In Scotland they ran for their lives from the gallows of Queen Mary. She was the Catholic queen of Scotland, and they were the Scottish Protestant Nevin rebels. They carried little but the original written Auld Lang Syne.

They ran far to Ireland, then England, anywhere they were welcomed. From Ipswich, England with Ethelbert’s piano in tow, they boarded the Francis, a passenger ship heading for Virginia.

The Francis stopped at Starbuck Neck in Edgartown in 1634. It was said to have been on a stormy cold November day, right there at Fuller street beach. All of the 34 passengers had scurvy. Seven men in their 20s decided to stay and strike out on their own adventure. A week and a few days later the ship left without them.

This is the Nevin origin story on the Island, referred to by Charles Edward Banks as The Pease Tradition in his book, The History of Martha’s Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts.

Three hundred and some odd years later, Irish Mary Jane Smith married Scottish John Nevin in Edgartown and that’s where I was born in 1950. Mary Jane and John brought up their four children at #5 Pease’s Point Way, a mansion on the corner of Pent Lane and Pease’s Point Way.

As I write this in 2022, the house still exists in excellent condition. Only a swimming pool and a two-car garage seem to have been added over the years. Our family sold the house in 1970, first moving to Winter street and then, for me, up-Island to West Tisbury.

But the memories are still clear.

When I was six years old I would walk every afternoon through the hall door with my mother. She would greet all my uncle’s patients lining both sides of the hallway. We walked past the grand southern staircase, past the lit chandelier to shut the French front doors with their etched glass.

We greeted the secretary whom we called Pool — Emily Poole, Everett Poole’s mother from Menemsha. We checked the front living room with its floor to ceiling gold-framed mirror and fireplace satisfactorily before taking the long walk back to the hall door. This brought us to the dining room that could sit at least 15 for Thanksgiving dinner. The swinging door led us into the kitchen. The kitchen had an oil stove warming several rooms at a time.

Another door led to the cellar that was the size of the whole house, with a smooth red-painted cement floor and a separate room with a round floor. It had been used as a coal room a generation before. Now cleaned out it was perfect for roller skating. Our dog Freddie sat safely on the landing to witness us skating around the center poles.

Our brother Jack liked to chase us around and around that cellar; actually he chased us all over that house. He loved hide and go seek because he always won and always scared the heck out of all of us.

By the time I was seven, Uncle Bob had his own office built on North Summer street. So we had #5 Pease’s Point Way to ourselves and we didn’t have to be quiet. There were several bedrooms upstairs and a telephone room. On the third floor our uncle had left his medicinal mixtures and a skeleton to study from. We loved showing the skeleton to our friends, especially in the month of October close to Halloween. The attic had windows from floor to ceiling. As the massive one-room attic filled with sunlight, we ran through it endlessly, searching for my brother who had taken off with something that belonged to us.

At my 12th birthday party, I had everyone go outside and count all of the window panes (not windows) to win a prize. I remember that there were more than 100 panes. My birthday is Feb. 26. The kids were freezing.

The prize was a water rocket. Losing count, kids started, as my sister would say, “losing their marbles.” We changed the game to sliding down the banister. You had to land on your feet to win a prize.

One time my parents decided to go out to a movie. They said we were old enough to not have a babysitter. I must have been 10, Jack was 13, Nancy was 8 and Mary was 6. I was reading a story to Mary in a bedroom at the bottom of the stairs when I heard something coming down the stairs. Whoever it was took two steps, then stopped. A few minutes later he took two more steps and stopped. Holding my finger to my lips, I told Mary to be quiet. I went and got Jack and Nancy and told them to come with me. We all stood by the closed door and listened. All of a sudden our parents arrived home. We rushed to them quickly and told them our fears. They listened as intently as we had. Then we all heard it again.

Our father took action and went to chase whoever it might be. It was Freddie, our dog.

Fifty years later we still talk about that night. Especially at this time of year as the holiday season approaches, my mind returns to #5 Pease’s Point Way. Occasionally, I will walk by the house, too, stopping to look up at the windows and count all the panes.

Anne Nevin lives in West Tisbury.