From the January 17, 1930 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

Mrs. Herbert L. Smith of Vineyard Haven supplies the story that gave rise to the expression regarding “Mrs. Poole’s pounding barrel” meaning in effect that a plan has miscarried, or effort wrongly directed.

“Aunt” Becky Poole lived in Frog Alley, Vineyard Haven, ad was famed for her eccentricities. Having a pounding barrel, in which clothes were pounded during the processes of laundering, she took it down to soak and swell tight. The next morning it had disappeared, and no wonder. Hence the expression “All skewwiff like Mrs. Poole’s pounding barrel” or in many cases couched in more unelegant language.

“Mrs. Poole’s privacy” was another expression alluding to this same old soul, and impled that the result of an effort was just opposite to the desired effect. Mrs. Poole had a habit of telling relatives and acquaintances various secrets “in strictest confidence.” But she would stand several feet distant from the person addressed, in the middle of her yard, and fairly shout the word. Needless to say, all her immediate neighbors could plainly hear these “secrets.”

More “Vineyardisms” supplied by friends are:

“Like Dick’s hat band, that went half-way round and tucked under,” meaning incomplete or poorly done: H. P. Ayer.

“Long Point,” purely a West Tisbury phrase signifying failure. In past decades it was difficult for a fowler to get a bag at Long Point, hence “Long Point luck” became synonymous with an empty game pocket and in time, with ant flat failure: George W. Manter.

The Boston Globe of Sunday contained a long story, anent a former old whaler, the General Scott, which in 1847, 1848 and 1849 was commanded by Capt. Alex P. Fisher. Of course, as is well known the late Capt. Alexander P. Fisher was one of Edgartown’s prominent and successful whaling masters, whose former residence still stands on South Water street. The house, subsequent to Captain Fisher’s decease was for a dozen years, early in the 1900’s, the property of the Home Club, and is today owned by John Jeremiah of New York and others.

Clare Briggs, nationally known cartoonist, whose death occurred recently, has been referred to as one of the Three Musketeers of Art, the late Percy Elton Cowen and Worth Brehm the other members of the trio. The three were close friends, and all were known and had many friends on the Vineyard. Mr. Briggs never lived here as Mr. Cowen and Mr. Brehm did, but he visited both the others in Chilmark and introduced the Island and its people into a number of his newspaper cartoons.

Sanderson M. Mayhew and William J. Rotch, the two oldest men of West Tisbury, observed their birthdays, which fall on the same date, on Jan. 14. Mr. Mayhew is 84 and Mr. Rotch a year younger.

Both men have had notable careers both in business and as town officials, Mr. Mayhew serving as town treasurer in Tisbury and West Tisbury for forty years, while Mr. Rotch is now completing his thirty-eighth year as chairman of the board of selectmen of West Tisbury, an office he has held since the town was incorporated.

Both gentlemen were presented with birthday cakes and other remembrances, and received their friends who came to offer felicitations. Mr. Rotch rode into Vineyard Haven the day before and paid his regular visit to the Barnacle Club of which he is a member, sitting in a game of cards, one of his favorite indoor pastimes.

In connection with Mr. Rotch’s retirement from office, it is said that thus far no one has been found who is willing to take his place. It was Mr. Rotch’s intention to retire a year ago, but the same difficulty was encountered, which influenced him to accept the office for yet another year.

The incumbency of William J. Rotch as chairman of the board of selectmen in West Tisbury is as old as the town itself. This is, one cannot help believing, a unique situation in this day of the world. After the approaching town meeting, at which Mr. Rotch has announced that he will not be a candidate for another reelection, West Tisbury may easily get up in a daze and meet some difficulty in becoming used to strange conditions. The Sage of the Midlands, as Mr. Rotch was aptly named in the columns of this newspaper many years ago, will have retired to private life and an era of town affairs distinguished by success and prosperity will yield to another which, one hopes, may continue the good qualities of the past.

The town of West Tisbury, small as towns go, has been always on the map and Mr. Rotch has ranked high among the distinctions which have brought it a volume of favorable notice which big cities might envy.

At the end of his 34 years in office, Mr. Rotch is entitled to congratulations and earnest hopes for years more of hearty contentment in the town he helped to found and the government of which he has headed for such a period.

Compiled by Hilary Wallcox

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