This plaque for Rebecca Amos has disappeared. —Elaine Weintraub
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Officials with the African-American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard are reporting that a plaque commemorating an enslaved woman has been stolen from Great Rock Bight Preserve in Chilmark.

Trail co-founder Elaine Weintraub notified Chilmark police of the incident on Wednesday, April 3. 

Weintraub says that the group is still deciding how to respond, though they can ill afford to spend the $1,000 required to replace the plaque. 

Affixed to a rock at the preserve, the plaque honoring Rebecca Amos had marked the historic site for 20 years. The site is the second stop on the African-American Heritage Trail following Shearer Cottage. 

Weintraub says that this is the first-ever case of vandalism at the trail. “In the view of our board of directors, it’s a malicious destruction of a historical site,” she said.

Rebecca Amos, also known as Beck, lived in Chilmark in the 18th century until her death in 1801. What is known of her comes from the firsthand account of a Vineyarder named Remember Cooper.

Amos was born in Guinea before being taken in the slave trade, and ended up on the Chilmark estate of slaveowner, Cornelius Bassett. In 1779, Amos would see two of her children, Nancy, age 7, and Pero, age 18, sold to Joseph Allen of Tisbury.

Amos was also married to a Wampanoag man, Elisha Amos, with whom she sometimes lived. Since Amos acquired land in the 1750s and ’60s, and due to Massachusetts law at the time of her husband’s death, Rebecca gained the title to a field at Great Rock Bight for the rest of her lifetime. “Rebecca died a free woman in this place,” the plaque read.

Amos’s descendants also have notable histories. Nancy’s grandson, William Martin (stop #14 on the trail), was born in 1829, and became the only African-American Whaling Captain from Martha’s Vineyard.

Weintraub noticed the disappearance of the plaque over the weekend, during a trip to Great Rock Bight Preserve to observe the plaque’s new location. At the end of December, the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank moved the plaque from a more obscure spot near the beach to nearby the preserve’s parking lot.

“You could see where [the plaque] had been,” she recalls. “My first thought [was] that [the Land Bank] must have been doing something. You know how you assume there’s a rational explanation for everything?””

Weintraub then called Harrison Kisiel, the Land Bank’s Land Superintendent, who didn’t know what happened to the plaque or where it had gone. “The people who did the moving [in December] said as far as they knew, the plaque was there,” Weintraub says.

Kisiel officials confirmed with The Times that they were unsure what happened. “It came to our attention that sometime over the past two weeks, somebody somehow etched it off the rock,” Kisiel said.

Weintraub is unsure how the trail will address the incident, but she says that spending the $1,000 needed to replace the plaque is not feasible. “It’s not something we can kind of just reach into our back pocket and get,” she says.

“It’s a huge loss to us, but it’s also very unsettling,” Weintraub says of the incident.

A new plaque would largely be too expensive because the trail has a few significant projects in the works already. By the end of this summer, it will add two locations, reaching 39 in total. These will be a former boarding house featured in the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, and the former site of Ambler Wormley’s gas station.

The trail has also been planning a sculpture project honoring Amos in Chilmark. “We have plans to have a stainless steel sculpture at the Teaching Farm at North Road … which Barney Zeitz is going to work on,” Weintraub said. She hopes to have the local sculptor’s piece installed by the end of the year.

Weintraub has also looked into insuring all heritage trail sites following the disappearance.

Weintraub says that the police suggested some youth might be behind the disappearance. “I can’t speculate about what was on the mind and heart of the person who did it,” she says.

She also hopes that the police’s hunch is correct, and that this can be a teachable moment, instead of a sign of something more insidious. “I would have great faith that they could be educated to understand the difference. What would be a lot more distressing is if it’s not [the case],” she said. “We all know that [in] the world we’re living in at the moment, there is a great deal of hatred. We’re horrified at the thought that that could be behind this.”

Weintraub says that there are no security cameras nor permanent guard at the site, and that the plaque could not have easily been removed.

