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Martha's Vineyard (including nearby Chappaquiddick Island), is an 89.48 square mile (231.75 km²) island off the southern coast of Cape Cod and is often known simply as "the Vineyard". Located in the American commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Vineyard makes up most of Dukes County, Massachusetts (the rest of the county consists of Cuttyhunk and the other Elizabeth Islands and the island of Nomans Land). It was home to one of the earliest known Deaf communities; consequently, a special dialect of sign language, Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, developed on the island. The island is now primarily known as a summer colony, though its year-round population has grown quite considerably since the 1960s, despite being accessible only by boat and by air. History Originally (and still) inhabited by the Wampanoag Indians, Martha's Vineyard was known in their language as Noepe, or "land amid the streams". It was named Martha's Vineyard by the English explorer, Bartholomew Gosnold, who sailed to the island in 1602. Gosnold's mother-in-law as well as his daughter, who died in infancy, were each named Martha. The original name of the island was Martin's Vineyard (after the captain of Gosnold's ship, John Martin); many islanders up to the 1700s called it by this name. The United States Board on Geographic Names worked to standardize placename spellings in the late 19th century, including the dropping of apostrophes. Thus for a time Martha's Vineyard was officially named Marthas Vineyard, but the Board reversed its decision in the early 20th century, making Martha's Vineyard one of the few placenames in the United States today with a possessive apostrophe. English Settlement had its orgins in the purchase of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands by Thomas Mayhew of Watertown, Massachusetts. Mayhew worked through the claims of two English "owners" of the islands and during his lifetime had friendly relations with the Wampanoags on the island in part because he was careful to honor their land rights as well. His son, also Thomas Mayhew, began the first English settlement in 1642 at Great Harbor (later Edgartown, Massachusetts). The younger Mayhew began a relationship with Hiacoomes, an Indian neighbor, which eventually led to Hiacoomes' family converting to Christianity. Ultimately, many of the tribe became Christian, including the paw-waws (spiritual leaders) and sachems (political leaders). It became arguably the first successful cross cultural church planting mission in the history of Protestantism (Eliot's work on the mainland began a few years later). By most evidence the Mayhew's approach was remarkably free of cultural imperialism so often a part of other missions of that and later eras. During King Phillip's War later in the century the Martha's Vineyard band did not join their tribal relatives in the uprising and remained armed, a testimony to the good relations cultivated by the Mayhew's as the leaders of the English colony. The younger Thomas Mayhew was lost at sea on a trip to England in 1657. The site of his farewell address became a memorial stone pile created by the Wampanoags which is preserved today. The elder Mayhew took over leadership of the English component of the Indian mission, and the Mayhew involvement continued for another three generations. Indian literacy in the schools founded by Mayhew and taught by Peter Folger, the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin, was such that the first Native American graduates of Harvard were from Martha's Vineyard, including the son of Hiacoomes. They were literate in Wampanoag, English, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Sadly, all of the early Indian graduates died shortly after completing their course of study. However, there were many native preachers on the island who also preached in the English churches from time to time. In 1683, Dukes County, New York was incorporated, including Martha's Vineyard. In 1691, the entire county was transferred to the newly formed Province of Massachusetts Bay, being split into Dukes County, Massachusetts and Nantucket County, Massachusetts. Like the nearby island of Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard was brought to prominence in the 19th century by the whaling industry, sending ships around the world to hunt whales for their oil and blubber. The discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania produced a cheaper source of oil for lamps and led to an almost complete collapse of the industry by 1870. After the Old Colony railroad came to mainland Woods Hole in 1872, summer residences began to develop on the island. Although the island struggled financially through the Great Depression, its reputation as a resort for tourists and the wealthy continued to grow. There is still a substantial Wampanoag population on the Vineyard, mainly located in the town of Aquinnah. Aquinnah (which means "land under the hill" in the Wampanoag language) was formerly known as Gay Head but was recently renamed its original Indian name. The linguist William Labov wrote his MA essay on changes in the Martha's Vineyard dialect of English. The 1963 study is widely recognised as a seminal work in the foundation of sociolinguistics. The island received international notoriety on July 18, 1969, when Mary Jo Kopechne was killed when a car driven by