The pastoral sheep pastures and hayfields at Flat Point Farm will be placed into conservation after the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank announced plans to purchase a large piece of the West Tisbury farm.

The land bank is set to purchase 12.9 acres of land and an agricultural preservation restriction on an additional 25 acres of abutting pastures for $3.45 million from the Fischer family, who has owned the property since 1939, land bank director James Lengyel said this week.

Elisha R. Smith, an Oak Bluffs farmer for more than three-quarters of a century and for more than two decades the president of the Martha’s Vineyard Agricultural Society, died last Friday at his home in Vineyard Haven at the age of 90. It was thanks to his determination, hard bargaining and skill at dealing with people that, in 1992, the society acquired the land that is the site of today’s Agricultural Hall. The acquisition of that West Tisbury Panhandle property where the annual fair is held was one of the proudest moments of his life, Elisha Smith said.

Anthony Lewis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who brought his passion for justice and free speech to a career spanning more than a half century, died Monday. A long-time seasonal resident of West Tisbury, he was 85.

Mr. Lewis died of complications of heart and renal failure at his Cambridge home, said his wife, Margaret H. Marshall, former chief justice of the state Supreme Judicial Court. Private services were held Wednesday, the day he would have turned 86.

A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m., May 23, at The Memorial Church at Harvard University.

The Edgartown conservation commission approved a large, complicated project Wednesday to move a Wasque Point home threatened by erosion. The approval comes after months of discussion during which town boards, experts and residents grappled with the environmental and logistical details of the project while faced with the urgency of a rapidly-eroding coastal bluff.