I think this is 1954 - Carol had just visited and was on the wane. All the boats, with the exception of Stan’s in the middle slip, had been tied off the piers with firmly set anchors so they would not float over them and be pierced by the pilings when the water went down. Sandy Low in waders. Sam Low

“My grandparents guest house on the edge of Farm Pond, Summer 1954. I was a newborn, so its not a memory, but hurricane Carol (?) swept in one day. The waves rushed over the sea wall, around the house and rushed into the kitchen through the front door. Mom and Dad scooped me up and ran up to the big house.”

Doug Pease

Hurricanes I have known

My first memory of the Vineyard is the 1944 hurricane when many relatives came to our house, deep in the woods, for refuge. I was two years old. I remember that hurricane because my parents gave me a flashlight for amusement. I shined it on the faces of our guests and was amazed at the emotion there - the first time I saw adults display fear.

In 1954, when I was twelve, it was hurricane Carol. My father and his friends set anchors deep in the muck of our harbor and trailed ropes to their boats to hold them off the piers. All lines were doubled. Everything that moved was stored indoors. Preparations continued even as the storm spread its deadly fingers across the island. The men worked on docks now covered with water and gusts tugged at their southwesters. Here’s my most vivid memory. My father and I are carrying a Burt skiff to shelter, upside down. Suddenly a gust plucks the boat from our hands and hurls it across the road – some forty feet.

In 1960, Donna Called. My grandparent’s house faced the beach. We watched the approaching storm from a glassed in porch that began to shiver in the mounting wind. We retreated and closed the doors to the porch, pushing the dining room table against them. Minutes later the porch was disassembled into its component parts and scattered across the lawn.

After one of these storms, we found an uncle’s boat impaled on a piling at its pier. The tide had risen six feet and the anchor line keeping it off the pier had snapped. It was a deep but not a mortal wound. I think Erford Burt dealt with it.

A hurricane is a grand expression of nature’s primal force and it focuses us on a latent drama all around, heretofore hidden. The skins of our homes now seem fragile. The ocean contains a veiled threat. The beach seems tender and insubstantial. The songbirds in the bushes – what will become of them? We welcome this drama with dread. Anticipating a hurricane puts us in our place in nature’s scheme and that may be the only thing about a hurricane that we can welcome. Sam Low

These pictures are from Phronsie Conlin - we think it is a gale in 1992

curtesy John Moore

The Great Hurricane of 1938

By John Moore

Harthaven - A Brief History

In late September, the Great Hurricane of 1938 hit New England a devastating blow with the western part of Martha’s Vineyard particularly affected. Menemsha and Lobsterville were largely decimated, the latter never to recover its bevy of fishing and lobster shacks. The area around Harthaven was relatively unscathed. Ed Abbe relates that he and his brother Bill were on the island at the time, though virtually no one else was in Harthaven. Ed and Bill walked over to the harbor opening which was located just south of the sea wall. Shingles were flying and the wind was moaning through the trees. By the time they walked back home, they had to wade through seawater that had risen across the road. All power was out, so they couldn’t listen to the radio to find out what was happening. They then got the bright idea to go out and listen to the car radio. Only then did they learn of the extent of the damage caused by this historic hurricane, especially to Providence, Rhode Island. The only real damage in Harthaven, Ed remembers, was to Jim’s power boat, the Wildcat; its bottom was punctured by a piling at its dock.

On the first of September, I moved in with Ted and Ruth for a couple of weeks before going back to college. I mention this because while I was there, the infamous Hurricane Carol set the Vineyard in her sights. Ted called me from Boston the night before it hit and asked me to go down to the dock (the northernmost in Harthaven harbor) to secure the lines on his beautiful 38 foot fishing boat, the Daiquiri, below the level of the dock’s planking so the ropes wouldn’t float off. Judy and I went down in a raging easterly wind and managed to get everything secure. Imagine our horror the next morning when we went down towards the harbor, shielding ourselves from hurricane force winds at the Young’s house. There was the Daiquiri securely fastened but rising up and down on the dock’s pilings. When the hurricane backed off and the seas receded, the Daiquiri was high and dry with three pilings through her bottom. It took a crane to get her off. I believe Ted sold her “as and where is.” I felt just terrible until I happened to overhear him answer a friend of his who asked, “What was Johnny thinking of?” Ted replied, “Don’t blame him, he did exactly what I asked him to do.” But the sight of the Daiquiri hanging there, seemingly in mid-air, haunts me still. John Moore in his book - Harthaven - A Brief History