U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy drove off the Dike Bridge (also spelled Dyke Bridge). The bridge connected Chappaquiddick Island (which is next to the Vineyard and generally thought of as part of it) with an isolated barrier beach. As a foot bridge, it was intended for people on foot and bicycles, as well as the occasional emergency vehicle when conditions warranted them. Currently, all automobiles are allowed to cross the reconstructed bridge. On November 23, 1970, in the Atlantic Ocean just west of Aquinnah, Simas Kudirka, a Soviet seaman of Lithuanian nationality, attempted to defect to the United States by leaping onto a U.S. Coast Guard cutter from a Soviet ship. In what is known as a significantly embarrassing incident in modern American history (prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union), the Coast Guard allowed a detachment of KGB agents to board the cutter, and subsequently arrest Kudirka, taking him back to the then-Communist Soviet Union. Martha's Vineyard received further unwanted infamy on July 16, 1999 when a small plane crashed off its coast, claiming the lives of pilot John F. Kennedy, Jr., his wife Carolyn Bessette and her sister, Lauren Bessette. Kennedy's mother, former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, maintained a home in Aquinnah (formerly Gay Head) until her death in 1994. Martha's Vineyard received more world-wide attention when U.S. President William J. Clinton spent vacation time on the island during his presidency, along with his wife, future US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and their daughter Chelsea. While the Clintons have made the Island famous in recent years, during the 1800s another famous President Ulysses S. Grant was also a summer visitor, staying in a Gingerbread cottage in the Methodist campground in Oak Bluffs. In 1974, Steven Spielberg filmed the movie Jaws on Martha's Vineyard. Spielberg selected island natives Christopher Rebello for the part of Sheriff Brody's oldest son Michael Brody and Jay Mello for the part of the younger son Sean Brody. Scores of other island natives appeared in the film as extras. Later, scenes from Jaws 2 and Jaws the Revenge were filmed on the island as well. In June, 2005 the island celebrated the 30th anniversary of Jaws with a weekend long "JawsFest". Distressed over redistricting, in 1977, Martha's Vineyard tried to secede from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts along with the island of Nantucket to become the nation's 51st state *. On March 5, 1982, John Belushi died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles, California, and was buried four days later in Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark. On his gravestone is the quote: "Though I may be gone, Rock 'N' Roll lives on". Due to the many visitors to his grave and the threat of vandalism, his body was moved elsewhere within the cemetery. Many people visit his grave and in the summer it is often littered with beer cans, joints and other "tokens" for Belushi. In the summer of 2000, an outbreak of tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, resulted in one fatality and brought piqued the interest of the CDC who wanted to test the island as a potential investigative ground for aerosolized Francisella tularensis. Over the following summers, Martha's Vineyard was identified as the only place in the world where documented cases of tularemia resulted from lawn mowing. The research may prove valuable in preventing bioterrorism. Political geography Martha's Vineyard is made up of six towns: Access Martha's Vineyard is located approximately 3 miles off the southern coast of Cape Cod. It is reached by a ferry that departs from Woods Hole, Massachusetts and by several other ferries departing from Falmouth, New Bedford, Hyannis, and Quonset Point, Rhode Island. There is regularly scheduled air travel (in season from June-October) from Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC to the Martha's Vineyard Airport. Residents Locals refer to Martha's Vineyard as "The Island" or "The Vineyard" and its residents as "Islanders" or "Vineyarders". Its relatively small year round population has led to a very activist citizenry who are highly involved in the Island's day to day activities. Tourism, over-development, politics and many other subjects are of keen interest to the community. Keeping the balance between the much needed tourist economy and the ecology and wildlife of the island is of paramount importance. Due to its many high profile residents, movie stars, politicians, writers and artists also band together in fundraisers and benefits to raise awareness for the fragile ecosystem of the Vineyard. The best known celebrities that live or frequently visit "The Island" are president Bill Clinton, comedian and talk show host, David Letterman, and musician Carly Simon. Also, retired anchorman Walter Cronkite is a summer resident of Edgartown. Martha's Vineyard has also been or is home to a number of artists and musicians including Evan Dando, James Taylor, Willy Mason, and Unbusted, and Kahoots. Chilmark Edgartown Katama Oak Bluffs West Tisbury All Towns Edgartown Oak Bluffs Marthas Vineyards success in Hollywood Martha's Vineyard and the nearby Chappaquiddick Island played a major role in the sets of the movie Jaws. If you look hard enough in the movie you will be able to spot many of Martha's Vineyard's landmarks. The