From the August 30, 1940 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

The Beatrice House was called the Central House, tents lined the streets of Cottage City and the tabernacle was roofed with canvas was Mrs. Charles A. Talbot of Pittsfield, a summer resident of Oak Bluffs for sixty years, first arrived here.

“The year I came there was a big blow and the top of the tabernacle blew down,” she said. “They started talking about putting a metal top on it then, because they had such an awful time getting the canvas back. The metal one didn’t actually go on till several years later though.”

Mrs. Talbot first came here because her family had always come, and for many years she had listened to enthusiastic praise of Cottage City. The ruins of the old fence around the camp ground were still standing but the place was no longer thus protected from the outside world. Trinity avenue was the aristocratic part of the camp ground and was known as Ministers’ Row.

“When I first came here everything seemed very strange and different,” she remarked. “I used to get lost in the little narrow streets. I remember there used to be a big hotel at the foot of the wharf where people danced in the evening. Did I ever dance? A good Methodist?” She laughed. “Why in those days they taught us if you danced you went straight to the bad place!”

Mrs. Talbot remembers when not only dancing was taboo but any laughter or noise in the cottages after 10 o’clock was stopped by the camp meeting association, whose officials immediately knocked on the offender’s door and asked that silence be preserved. Card playing was allowed, however, though that too had been forbidden in former days. Croquet, which was played between religious services, was another form of recreation and picnics of all sorts were frequent festivities. Mrs. Talbot often went to Gay Head in the days when the roads were practically impassible and excursions were made in sail boats which were met by ox carts, in which passengers rode up the cliffs to the lighthouse.

She also went to Vineyard Haven a number of times to get ice cream on the little trolley car which used to run between the two towns. The young people used to get up parties and go by train to Edgartown where they “served the loveliest clam dinners, all you could eat.” Mrs. Talbot remembers when the Oak Bluffs harbor was still just a pond known as Lake Anthony. There was no opening to the sea and no boats on it except “little bits of skiffs.”

Though the town was composed mainly of tents, there were some cottages, and Mrs. Talbot lived in one of these. At that time most people had their private dwelling places, but some of the churches still had community tents where the members slept on the straw and brought their own blankets. Services were held frequently, and during one week in the summer they came three or four times a day and private prayer meetings were held in between.

“People don’t attend the meetings the way they used to,” Mrs. Talbot said regretfully. “I don’t know why. We still observe quiet here on Sunday though, and I’m grateful for that.”

The Island has changed a great deal of course since it was turned into a thriving summer resort, but one of the greatest changes, Mrs. Talbot feels, is in clothing.

“There were very strict rules about walking through the streets in bathing suits, even though people wore them down to their ankles,” Mrs. Talbot remembered with a laugh. Mrs. Talbot was 19 when she first came here and was married the following year to a man who had been coming to the Island ever since his childhood. She has continued to come here almost every summer afterwards.

The names of summer homes often have a background of some special interest.

Kirkwood Hall, Penacook avenue, Oak Bluffs. This cottage, was once owned by Mrs. H. Weston Chase. It was Mrs. Chase who gave the house its name, calling it after her father, Thomas Moore Kirkwood, who was a doctor in the English Army during the World War.

The week of Aug. 19 is said to have been the coldest for that time of year since 1856. From all points of the compass, business proprietors had vile things to say about a variety of weather which they termed even more vile than their words could express. They reiterated the plaint that it would ruin what business the season had brought, shorten up the length of it, and in fact, produce about everything unpopular and unpalatable, except perhaps, rheumatism and mosquitoes.

But — Eugene L. Pattison, proprietor of Pattison’s Candy Kitchen, Oak Bluffs, smiled a smile, which ran around his face three times before it set. Said Mr. Pattison: “Bring on some more weather like that of last week. It was the best week I’ve had in fifteen years!”

Which only goes to show that the old parable about the ill wind is still a good one.

Compiled by Hilary Wall
library@mvgazette.com