Vincent's Paper Store

Capt. George Cleveland's sister, Rosanna Baker "Rose" Cleveland (1882-1946) married a local Vineyard Haven store owner, Charlie "Duffy" Vincent (1879-1933). George and Rose's father, Henry Cleveland (1848-1929), worked here as well. The family sold newspapers, cigars, and candy at this store for seventy-five years.

Henry Cleveland worked in the store during his retirement years. For many years he was a harnessmaker, employed at the Crocker Harness Factory, and later he worked as a hostler for Walter H. Renear's livery business until, according to his obituary, "age and infirmity forced his retirement" sometime after 1907. His obituary states, "In his later years, when he spent much time about the store of his son-in-law, he was well-known to hundreds of summer visitors, who developed a great fondness for this quiet, congenial old gentlemen and who loved to listen to his stories of old days in the livery business. … A veteran of the age of horses Mr. Cleveland had many thrilling experiences with the animals, from which he did not always escape unscathed."

Stan Lair said: "Charlie Vincent's Paper Store, and candy, tobacco, fresh roasted peanuts, and so forth. At the back of this store was a great gathering place for the old-timers to sit around the old pot-bellied stove there, and smoke, spit and talk. Yes, they had spittoons back there! And Charlie always enjoyed chewing the rag with them. Charlie was quite a baseball fan. He enjoyed sports. Mr. Cleveland - that was Charlie Vincent's father-in-law - would sit out in front of the store in the summertime on a soda box, turning the handle on a peanut roaster. It was a funny-looking thing. Had a big drum on it, I would say maybe fifteen, eighteen inches in diameter, had a handle on the end, and under it was a fire of some sort. I presume it was either kerosene-operated or alcohol-operated, or something like that. He'd sit out there and crank that thing and roast peanuts, oh for hours at a time. Once in a while he would give us a couple of peanuts. This was a store where we always bought our penny candy, and of course it was bought after a lot of deliberation of course, as it is today by the kids. Today it is Mardell's Gift Shop. ... Charlie Vincent was called "Duffy", Duffy Vincent. I think he was named, sort of a nickname for Duffy Lewis, who was one of the fielders of the old Red Sox team. And that name was acquired by Charlie. He liked to play baseball in his younger days. But he ran that store for a long time."

Connie (Downs) Leonard on Charlie Vincent's store:
"Penny candy. Oh yes, he had good penny candy. And he also sold newspapers and cigars. But it was penny candy that… oh yes. It was a very small store. It really was. But later, quite a long time later, his wife Rose became interested in a program that Dennison Company were developing making decorations and things out of crepe paper. They did a lot with colored crepe paper, the Dennison Company. So Rose found out, I guess she took some lessons on how to make all of these very pretty things, she sort of did that on the side in the store."

"I 'specially went there for penny candy. Those long black licorice I think about that long. Kind of like rubber. And sort of the squirrel bars, you know the peanut bars. There wasn't a great variety. Gumdrops and things. But never great variety."

"Rose used to sit down here - made these things out of crepe paper. In fact, when I got married she made a wedding bell - it was beautiful. She gave it to me as a gift. It was hung up over my head. She made some very pretty things that people bought."

"Duffy. He was always known as Duffy."

Dorothy Brickman on Vincent's Paper Store:
"Oh, that was special. Oh, do I remember that. I tell you, if I were an artist I would draw the picture for you! I remember that store when I was about three years old. The winters were very, very cold here. And sometimes, you know, we wouldn't have boats here three or four days on end. The tugboats used to come in. And so [Charlie Vincent] had a big potbellied stove in that store, and I can just see the men sitting around with their feet on the stove. And then he had these great big boxes filled with merchandise I guess. Those boxes always seemed to be there. I remember a story from the Gazette, 'Why don't you unpack your boxes, Charlie?' And he said 'If I unpack them, I'll have to sell them and order again.' I don't know if the boxes ever got unpacked or not!

"My mother dressed me in a little red teddy bear suit and I would go down there probably to buy some chocolate, maybe. We never had much money, but they had the old fashioned candy store's glass jars, you know, with penny candy. We didn't eat a lot of candy in our family. I remember there was wrapped candy - Tootsie Rolls, too, I think - but wrapped candy, maybe, is what I had. And they would sit there on those big boxes and I don't know what I did for them, I must have told a little story, or maybe they asked me questions, but there were all those old seamen there. And I remember that store, it was kind of dark. The boxes weren't unpacked. There was the stove in the middle there. And Mr. Vincent always wore a sweater. And I just remember a lot of men in there, it was kind of like a community center. I remember there was one man, Bert West, who always had a bag of peanuts. I think he lived on upper Main Street. He used to be in there I think. I think he bought his peanuts there. But he always gave me peanuts. He always had a little white bag of peanuts.

"In those early days, nothing was open on Sundays. And usually nothing was open in the evenings, either. But on Sundays, that was a big day. I would go down the street to Vincent's. There would be a great big long line, because Mrs. Vincent was the one, the mother and the wife, who really handled the Sunday paper business. That was a big thing - that was a big thing! Because she didn't open the doors until I think it was like one o'clock and a great big long line of people waiting. The best picture I can give you is she presided over her papers. I mean they were all put together, and the crowd would come in, and you know papers were saved for people when you bought your paper. She was a very beautiful lady. Her hairdo, her white hair was always done so nicely, and she had her lovely suit on, a pretty white lace blouse. And she was behind that counter and she really presided over her papers. I remember there was the Sunday Advertiser, I remember, and then there was the Boston Herald. I don't about the New York papers. There was the New York Tribune, Herald Tribune I think it was called. There was the [New Bedford] Standard Times, I think it was called.

"So anyway Vincent's Paper Store was a very, very interesting chapter of the old days on Main Street. It was really a lovely old picture that could have been on a Saturday Evening Post cover. You know, the big boxes, and the stove in the middle, and the seamen, and the men from the tugboats."

Charles Vincent died in 1933. Vincent's News Stand continued under the management of Vincent's widow Rose until her death in 1946, and then under their son Morton until 1974. Today Mardell's Gift Shop is at this location, and still sells many of the same items that Vincent's offered.

For more information about Vincent's Paper Store, see http://history.vineyard.net/mainst/six/27/index.html.