Leading Lights
From Gazette editions of October, 1961:
Ernest E. Duarte of Makonikey has taken the contract to repair the lighthouse tower at Tarpaulin Cove and to make a general clean-up of the government reservation there. The work will begin as soon as settled weather allows the necessary crossing of the Sound with equipment and material. A building mover among other accomplishments, he anticipates unusual activity in this department during the coming months.
Esther, the hurricane that lost her spirit the first time she passed the Vineyard and most of her rain the second time (after cutting a bizarre circular path in the ocean), made herself felt primarily on the south shore of the Island. The Edgartown part of South Beach was swept clean not only of the embryo dunes the town had been trying to build but also of the debris that had been deposited there during the summer. A great deal of that debris was re-deposited on the shores of Gay Head. The western shore of Katama served as a depository of trash and, inexplicably, a number of large chunks of gray clay, which seem to be parts of the Gay Head cliffs.
At Tisbury Great Pond Esther deposited quantities of sea clams on the beach. Daniel Manter’s camp on the beach was washed into the pond by high seas. Esther’s return trip to the Island gave the south shore another pounding and left great quantities of sand, which filled the camp, making rescue operations impossible.
Miss Judy Marlene Herrick, daughter of Mr. and Mrss. Kenneth Herrick of Auburn, N.Y., became the bride of James Bushnell Richardson 3rd, son of Mr. and Mrs. James Bushnell Richardson Jr. at a ceremony in the Owasco Reformed Chuch in Auburn on August 12. The bridegroom and his family are East Chop summer residents, and his grandfather is J. Bushnell Richardson of that Island community. The bride has been a teacher at Liverpool, N.Y. and the bridegroom is a graduate student in Syracuse.
Unless something can be done to control or at least slow down the present progress of erosion, the Gay Head cliffs will lose most if not all their beauty within the next twenty-five to thirty years, and the present tremendous loss of land area at Wequobsqua cliffs will continue to the detriment of landowners and the Island itself. Such was the solemn warning voiced by Clifford A. Kaye, geologist of the U.S. Geological Survey at an informal gathering at Fourways, the home of Mrs. Wilfrid White.
Of Gay Head, with its masses of clay strata, folded and faulted, he said that the pressure of water between these clay strata, causes masses of clay to slide out of place and fall. His belief is that this water comes from small ponds inland from the cliffs which seep through, and he expressed the belief that connecting these small ponds by means of ditches and leading the water off in another direction would slow up the progress of erosion materially. He did not feel that wave action is responsible for very much of the erosion at Gay Head.
At Wequobsqua, he said it was a different problem with erosion having cut five feet within the past two weeks. He opined that perhaps pilings, sunk deeply, might help to hold the cliffs. The aspect there is serious, he said, because the beach retreats with the cliffs, and the salt pond is endangered by the movement of the sand with consequent loss of a shellfishery. The loss of oyster beds during the last hurricane was touched upon, the beds being literally buried by the sand.
The petition for a right of way to James Pond at Lambert’s Cove was taken under advisement by the Division of Waterways of the Department of Public Works. The matter of shellfish culture and a boat landing, with access to Vineyard Sound, figured in discussions. Amos Amaral, one of the petitioners, said a town committee appointed to study the matter “did not turn in too good of a report.” “The biologists disagreed as to the prospect of shellfish culture. Therefore we thought we would see what the state might be willing to do, although we did not want and do not want the state to be too closely involved. What we would really like is to have the pond accessible only to residents of West Tisbury.”
Negotiations are in progress for the purchase of Darling’s candy factory and store in Oak Bluffs by Mr. Herbert Metell, who plans to conduct the business if the purchase goes through. The present owner if Mrs. Harris Carr of Oak Bluffs. Darling’s originated as a partnership in 1900 or before, but since 1904 it has been “Darling’s” bearing the name of the managing owner, Carroll Darling. The late Harris Carr, a nephew, was associated with Mr. Darling for years. Thus the business has been in the one family for fifty-six years.
Always the slogan has been “For twenty years the best.
Compiled by Cynthia Meisner
Comments
Comment policy »