stores and Chappy ferry in Edgartown are particularly visible. Even now, years after the filming of the movie, residents will tell you what it was like to be an extra in the movie. The casting crew of the movie took most of their extras from the residents of the Island. The Inkwell is a 1994 romance-comedy-drama film, directed by Matty Rich. This movie stars Larenz Tate, Joe Morton, Suzzanne Douglass, Glynn Turman, and Vanessa Bell Calloway. The Inkwell is about a 16-year-old boy coming of age on Martha's Vineyard in the summer of 1976. Also in the movie Stuck On You, the main characters are from Oak Bluffs. They work at a restaurant that slightly resembles one of the restaurants on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs. And Merchant Ivory's The Bostonians (1984) also filmed there, and Vanessa Redgrave, Madeleine Potter and Jessica Tandy spent summertime. On the television show The X-Files, Fox Mulder was raised in Chilmark. Also on the television show Gilmore Girls there is an episode titled "A Vineyard Valentine" that takes place on the vineyard, however there are no recognizable landmarks. The popular movie Sabrina, starring Harrison Ford, has several scenes filmed on Martha's Vineyard Tourism The Vineyard grew as a tourist destination primarily because of its very pleasant summer weather (during summers, the temperature rarely breaks 90°F) and many beautiful beaches. Wealthy Boston sea captains and merchant traders formerly created estates on Martha's Vineyard with their trading profits. Today, the Vineyard has become one of the Northeast's most prominent summering havens, having attracted celebrities like The Clintons, Tom Welling, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jake Gyllenhaal and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ted Danson and Mary Steenbergen, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Peter Simon, Alfred Eisenstadt, Dan Aykroyd , Jim Belushi, and Donna Dixon, Spike Lee, Michael J. Fox, William F. Buckley, Alan Dershowitz, former US Senator Bill Bradley, Diana Ross, Beverly Sills, Art Buchwald, Walter Cronkite, Dorothy West, Mike Wallace, David Letterman, David McCullough, the late Katherine Graham, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. Grammy Award-Winning music artist Sheryl Crow had album cover stills taken here. A collection of these photos can be seen in her The Very Best of Sheryl Crow CD booklet. Martha's Vineyard is one of the traditional resorts of U.S.'s African-American upper class. Due to a long history of racial harmony on the island, many black families started vacationing there a century ago. The center of black culture on Martha's Vineyard is the town of Oak Bluffs, where many African American celebrities own houses. Its main beach has been dubbed "The Inkwell" by African-American residents. The island now boasts a year-round population of about 15,000 people in six towns; in summer, the population swells to 100,000 residents, with more than 25,000 additional visitors coming and going on ferries every day. The most crowded weekend is July 4. In general, the summer season runs from June to the end of August, correlating with the months most American children are not in school. Martha's Vineyard Airport links the island to the mainland with scheduled air carrier service from US Airways and Cape Air. The island has been designated an official American Viticultural Area and is home to the winemaker Chicama Vineyards in West Tisbury. Other popular attractions include the annual Illumination festival in Oak Bluffs; Katama Farm in Tisbury; and the Flying Horses in Oak Bluffs, the oldest carousel in the United States. Genetic deafness and sign language A high rate of genetic deafness was documented in Martha's Vineyard for almost two centuries. The island's deaf heritage cannot be traced to one common ancestor and is thought to have originated in the Weald, a region in the English county of Kent, prior to immigration. Researcher Nora Groce estimates that by the late 1800s, 1 in every 155 people on the Vineyard was born deaf (0.7 percent), almost 20 times the estimate for the nation at large (1 in 2,730, or 0.04 percent). Mixed marriages between deaf and hearing spouses comprised 65% of all deaf marriages in the late nineteenth century, (higher than the US average of 20%) and Martha's Vineyard Sign Language was commonly used by hearing residents as well as deaf ones until the middle of the twentieth century. This allowed deaf residents to smoothly integrate into society. In the twentieth century, tourism became a mainstay in the island economy. However, jobs in tourism were not as deaf-friendly as fishing and farming had been. Consequently, as intermarriage and further migration further joined the people of Martha's Vineyard to the mainland, the island community more and more resembled the wider community there. The last deaf person born into the island's sign language tradition, Katie West, died in 1952, but a few elderly residents were able to recall MVSL as recently as the 1980s when research into the language began. Education Martha's Vineyard is served by Martha's Vineyard Public Schools. Five of the six towns have their own elementary schools, while Aquinnah residents are closest to Chilmark's elementary school. Martha's Vineyard Regional High School, which is located in Oak Bluffs, serves the entire island. See also | |||||||
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