Day 125, Thursday August 8, 2024: Rockland, Massachusetts to Storrs, Connecticut

Carnegie libraries visited: Taunton, Dighton, and Edgartown, Massachusetts

Days sober: 413

I keep my frequently updated itinerary on Google sheets. For each day, I list the Carnegie libraries I plan to visit and the miles from the starting point to each stop cumulatively through the end of the day. I try to stop at most libraries along the way, even if  they are not included on my itinerary. While cruising down the road, I would quickly and I hope not too dangerously hit the search button for “library” on my Google maps and it would reveal the libraries close to my route. I shudder to think that I just promoted Google twice (three times!) in this paragraph.

Today, my itinerary began with:

Taunton, 28 miles (from Rockland)

Dighton, 35 miles (from Rockland)

Falmouth, where I would catch the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, 57 miles (from Rockland)

The morning was a blur: quick stops to take pictures of the libraries in Rockland (a red brick Carnegie with terra cotta trim and Ionic columns), Taunton (a Beaux Arts and Classical Revival building of Corinthian columns of Indiana limestone), and Dighton (a rustic stone Carnegie ‘cottage’ with red trim) because I was in a hurry to get to Falmouth in time for the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard.

Taunton Carnegie Library

Rockland Carnegie Library

Dighton Carnegie Library

Easy, I thought. Even with stops along the way, it should be no problem for me to make the drive to Falmouth in plenty of time to catch the 11 a.m. ferry. What I neglected to notice is that an earlier version of my itinerary had me spending the night in Dighton, so the drive to Falmouth from Dighton was not 22 miles but instead the full 57 miles from that town. I didn’t realize my mistake until I was leaving Dighton so, for once, I was under the (radar) gun to make it to the ferry on time. Google maps showed that the drive would take 75 minutes, and the ferry left in 85. Any delay would cause me literally to miss the boat. I gunned Goldfinger, hoped for the best, and arrived 65 minutes later.

The four guys claiming the back bench on the ferry immediately filled me with soft contempt, like I wouldn’t want to garrotte them although I would rhetorically spit in their general direction. They were young, strong, and good looking, with the demeanor of those who are used to using the word summering as a verb. I immediately disliked them with a mixture of class envy and class resentment: what a group of privileged twats.The quartet of bros – I’ll call them Golf, Sailboat, Tennis, and Polo – looked to me like they had just caught an Uber from Dartmouth. They all had the skin and hair of the wealthy, and teeth that sparkled like the sun on the waves. Sailboat and Tennis were manspreading on the bench, taking up two seats, even though the deck was standing room only, while Golf and Polo were yucking it up. They were all in a jolly mood, and why not? Life is good for G, S, T, and P as they sail to the Vineyard.

As I’m thinking all this, I remember that I’m wearing a Yale crew cap – my father had coached there – a blue checked Rye 51 shirt (the Rye website states that “Rye 51 is a purveyor of Refined Casual Men’s Clothing & Luxury Menswear for the modern gentleman”) which costs about $200. I had picked it up at a thrift shop in Jackson, Wyoming, for $4 but, still, I could imagine someone looking at me like I was an old rich white dude, a twat with privilege in my own way. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to judge the frat boys. 

On the Martha's Vineyard Ferry

The ride was rough, and water splashed into the back of the boat. Earlier, I had given up my seat there to a woman and her daughter and moved forward. The child had been begging/crying/screaming to go there so that she could be close to her slightly older brother, who was hanging out in the back with his father. Now her seat in the stern was getting soaked and mine closer to the bow was nice and dry. I offered my dry seat to her and, again, she was glad to take it. I hung on a railing, getting wet, until the steward ordered me to sit on a bench at the bulkhead. From this position I looked back into the six rows of packed what now looked like church pews. I raised my hands as if to offer a benediction, but no one paid attention. Most of the seated congregation had a “I don’t want to be the first person to vomit” look on their faces, and I left them at peace.

While we were disembarking, the steward told me “That was a class act to give up your seat. You’re a good guy.” The small kindness of doing so was definitely reward enough, although I’ll admit that I did get just a little rush by having my action noticed and validated. I agree that kindness (and other gifts) should be given even if nobody else notices. If someone does: bonus.