Before the plaque was relocated in December, the plaque had become a sort of shrine to Amos, Weintraub said. “Visitors used to leave rocks, shells, flowers, all kinds of things. It was spontaneous. And it became a sort of gesture to Rebecca,” Weintraub said. “[The theft] is not only an insult to Rebecca and the trail, but to the hundreds and hundreds of people who’ve paid their respect.”

“In the best of all worlds,” Weintraub said,” somebody will feel guilty and return it.”

Sergeant Garrison Vieira of the Chilmark Police Department says the incident is under investigation, though at this point no information is available.

20 replies on “Heritage Trail reports stolen plaque”

    2. Thank you. I hike that trail regularly and always stop for a moment of contemplation at this extraordinary woman’s memorial. I signed on here to ask where to send a donation.

    3. I am confused. This gofundme was initially to be for $1000 for replacement of the plaque. Now it is for a $12,000 sculpture. While that’s also a wonderful idea, it is not what I contributed to. I wasn’t aware you could change a gofundme in mid-raise. Anyone shed light on this change?

      1. Geraldine. The Go Fund Me that was linked earlier was a pre existing campaign for another Heritage Trail project. The person who linked it was mistaken in representing that it had to do with the replacement of the plaque. The organization themselves did not change any campaign or the amount of the GO Fund Me for the sculpture.

      2. The go fund me was originally set up 3 weeks ago long before the theft of the plaque honoring Rebecca. We were only aware of the theft of the plaque on April 1. We did not launch a go fund me for replacing the stolen plaque at any time. Our concept as explained on our go fund me is to build a permanent monument to Rebecca on private land where it will be safer. (Teaching Farm Notth Road in Chilmark). When the story broke about the theft of the plaque we were asked by the local papers what it would cost to replace it. We did not create a new go fund me for the missing plaque replacement there wasn’t time. People began to donate to the existing go fund me motivated by the theft of our most sacred site. We will write to each donor confirming that we will replace the plaque as soon as it can be delivered. (Generally about six weeks) We will also ask if they wish their contribution to be included toward the plaque or the permanent monument. I want to make it really clear that we did NOT set up a go fund me for the plaque at all and that our monument go fund me had been operative for three weeks prior to the theft. Hope this clarifies everything for you.

  2. Sad, very Sad. No … Despicable. What is happening to our Island? Answer: It’s losing its identity just like the rest of our great country.

  3. The scrap metal thieves are always on the prowl for a few more ounces of brass, currently trading at approx $2.50 a lb.
    Yes, unconscionable, but it points to the wisdom of engraving the stone or a less expensive painted porcelain plaque.
    Hopefully better options are considered.

    1. You don’t honestly think that the motivation for laboriously prying off this plaque was scrap value? Plus, any scrap dealer looking at this plaque would guess it was stolen.

    2. With some the of racial rhetoric on Island I doubt that the $2.50 a pound was a significant factor.
      $15 max, off island.

  4. Very sorry that anyone could do this.
    The police need to check out the access roads neighborhood homes for any security cameras. Look at all of the vehicles that were in and out and or people acting suspicious.
    I’m positive that they will find a few people who fit with a past criminal background.

    1. Mr. Axel, I don’t see any “outrage” here, just real dismay that someone would damage a historical marker. Any historical marker, or monument, would, I believe elicit a similar reaction if defaced or stolen.

      2. John is still waiting to make sure it wasn’t David Copperfield again. He got fooled with the Statue of Liberty trick in the 90’s and has never recovered.

    2. John, we know what happened.
      A plaque about a Black women was removed.
      The removal is clearly outrageous.
      The Island has it’s racists.

  6. I always loved visiting this marker and the little shrine along the trail and was sad to see it had been moved into the parking lot. Her story is inspiring. It would be good to understand why it was moved. Is there any way it could go back into its original space, when this is resolved? Thank you for the GoFund Me info.

    1. Was it wrong to set up as GoFundMe page?
      Should the replacement be funded by tax money?
      What should happen to the perp?
      Probation like many of the J6 racists, who smashed federal property?

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