The History of Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard, the one hundred square mile island, five miles off of the coast of Cape Cod, along with Nantucket and Cape Cod, was created approximately 2.5 million years ago when huge blocks of ice, some of which were up to two miles thick, from the north, progressed into Europe and North America. As the ice moved south it pushed large chunks of earth and rock before it. About 20,000 year's ago the ice began to slow down. It was during this time that Martha's Vineyard, in addition to Nantucket and the Elizabeth Islands, was attached to the mainland and humans traveled to the area and began to settle. When the ice gradually melted, the sea levels rose and the attachment to the mainland disappeared under the sea.

Sand, clay, and rocks were left behind after the glacier disappeared which helped to create the island terrain. Hilly areas can be found on the island, which are more prevalent on the western side of the Vineyard. These were formed by glacial debris.

There are numerous theories addressing who first arrived on Martha's Vineyard. Some believe that the Vikings first attempted to settle the island 500 years before Columbus landed in America, but that the inhabitants resisted their arrival. Available information does not indicate that they ever landed here. In 1524, Giovanni di Verrazano named the island Louisa, yet he never actually visited the island. The famous Verrazano Bridge in New York is named after him.

The English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold discovered the island of Martha's Vineyard in 1602. He named the island for his baby daughter, Martha. Before Bartholomew Gosnold arrived, the island inhabitants were the Wampanoag people. The first Wampanoag and his dog, it is said, floated to the island on an ice cake. The Vineyard's Native Americans who still inhabit the island are part of the Algonquin language group that inhabited most of the northeast before the first white man arrived.

It was almost forty years after Gosnold's visit that Thomas Mayhew, a merchant from Watertown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, purchased the Vineyard, Nantucket, and Noman's Land, (which is part of the Elizabeth Islands) from the English lords. It was his son, Thomas Mayhew Jr., who really left his mark on the island, for he became a much-loved missionary to the Wampanoags. In 1657,when family affairs called him back to England, his ship tragically disappeared at sea.

When he did not return, his father took over his missionary activities, and in later years, Thomas Jr.'s son Matthew carried on his work. The Wampanoags and the new settlers of Martha's Vineyard always dwelt together amicably, history says, with the Wampanoags sharing their knowledge of fishing, hunting, and farming with the white settlers. The Native Americans hunted whales in their canoes with somewhat ineffective spears. The white men soon developed more sophisticated harpoons. When islanders traveled out to sea as whalers, many of the population gained renown as harpooners. In his novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville, portrayed the harpooner Tashtego, as one of the Vineyard tribe.

The settlers cut down trees, tilled lands and built houses; first at Great Harbour, today's Edgartown, then in Tisbury, which is today's West Tisbury. Chilmark was the next settlement, and finally, Holmes Hole, now Vineyard Haven and Oak Bluffs. Gay Head which has now been renamed Aquinnah, remained the home of the Wampanoags.

The settlers raised sheep on the cleared land and wove wool; made bricks from the Vineyard's clay and cured or smoked the fish, much of which they exported to the West Indies. It was from the sea, whether from fishing, whaling or merchant sailing- that for two centuries most islanders made their living.

Then the revolution began. At first, many islanders were opposed to it on economic grounds, but they came to support it after the British fleet blockaded the mouth of the Vineyard Sound and several island boats en route to the mainland for food, were captured or sunk.

This led to what is reported to have been one of the earliest engagements of the war. A Holmes Hole man rowed out in his whale boat to an anchored, armed schooner, and threatened to blow up it's rudder if the captain did not surrender. The captain refused to give up and the rudder was destroyed.

In another instance, the English demanded the Liberty Pole, at which patriotic gatherings were held, to be a mast for one of their ships. After it had been taken, three daughters of Holmes Hole rowed out at night to where it was being kept, drilled holes in it, filled them with gunpowder, and exploded it rather than let the English use it. As it turned out, the Vineyard suffered relatively little from the Revolution and in its aftermath. The island did well with its shipping, fishing and whaling. But the 1830's saw a change begin as its years as a summer resort got underway.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a notable summer guest in Edgartown in 1830. In the 1840s, Daniel Webster paid the island a visit. In 1835, enthusiastic Methodists established a site for summer camp meetings at today's Eastville. In the 1860s President Ulysses S. Grant attended a gathering of the Camp Meeting Association and is said to have been so inspired by it, that he might have quit politics for religion had aides not intervened.

Meanwhile, after the discovery of petroleum in 1859 and the Civil War, vineyard whaling, which had been thriving, began to slow down, and in the first quarter of this century, merchant shipping in this area diminished in importance. Commercial fishing continued, but not on the scale it had once been. Farming, also declined and increasingly tourism became the most important ingredient for the island economy.

For those early tourists, who were not religious campground visitors, hotels and inns were built. Then visitors began to arrive for whole summers and wanted houses of their own. Since the 1960's, with few interruptions, house construction has boomed on the Vineyard. The green spaces and the endless white sand beaches, to which, for more than a century, tourists have come, have begun to be in danger. Happily, some islanders have realized this and are making efforts to keep development in check.

While he was President, Bill Clinton and his family enjoyed regular visits to Martha's Vineyard. Singers James Taylor and Carly Simon have long called the Vineyard their summer home. During the past decade, the island has increasingly become a vacation retreat for many of the rich and famous. Martha's Vineyard, with all of its diversity, offers something for everyone. Whether it's solitude or excitement that you seek, you will find it somewhere within the island's boundaries.