Neutral in Nothing, Independent and Just in Everything.

That was the slogan that defined the Cottage City Star, a four-page local newspaper that ran from 1879 to 1885 and pushed for Oak Bluffs’ secession from Edgartown.

At the time, Oak Bluffs was officially part of Edgartown, situated at the most northern edge of the town. It was finally coming into its own as a resort town, but residents didn’t feel they were getting their due from Edgartown leaders — and coffers. They felt they were providing an increasing amount of Edgartown’s revenue but not receiving an equal share of benefits, wrote Island historian and editor of the Dukes County Intelligencer Arthur Railton in a 2004 article for the Intelligencer.

Cottage City, as Oak Bluffs was called at the time, petitioned the state house to break away from Edgartown three times, but was denied by the Island’s state representative.

The Cottage City Star, founded in 1879, aimed to garner more support for the movement. Howes Norris served as the paper’s publisher and editor, pushing the political agenda and also recording the local news of the time, making it a valuable resource of that era in Island life.

That history has been given easier access, thanks to the work of the Edgartown Public Library, which recently digitized the old newspaper. Whereas before one would have had to sift through microfilm at the library, the pages of the Cottage City Star are now available to anyone with an internet connection.

Rizwan Malik is the research and technology librarian at the Edgartown Public Library.

Ray Ewing

Rizwan Malik is the research and technology librarian at the Edgartown Public Library.

Ray Ewing

Rizwan Malik, the research and technology librarian at the Edgartown Public Library, said that he continually receives research requests from people all over the world about Island history and obituaries.

“I’ve gotten such a positive response by letting people know we have just this one part of Vineyard history now digitized,” he said. “Anyone can access it from anywhere in the world, and it’s super functional. Now that it’s online, anyone who has a visual impairment can use their computer to access this as well.”

Bow Van Riper, the research librarian at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, said that the Cottage City Star is an excellent resource for local news during its brief life. He said that the Vineyard Gazette also published at the time, beginning in 1846, but back then the Gazette printed more boilerplate stories culled from newspapers around the country than it did local news.

“It’s our principal source on information for the day-to-day lives of people who lived in Cottage City,” he said. “Their achievements, the things that befell them.”

The paper also reported on other towns. For example, Mr. Van Riper said that most of what is known about the 1883 fire that leveled Vineyard Haven’s main street comes from Cottage City Star reporting.

“Having the Cottage City Star online is going to be a huge benefit to anybody...who does research on any part of the Island,” he said.

Stories also included a court case concerning the killing of sheep on Naushon Island and a seizure of liquor from a drug store on Circuit avenue. Advertisements featured dentists and grocers, boasted stays at a number of hotels in Cottage City and elsewhere on the Island, such as the Wesley House and Mattakeset Lodge.

Chris Baer, an Island historian and teacher at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, has often used the Cottage City Star for his research work, and has already reaped the benefits of the digitization.

“I have a tab open right now to browsing it,” he said during a phone call last week. “I’m just enjoying the material, I’m getting to get acquainted with [Norris’] voice. He had a lot to say, a very opinionated guy.”

When Cottage City was eventually incorporated as a town in 1880, just one year after the newspaper began, the Cottage City Star published an article that both congratulated the town on its new status and implored its citizens to run for office to fill the new positions.

“Our triumph in the successful incorporation of the town of Cottage City brings with it its duties and responsibilities,” it read. “Scores of people in the old town, and not a few in our midst, are anxiously watching for our blunders, in other that they may cry ‘I told you so!’”

The article goes on to promise that the Cottage City Star would not hesitate to call out any slacking or neglect it saw in the new town government.

“While we shall not use our quill censoriously, we shall not hesitate to lay open any signs of slackness, or neglect, or intriguing for place or power, or jobbery whenever and wherever it may show itself in the new town government.”

The town was re-incorporated as Oak Bluffs in 1907.

The library was able to digitize the Cottage City Star thanks to funding from Advantage Archives, according to Mr. Malik. The company, which took the microfilm and digitized the newspaper, focuses on preserving history and making it accessible to more people. When federal funding was cut to the Institute of Museum and Library Services — the federal agency that supports archives, libraries and museums — Advantage Archives announced a grant to help bridge the funding gap for libraries that wanted to begin digitization projects. Mr. Malik used that money to preserve the Cottage City Star.

“It fits really well into the library pillar of providing access to information,” Mr. Malik said.

He added that he hopes to digitize the Martha’s Vineyard Herald next, another local paper which started after Charles Strahan purchased the Cottage City Star and began a new paper, which ran until the 1920s.