For 110 years, Shearer Cottage has been a tentpole for the Black community on Martha’s Vineyard and a gathering place for the great and humble alike. Photo courtesy of the town of Oak Bluffs

What: Shearer Cottage Opens
When: Summer 1912
Where: Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard 

• Charles and Henrietta Shearer launched what was to become one of the most important institutions in Martha’s Vineyard history in the summer of 1912: a 12-room inn that would offer lodgings to African Americans like the Shearers, at time when few lodging houses and inns would rent to non-whites. 
• The inn would go on to be a gathering spot for the greats of the Harlem Renaissance and Black political heavyweights in the 1910s and 1920s. Over the next 100 years, it helped create a community in Oak Bluffs where Black visitors to the Vineyard could feel welcomed and celebrated amid an all-too-frequently hostile world. 
• With Lee Jackson Van Allen as its keeper, the inn is now in its fourth generation of family ownership and in the middle a major renovation in preparation for the 2023 summer season – and its next 100 years. 

Quote: 

“There is no island history without Oak Bluffs, and there is no Oak Bluffs history without Shearer Cottage.” 

— Heather Seger, executive director, Martha’s Vineyard Museum 

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Banker & Tradesman is highlighting significant moments in the history of Massachusetts’ real estate and banking industries. To suggest a topic, email editorial@thewarrengroup.com.