A few summers ago the Vineyard, and particularly Oak Bluffs, was host to one of the most notable figures in the world of exploration, Matthew A. Henson, who watched Comdr. Robert E. Peary stake out his claim to the North Pole. It was not until many years after that world-shaking event of forty years ago that Henson’s true place in the picture won general acceptance and his heroism on the icy journey became widely known.
Mrs. W. O. Pinkham is to speak next Sunday in Edgartown, before the Men’s Club at the Congregational church in the afternoon on Suffrage, and in the evening at the regular church meeting at which she will speak upon “The Relation of Religion to Suffrage.”
Kivie Kaplan, national president of the N.A.A.C.P., who was recently vacationing in Vineyard Haven, took off on July 29 for a five day trip to New Orleans for the association’s Louisiana summer project in which more than a hundred volunteers from all over the country, boys and girls, Negro and white, will work from one to five weeks, paying their own expenses. A few will come from other countries.
It is very much to be deplored that the subject of slavery in our country has become such a paramount interest in politics, as nearly to drive away from consideration other topics of general political interest, which the welfare of the country demands to be up for discussion. We ought now to take measures to remedy the present financial crisis and business embarrassment, and adopt measures to guard in the future against similar disasters.
Harry T. Burleigh, the composer, who recently returned from a three months’ trip abroad, on which he was accompanied by his son, has arrived to spend the remainder of the summer at Oak Bluffs. He is the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Shearer at their summer home on Vineyard Highlands.
Many of the employers who have been interested in the progress of the Open Door Club in Edgartown, which provides a pleasant place as a recreational center for their employees, were given a tea on Thursday by the members of the club. The affair was a great success.
On the 2d of the present month occurred the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Capt. and Mrs. William A. Martin, well-known residents of Chappaquiddick. Mrs. Martin was before her marriage Sarah G. Brown, daughter of Abram Brown, and as Sarah Martin has been long and favorably known to our townspeople and also to many of our summer residents.
Capt. Martin has been a paralytic for the past seven years, and is now practically helpless, and for this reason no special celebration of the fiftieth wedding anniversary was made at the time.
The duty of sustaining our government in the present contest, has taken the strongest hold upon the public mind in all the loyal States. The progress of the rebellion and the advance in preparations to put it down, serves to increase rather than diminish the sentiment, that, at all sacrifices, we must strangle and tread under foot this slimy, deadly-fanged serpent, hatched in the atmosphere of Southern skies.
Two of the anthems sung by the Union Chapel choir last Sunday were new arrangements of Harry T. Burleigh’s “Were You There When They Crucified Him” and “Deep River.” Mr. Burleigh, one of the country’s eminent composers, was present in the congregation. Mr. Burleigh is, as well, a noted baritone whose voice is heard over the radio from the vespers of St. George’s Episcopal Church, New York, where he is a soloist. He is a regular summer visitor to Oak Bluffs.
