Where in the world is History Wire this week? Since it is August, after all, History Wire craves the beach, but what seaside venue holds more history than Martha's Vineyard, off the coast of Cape Cod for the uninitiated. And what better week to come, for on Wednesday evening, the Island celebrates Illumination Night in the Oak Bluffs Campground hard by Ocean Park. Here, in an annual celebration that has run continuously since 1869, a great many of the 315 cottages here display lighted and lavishly decorated Japanese lanterns, providing unbelievable camera shots.
The Campground is one of the Island's many wonders, representing an example of racially-integrated living that has existed for nearly 140 years. Founded by the Methodist church as a revival tent camp shortly after the Civil War, its residents took to the idea so avidly that they replaced the tents with tiny cottages, placed closely together. Each spring, summer and fall, tens of thousands of homeowners and tourists flock to Oak Bluffs and its heavily-integrated nearby beach, nicknamed the Inkwell.
Ocean Park, the semicircle of the neighborhood's finest homes, was the focus of author Stephen Carter's best-selling book The Emperor of Ocean Park, and its denizens include such luminaries as Spike Lee, jazz great Jackie McLean, and writer Jill Nelson. Well it's off to the beach now, but History Wire is sure to share with you whatever new historical tidbits it comes across
