Chris Baer teaches photography and graphic design at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. He’s been collecting vintage photographs for many years.
Shugrue
Timothy Shugrue of Newburyport was only 8 years old when he was committed to reform school for larceny. A “natural thief” who had already been arrested several times for stealing, Shugrue had broken into a ship’s chandlery and smashed open a desk with a hatchet to steal $10. He “broke jail” once following his arrest, but was recaptured. And all before his ninth birthday.
His next five years consisted of alternating stints of residential reform school and short-term foster placements, until he was finally bound out to harness maker R.W. Crocker of Vineyard Haven in 1876. His terms with Crocker were simple: clothing, schooling, and board for the first year, $10 salary the second year, and $15 the third year. In return, Shugrue was put to hard labor in Crocker’s factory. Like many other teenage and preteen boys bound out to Crocker’s harness factory over the years, Shugrue was overworked and physically abused. He was regularly whipped with a six-foot trace for minor offenses. But unlike most of the other boys, when Crocker’s alleged crimes were finally brought to court, Shugrue ultimately testified for — rather than against -— his boss in court, claiming that his whippings had all been deserved. Mr. Crocker, whom Gratia Harrington once described as “more or less the town boss” of Vineyard Haven, was ultimately exonerated in the eyes of the state and town officials, and so Shugrue found himself with a powerful friend.
Young Shugrue soon became involved in the town’s cultural and charitable affairs. He became the bass drummer for the Vineyard Haven Band, and organized the parade for a new downtown water fountain. In 1890 he became secretary of the Royal Society of Good Fellows (a charitable fraternal order which met over what is now Leslie’s Drug Store.) He also became involved with the Ladies Library League of Vineyard Haven — photographed here in a detail next to Mrs. Clara Bodfish — which helped make the Vineyard Haven Public Library what it is today.
When Crocker’s harness business failed, Shugrue attempted several times to start up his own Vineyard Haven business, including a men’s clothing store, a laundry, and a small harness shop, but none of his enterprises lasted more than a couple of years. He is remembered best as the town’s night watchman, lighting and maintaining the oil street lamps throughout the downtown area. He died in 1907 of kidney failure, at the untimely age of 44.