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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 (both forming a part of the Outer Lands region) and is often known simply as "the Vineyard". Located in the U.S. state 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. Many residents claim, due to the extremely large amounts of tourism year round, the island has become a much more expensive place to live, and the tourism has been known to cause islanders to move away to other states. 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 origins 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 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 Mayhews 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 crossed Pocha Pond on Chappaquiddick Island (A smaller island connected to the Vineyard and part of Edgartown). 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, 4x4 vehicles with passes 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 United States 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 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 [1]. 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 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. Research Tips
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