COMMUNITY
The Ultimate Vineyard Story
The Chappy Ferry
Story by Jan Pogue
The credits in the back of The Chappy Ferry Book: Back and Forth Between Two Worlds – 527 Feet Apart run to four pages – and include everything from Universal Studios to a book published in 1853 by a hell-raising Methodist preacher.
The book begins with a discussion of the Ice Age. The first sentence in Chapter One reads, “The first trip of the Chappaquiddick ferry on record is one that Uriah Morse does not dare to make.” Its back cover promises “stories about the blind man who skippered it for nearly 40 years, the seaplane that struck it in 1937, and the roles it played in the filming of the movie Jaws.”
There’s a whole page devoted to the role the ferry played in the car accident on Chappaquiddick involving Sen. Edward Kennedy that changed American politics; the rest of the chapter explains how it changed Chappaquid-dick. There’s another whole page devoted to the little known (meaning, only on Chappy) sport of aqua-biking pioneered by a far younger Peter Wells, who now co-owns the ferry with his wife, Sally Snipes.
Suchare the surprises when you set out to publish a book about a topic you think is so familiar that there couldn’t possibly be any big revelations. And then there are 128 pages of them.
The Chappy Ferry Book, published this month by my company, Vineyard Stories, didn’t start out to be a book with chapters named for the twelve captain/owners of the ferry dating back to 1807. Nor was it meant to be a history of what writer Tom Dunlop discovered is the oldest operating waterfront business on the Vineyard and one of the three or four oldest continuing operating businesses on the Island.
By the time we gathered up dozens of historic photographs, including ones that had never been published, and added dozens more modern ones from photographer Alison Shaw, we found we had ourselves a book that is jaw dropping both in content and look.
The idea for the book came from Tom Dunlop, who has spent much of his life in Edgartown, although he now lives in New York City. He recalls seeing the ferry the first time when he was four years old and says he’s wanted to write a book about it ever since. When he approached Vineyard Stories, I envisioned a light, bright book; at one point, Tom and I even discussed whether it should be geared for children.
Tom is a remarkably in-depth researcher; when he began bringing me nuggets of information about what he was discovering – like the blind captain who rowed his customers across the channel for 40 years – it became clear Tom was uncovering a whole, unknown story about a remarkably vital business. And that what he was finding was pure “Vineyard.”
Among the things he did was go through copies of the Vineyard Gazette from its founding in 1846 to 1930, before the ferry became a regular story in the paper. He learned to look for references to Chappaquiddick and the ferry on page two, where news about the little island 527 feet from Edgartown was recorded in town columns. As Tom ranged through the Gazette, he also began conducting interviews and asking questions all over Martha’s Vineyard. His questions prompted people to pull out old photographs, find historic films, take paintings of the ferry off their walls.
In conveying his excitement, Tom also found another die-hard ferry fan in John Wilson, a filmmaker who has for 20 years covered sports television. John’s stepfather, Bailey Norton, is an Edgartown legend and the author of a book about the history of his own family on the Vineyard. John says the first job he ever wanted was to be a deckhand on the Chappy ferry. He leaped at the chance to make a 15-minute DVD about the ferry, including a segment he calls The One Minute Conversation. The movie is fun, funny, has historical footage, and is narrated by Dick Ebersol, former chairman of NBC Sports and a summer resident of Chappy. It comes with the book as a bonus DVD.
Illustrator Dana Gaines became another member of the book team when we asked him to draw a centerfold illustration showing how the ferry works. The colorful, detailed drawing is a work of art.
I’m the publisher of this book, so I can be expected to say words like “delightful,” “beautiful,” “historically significant.” But, the truth is, The Chappy Ferry Book is all those things – and a wonderful addition to the 22 books my company has now published.
A Special Thanks goes out to Tom, Dana, John, Peter, and Sally.
The Chappy Ferry Book will be launched at an Island-wide celebration on July 1 from 5 to 7 pm at the Old Sculpin Gallery on the harbor in Edgartown.
The book begins with a discussion of the Ice Age. The first sentence in Chapter One reads, “The first trip of the Chappaquiddick ferry on record is one that Uriah Morse does not dare to make.” Its back cover promises “stories about the blind man who skippered it for nearly 40 years, the seaplane that struck it in 1937, and the roles it played in the filming of the movie Jaws.”
There’s a whole page devoted to the role the ferry played in the car accident on Chappaquiddick involving Sen. Edward Kennedy that changed American politics; the rest of the chapter explains how it changed Chappaquid-dick. There’s another whole page devoted to the little known (meaning, only on Chappy) sport of aqua-biking pioneered by a far younger Peter Wells, who now co-owns the ferry with his wife, Sally Snipes.
Suchare the surprises when you set out to publish a book about a topic you think is so familiar that there couldn’t possibly be any big revelations. And then there are 128 pages of them.
The Chappy Ferry Book, published this month by my company, Vineyard Stories, didn’t start out to be a book with chapters named for the twelve captain/owners of the ferry dating back to 1807. Nor was it meant to be a history of what writer Tom Dunlop discovered is the oldest operating waterfront business on the Vineyard and one of the three or four oldest continuing operating businesses on the Island.
By the time we gathered up dozens of historic photographs, including ones that had never been published, and added dozens more modern ones from photographer Alison Shaw, we found we had ourselves a book that is jaw dropping both in content and look.
The idea for the book came from Tom Dunlop, who has spent much of his life in Edgartown, although he now lives in New York City. He recalls seeing the ferry the first time when he was four years old and says he’s wanted to write a book about it ever since. When he approached Vineyard Stories, I envisioned a light, bright book; at one point, Tom and I even discussed whether it should be geared for children.
Tom is a remarkably in-depth researcher; when he began bringing me nuggets of information about what he was discovering – like the blind captain who rowed his customers across the channel for 40 years – it became clear Tom was uncovering a whole, unknown story about a remarkably vital business. And that what he was finding was pure “Vineyard.”
Among the things he did was go through copies of the Vineyard Gazette from its founding in 1846 to 1930, before the ferry became a regular story in the paper. He learned to look for references to Chappaquiddick and the ferry on page two, where news about the little island 527 feet from Edgartown was recorded in town columns. As Tom ranged through the Gazette, he also began conducting interviews and asking questions all over Martha’s Vineyard. His questions prompted people to pull out old photographs, find historic films, take paintings of the ferry off their walls.
In conveying his excitement, Tom also found another die-hard ferry fan in John Wilson, a filmmaker who has for 20 years covered sports television. John’s stepfather, Bailey Norton, is an Edgartown legend and the author of a book about the history of his own family on the Vineyard. John says the first job he ever wanted was to be a deckhand on the Chappy ferry. He leaped at the chance to make a 15-minute DVD about the ferry, including a segment he calls The One Minute Conversation. The movie is fun, funny, has historical footage, and is narrated by Dick Ebersol, former chairman of NBC Sports and a summer resident of Chappy. It comes with the book as a bonus DVD.
Illustrator Dana Gaines became another member of the book team when we asked him to draw a centerfold illustration showing how the ferry works. The colorful, detailed drawing is a work of art.
I’m the publisher of this book, so I can be expected to say words like “delightful,” “beautiful,” “historically significant.” But, the truth is, The Chappy Ferry Book is all those things – and a wonderful addition to the 22 books my company has now published.
A Special Thanks goes out to Tom, Dana, John, Peter, and Sally.
The Chappy Ferry Book will be launched at an Island-wide celebration on July 1 from 5 to 7 pm at the Old Sculpin Gallery on the harbor in Edgartown.