Martha’s Vineyard, like Georgetown University, has what on the surface looks like a highly diverse population if “rich people from all over the world” counts as diversity.. The streets of this elegant town were teeming with tourists, better dressed and more slim than those I’ve seen elsewhere. Martha’s Vineyard, once a whaling town, is now a wealthy (and hency pricey) one. The median price of a home there in 2025 was $1.5 million; nationally, the median price is $435,000. If you want to rent a charming cottage there over the 4th of July, you should be prepared to spend two grand. I was tempted by Mad Martha’s Homemade Ice Cream, just not at $7 for a small scoop. 

If I had bought the ice cream, I might have used it as a topical anesthetic. Every step I took hurt my right hip. Make that every other step because the ones involving my left hip are not too bad, and I do tend to alternate feet when I walk. On either foot, my spinal stenosis reminds me that my back isn’t what it used to be, when it was one of my many body parts I paid no attention to.

Quit your bitching, Mark, and start walking the 7/10 mile to the Edgartown Public Library, which I believed to be a Carnegie. I was wrong. I don’t find this especially frustrating, as I’ve often walked around new places with only a vaguish idea of where I’m going. I always end up somewhere, and I usually find something interesting along the way. I’m glad to arrive at this newish library, a comfortable place to rest my dogs for a bit.

Edgartown Public Library

After getting properly oriented, I left-right-left it the same distance back to the original Carnegie library, which is now the home of the Carnegie Heritage Center, containing a reading library, exhibits, and gift shop. (And it’s only one block from the pier.) After waiting at the front desk for ten minutes or so, waiting in vain for assistance, I approached two people chatting at a desk in the front room. With a “Yes, I do” response to the question as to whether I needed help, I met Sissy, the Programming Director of the Heritage Center. I asked her about Caroline Osborn Warren, who had donated the land next to her home for the library’s construction.. Sissy didn’t know any more about her, so she referred me to the Vineyard Preservation Trust (which was closed for the day) and “Bow” Van Riper, the historian at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. The museum was eight miles distant, and I didn’t have a car, so I promised to contact Bow in the future.

Carnegie Heritage Center

Caroline Osborn, a scion of the Edgarton Osborn whaling family, was born in Edgartown in 1829. She was a descendant of Thomas Mayhew, who in 1641 bought Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands from William Alexander for two beaver skins and 40 pounds. (Mayhew was the islands’ self-proclaimed “governor for life” – initially, anyway, until he was formally appointed by the governor of New York (Massachusetts and New York at various times claimed title to the islands) – and other early officials were either relatives or allies (sound familiar?). Mayhew did not generate goodwill among the islanders as he taxed their property while exempting himself and his cronies (sound familiar?).) Her father, Samuel, was a whaler – by 1880, he was “largest shipping agent of whaling property in the United States” – as were her three older brothers, Edward, Samuel, and William.

Vineyard whaling would peak in the 1840s, when Caroline was a teenager, and the town reached its 19th century population heyday in the 1860 Census, when it reached 2,118, almost twice the size it was when she died in 1910. She married well, on New Year’s Day in 1855: Frederick Warren, born in London, nine years her senior. Frederick went on to become the president of the Warren & Company shipping firm, which operated steamships that ran between Liverpool and Boston. After fourteen years of marriage they had their only child, Carrie, who died within the year. They lived in New York for a time, keeping their property at 62 Water Street in Edgartown, before settling in Boston in a home at 336 Commonwealth, in Boston’s Back Bay, which Caroline bought. In 1896, she transferred ownership of the home to her husband. Frederick died in 1900, and Caroline continued living in the house (under a trust established in her husband’s will) until her death in 1910. In Caroline’s will, she gave $2000 to the town’s Congregational Church, $1000 to the town in memory of her husband, and land and money to the town for its library. 

Sometimes it’s hard enough to make complete sense of my own finances, even with Rocketmoney’s help, as they are needlessly complicated. I open numerous bank and credit card accounts to get their introductory benefits (Miles! Nights! Cash bonuses!) and then let them lie around. Most of my monthly bills are automatically paid through one of those credit cards, and I often update those payments in a haphazard effort to gain free shit. It’s better than throwing my receipts away, or into a shoebox, so I’ll give myself credit for that. 

Anyway, I wish I knew more about Caroline’s finances. Where did she get her money, how much was it, and how did she use it? I’m curious about this for her and also much more broadly. I understand, a bit vaguely, that women have had restricted financial rights until fairly recently. My memory tells me – I could look it up – that women could not get credit cards in their own names until the 1970s. Their abilities to get, say, mortgage or home loans were sharply limited.

