The Vincent House in Christmas past
Thanksgiving is over, so it’s on to the next holiday. In a first for Vineyard Preservation Trust, you can step back in time at the Vincent House Christmas in Edgartown. On Saturdays through Dec....
Honoring oral history curator Linsey Lee
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s Oral History Curator, Linsey Lee, has been a tireless advocate for giving voice to hundreds of Vineyarders in some 1,600 interviews over the last 35 years, building a rich tapestry...
Protection and recovery of native artifacts
The graves of American Indians have been desecrated from the time of the arrival of the Pilgrims to the present day. During the late 1800s and into the 20th century, museums and other institutions...
This Was Then: So — where are the vineyards?
When people first learn about Martha’s Vineyard, they ask us some obvious questions, like, “Who was Martha?” and “So, where are the vineyards?”
After dancing around the first (not-so-easy) question, we go on to hem...
This Was Then: Parachutes and peacock plumes
By the mid-1890s, Cottage City (Oak Bluffs) was a resort town in decline.
Massive fires had claimed the two largest landmarks in town — the Sea View Hotel and the Casino — in 1892, together...
Mystery and history
Marian Pierre-Louis is a sleuth — or, more precisely, a house historian. She has been doing this sort of deep research into the history of houses since about 2000, discovering fascinating facts about hundreds...
This Was Then: Boundaries
Before 1870, Martha’s Vineyard was divided into just three towns: Tisbury (named after a village in Wiltshire), Chilmark (an adjacent village in Wiltshire), and Edgartown (named after the Duke of York’s deceased toddler).
But the...
This Was Then: Dr. Leach’s Marine Hospital and Poor Farm
In late 1857, a new doctor arrived on the Island. His name was Dr. Leach, and he would set the course of hospital care on the Island for the next 20 years.
Dr. William Leach...
This Was Then: A slain Island hero
Joseph Hamel was quahogging in the Acushnet River with his friend George about 9 o’clock in the morning on June 9, 1891, when he spotted a slender young Irish-American man in light-striped pantaloons standing...
This Was Then: Frog Alley Hospital
On July 19, 1855, Ferdinand Weinreicke, a 19-year-old Newburyport resident and Prussian native, was working as a crewman aboard the schooner Chas. H. Rogers. The vessel was headed to Newburyport from Philadelphia with a...
The origins of West Tisbury’s New Lane
New Lane in West Tisbury exists because of a clothesline.
In the early days, the Tiah’s Cove Road originated at the two granite posts that still mark the entrance to Cleaveland House, and ran in...
Embracing the American dream
Every community has its stories tucked away and almost forgotten, but as long as someone remembers, the story is not lost. There are many people whose lives of everyday heroism and refusal to give...
This Was Then: The Jetties
Until a major storm reconstructed our coastline around 1725, Cape Poge and the whole northern tip of Chappaquiddick — the landmasses we sometimes refer to as Great Neck and Little Neck — were a distinctly...
This Was Then: Tallman’s octagon
Henry Beetle Hough, in his 1936 book “Martha’s Vineyard, Summer Resort,” listed the Island’s five most colorful, outward-facing characters of the late 19th century: a “bell ringer at the camp meeting,” “a somewhat mad...
Grants for good
What do the Sankofa African American Literature and Culture Festival, Pride Festival in Oak Bluffs, the Aquinnah Artisans Festival, Women in Film Festival, Built on Stilts, Cinema Circus, M.V. Chamber Music Society, Ungrateful Taking,...
Art and history
Vineyard Haven Harbor Cultural District (VHHCD) is far more than the sum of its parts. Founded in 2014, it is one of the biggest cultural districts in Massachusetts, and the only one with a...
This Was Then: Mephitis mephitis
Updated 1-5-2024
Skunks have lived on Martha’s Vineyard for at least four or five hundred years. (Except, that is, for about 50 of them. We’ll get to that shortly.) Nantucket, on the other hand, hosts...
Boston Tea Party recognition at Chilmark library
Once upon a time, there was the Boston Tea Party … and that’s not likely a new piece of history for you. But on its 250th anniversary, Dec. 16, at 3 pm, we will...
This Was Then: Dave Curney
At 3:45 am on Friday, Jan. 18, 1884, the 275-foot steamer City of Columbus, bound for Savannah from Boston, struck Devil’s Bridge off Gay Head, and sank beside the treacherous rocks. Despite the heroic...
This Was Then: Here and there
The English settled Martha’s Vineyard from the outside in; early colonial settlements clustered around natural harbors and mill-powering streams, mostly near the periphery of the Island. The dry interior — that scrubby triangle formed...