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Timothy Quaint

In 1854, the Home Journal of that period contained the recorded sentiments of one Timothy Quaint on the merits of Martha’s Vineyard as he saw it. Timothy had visited the island on a fishing excursion in the month of November.

He declared it to be the most barren and worthless land imaginable, with soil too poor to afford sufficient substance for “a few miserable sheep that went crawling over the great gaunt hills,” so wrote “A Harpooner” in the Vineyard Gazette late that year. Still, Timothy, “while waiting for trout to nibble, he regales himself with whortleberries, near a field in which corn was growing more than three feet high, and stout in proportion!. To this wonderful place I advise all labor-saving farmers to emigrate. A very Elysium for lazy people.”

The “whortleberries” mentioned in Mr. Quaint’s complaint are our familiar cranberries. Of course we all know now that this “barren and worthless land” is some of the most expensive real estate in the Northeast.

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