As the most recently departed generation of Islanders would have told us, there were no deer on Martha’s Vineyard. “There wasn’t any then,” declared Fanny Jenkinson (1893–1994) of Chilmark to Linsey Lee of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in 1983. “Never heard of a deer.” Basil Welch of Vineyard Haven told Lee, “I was born and […]
At 10:00 a.m. on May 19, 1780, the people of New England thought that Judgment Day was upon them. The sky turned black as night, flowers began folding their petals, and fowls returned to their coops to roost. The moon shined an eerie blood-red as darkness engulfed towns and cities from Maine to New Jersey
Historically Speaking: Why is that Samuel C. Fisher sign on Summer Street?
Tony McManus
DOVER - Across the front of the building designated as 17 Summer St. is a good-sized sign: Samuel C. Fisher. He is the third member of the group that invested in the purchase of Ricker s Field in 1868.
At the time of the purchase, he was living at what is 19 Summer at the corner of Summer and Locust, but that lies outside the area of their purchase, and the house itself predates their investment by almost 40 years.
The original residence was built in 1830 by Jabez Dow, a local doctor, who owned and lived in the home at 30 Silver St. Dow was a founder of the Strafford County Medical Society in 1808, and was the husband of Mary Edna Hill Gray Dow, mentioned in previous articles as the pioneering first-ever female owner of a business corporation, the Dover Horse Railway. The new home on land owned by Dow on Summer St., was built for Samuel, Jabez s son, also a doctor, and he lived there un