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[[images: assorted black & white photographs showing aspects of life in Oak Bluffs]]

The title fold shows a section of Oak Bluffs Harbor of the early eighties which was located at the foot of Circuit Avenue which now houses Churches Pier. The inset photo was taken by the town's photographer when President Grant visited the Camp Grounds. Other photos show Black vacationers, outside Promenade House which was located just below Munro's restaurant of today's Circuit Avenue. Pic shows a visiting Negro Quartet, whose harmonies were the attractions of church socials on the camp grounds and gathering in the drawing rooms of the town houses. The pic with the sign Oak Bluffs was the old docking area, where ferries from the main land brought their passengers and the pic with the gentleman sitting on a shoe stand is that of Black Sam a distinguished one man entrepreneur. Sam shined shoes and carried baggage of vacationers to and from the docks to the Island's guest houses for years to become wealthy and affluent.

Among the first Black families to settle on School Street and sections of the Highlands were the original Shearers, who came in 1900; the Popes, the Carrie Jones, the Roberts, the Lippmans, the Saxtons, the Colemans and the Watt Terry's.

During the late twenties a new migration of Black homeowners including Harry T. Burlieghs, the distinguished composer;  the Ashburn Family, descendants of the Shearers, whose today counterparts are Mrs. Mirriam Walker and her brother Benjamin, Bennie Ashburn, a distinguished Public Relations practitioner; the Johnny Walkers, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., the Charles Fishers, the Lincoln Popes, the Liz Whites, the Dixons, the Colonel Lucases, and Dr. Lucien Browns, whose daughters and their children are today's occupants of the first house near the waterfront on Ocean View Avenue.

A later migration of Blacks to the Island of Oak Bluffs came at the end of World War II, when Belford Lawson the distinguished Washington Attorney, purchased the Gloria Swanson Mansion.  Then came the Dr. C.B. Powells, the Pattersons, The Dr. Jones, the Ed Brooks, the Murphys, the Cohens, the Jock Millers, the Dorothy Wests, a third generation of Lippmans, Romaine, Coco and sister Emily Robertsen, the Doctus Stents, the Al Lockharts, the Charlie Fishers, The Goldsberry, the Dr. Marshalls', the Herbie Jacksons; the Sandridge's;  the Reverend Evans, the Browns, the Townes, the Bonito's;  the Judge Mitchell;  the Curtis McClains, the Billups, the Andersons.

And like other vacation spots, the town of Oak Bluffs went into limbo.  Many residents moved as their children came into their majorities or decided to vacation somewhere else; or maybe it was just new times, new ideas or more exciting desires for travel to far away places.

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