My preconceptions are not entirely correct. By the mid-1800s, women in Massachusetts had some substantial property rights:

For instance, an 1833 statute expanded a widow's right to share her deceased husband's estate. Earlier measures allowed abandoned wives to regain limited rights to control property they lost upon marriage, and affirmed the legitimacy of [pre]nuptial contracts used by single women to retain control of their property after they married. (“Married Women's Property and Inheritance by Widows in Massachusetts: A Study of Wills Probated Between 1800 and 1850,” Richard H. Chusedt, Berkeley Women’s Law Journal, 1986:42).

By 1850, widows were more likely to be given preference over their sons in the husband’s will, and the wives had more control over the assets given to them. Daughters, too, had rights, although I’ll need to await the arrival of Fathers to Daughters: The Legal Foundations of Female Emancipation, by Peggy Rabkin, to learn more about what these rights were.

Caroline’s father Samuel died in 1858, her mother Mary followed in 1877, and Caroline inherited the family’s home on Water Street. Familial dynamics are often even more complicated than financial ones, and I wish I could tell you how and why their assets were distributed to their children. Like his mother, William died in 1877 while Edward lived another ten years and Samuel lived until 1895. Did the four children receive a quarter of their parents assets, as was the case in my family? (Literally: my father’s estate instructed an equal distribution to his four heirs.) Were the sons established in their own homes, so it made sense to give the family home to Caroline? When Caroline bought the Boston Back Bay property, had she obtained the resources from her inheritance? Her husband? And given that she bought it…why did she transfer ownership to her husband? To what extent were each of these decisions and actions motivated by love, or greed, or taxes?

I wonder what it’s like to come from, by American standards, old money. Or new money. When I’m writing this section in November 2025, Redfin lists a handful of homes for sale in Edgartown. Closer to the harbor, they start at around $10 million; the cheapest one listed in town is $1.35 million and its interior makes me think more Arkansas hillbilly than island sophisticate. Zillow estimates that the price of Caroline’s home on Water Street as over $11 million. It does have nine bedrooms and ten baths. 

At the Carnegie Heritage Center, Sissy advised me to check into the history of Carnegie’s wife, Louise Whitfield Carnegie.  The Carnegie biography I had read didn’t describe what his wife did after he died – the biography sort of stops with his last breath – and Sissy believed (correctly) that Louise focused her philanthropic efforts through the YWCA, among other organizations. Had she influenced her husband’s library project? Had she been involved with libraries on her own? I’m embarrassed that I have completely overlooked these questions. So far as I can tell, only a single biography of her has been written, and I’m now getting it. I’ll check back in on this later.

When I began to write about Sissy, I realized that I had paid almost no attention to what she looked like. She had blonde hair and was slender, and wore white jeans and a blue Martha’s Vineyard sweater. I looked her up on Facebook so that I could give a better description (blue eyes, bright white teeth, blue fingernails, preference for gold earrings, Barnard graduate). Sissy had a runner’s build, I thought, and the fact that her sister finished 2nd in the New York City Marathon seemed to confirm this. I could chalk up my indifference to her looks to general lack of awareness – plausible – or because a person’s appearance just doesn’t make that much difference to me. I’m usually more interested in what words come out of a person’s mouth than to the shape of their lips. One of my major weaknesses in graduate school was that I could remember in great detail what some scholar said and yet not who said it. (Was it Hegel, or Kant?) Scholars are supposed to be able to cite names, and not just ideas. I should take Kant (not Hegel) to heart: “Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.”

I had visited Martha’s Vineyard once before, when I was 20 years old. I was serving a term as First Vice President for the Explorers organization (Explorers was the wing of the Boy Scouts for teenagers. It was coed and career oriented.) and was visiting the President, Bob McMillen, who lived near Boston. I don’t remember what we did on the Vineyard, with one exception. We visited a bar and he introduced me to Black Russians, a drink consisting purely of Kahlua and vodka. That night I met the entire Black Russian family, got drunk as Boris Yeltsin, and barfed over the edge of the ferry on the trip back to the mainland. And that’s the one thing I remember about visiting this magnificent island?

On this visit I walked around the neighborhoods in Edgartown. The streets are lined with lush gardens and historic homes in one of two colors: white, or unpainted and with weathered shingles. I checked out AirBnB to see how much it would cost to spend the night here, and only one single property was available…for $4314/night (with four bedrooms, a gym, and a pool). Rich, indeed.