonious town meetings ever held in the ancient manor. The meeting opened with a silent tribute to the late D. Herbert Flanders, veteran office-holder, although only 60 when he died.

The meeting voted to have a uniformed police officer on duty during the summer months and available at all times. He would also carry a gun. One lady was quite emphatic in her assertion that the officer should be armed.

 

After being a part of the Edgartown scene for more than twenty years, Ox Pond Farm is no more. The farm, which is owned by Robert P. Brown Jr. has gone out of business, Its farm buildings are to be sold off or torn down, and it is understood that the land will be sold. The rumor that the end was near for the once-thriving poultry and egg establishment had been going about the town, and eventually it became a reality.

Over the years the emphasis was on egg production, and at its peak the production reached as high as 2,500 eggs daily. Three thousand pullets were raised on the farm each year as laying hens. The farm had an incubator capable of handling 31,000 eggs.

The farm was established in its Katama Road location in 1941, but its inception actually ocurred five years before, when Joseph S. Bettencourt, who was then caretaker of the Browns’ homestead in Edgartown, asked if he could begin raising chickens as a sideline. Each year the venture expanded until it could no longer be considered a backyard operation. So Mr. Brown purchased the Katama Road property, and chicken raising bcame Mr. Bettencourt’s full-time pursuit.

About seventy acres of land surround the farm buildings. Some of it was left with trees intact as protection for the flock from the wind which sweeps across the flat stretches of Katama. Hay, oats and clover were grown on the property.

 

Gyachung Kang, a 25,910-foot mountain peak in Nepal, has never been conquered by man, but Woodrow Wilson Sayre of West Chop set out with three companions to prove that the peak can be brought into man’s dominion — without the aid of oxygen.

Mr. Sayre will be accompanied by Norman Hansen of Boston, a lawyer who climbed Mt. McKinley with Mr. Sayre in 1954; by Roger Hart of Lynn, who is a senior at Tufts University where Mr. Sayre is an assistant professor of philosophy; and by a friend from California.

As to oxygen, Mr. Sayre has pointed out that twice there have been men who climbed to heights of more than 28,000 feet without oxygen.

“There are advantages and disadvantages in carrying oxygen. It is not necessary for a height of 26,000 feet, although it does, of course, make it a lot harder and you have to be luckier on the weather. Without oxygen you cut down your chances of success, but you also cut your costs way down, too, for you need a small army to carry oxygen. Our budget is $2,500 per person, but it would be $25,000 per person with oxygen.”

 

The Chappaquiddick ferry changed hands this week, and for Chappaquiddickers near and far, for whom the ferry is the only link to the main Island, this will be news of great interest.

The purchaser of the ferry is Lawrence Mercier, the younger son of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Mercier of Edgartown.

 

Hal Tripp, the Hermit of Deep Bottom, Tisbury Great Pond, may be along in years — he is almost in his 90s — but he has no desire to diminish his independence, and a far younger friend reported to the West Tisbury fire chief recently that he had been down Deep Bottom way to see Trippy and found his oil stove in a dangerous state of disrepair.

Chief Arnold Fischer went down to check, and sure enough, the old oil stove was leaking badly. Another thing was readily apparent to the chief: There was a brand new, sparkling white oil stove on the other side of the room. It needed to be moved about a foot to hook up with a stovepipe hole, and the oil supply would be no problem.

“No you don’t,” said Trippy, indignantly. “That stove’s been there five years or so. Some fellows I don’t know brought it. ‘Least maybe I know one of ‘em. I aien’t goin’ to hook up no stove if I don’t know who brought it.”

Chief Fischer knew Hal well, and he didn’t argue. He did suggest that some people Hal did know might give him a stove and asked if he would accept this gift.

“Don’t know,” Trippy replied. “Depends on who brings it.”

No further developments to date.

Compiled by Cynthia Meisner, library@mvgazette.com