#1 Outdoor Resource Guide Since 1998         A Member of the Cape Cod Outdoor Network

Inside Cape Cod Martha's Vineyard Cape CodNantucket

Martha's Vineyard History

Though the legend of Moshaup creating Martha's Vineyard with the sand from his moccasin is fun to relate, Martha's Vineyard was in fact created during the last ice age when the Laurentide ice sheet deposited the boulders and gravel it had carried along on its slow journey southward. As the ice sheet receded, the southernmost deposits became the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. The oceans began to rise with the melting ice, thus forming Nantucket Sound between these lovely islands and the equally lovely peninsula to the north known as Cape Cod.

As the climate warmed, American Indians began to migrate to the island, settling here some 5,000 years ago.

Legend has it that Viking explorers discovered the island back around A.D. 1000, but that story is very hard to prove--or disprove for that matter. What is known for sure is that in March 1602, English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold set off in his vessel Concord across the Atlantic to arrive months later along the coast of Maine. Farther south, he discovered Cape Cod and, on May 22, he arrived at Martha's Vineyard (Edgartown, to be more exact-- Cape Poge, Chappaquiddick to be even more exact), which he named for his daughter, Martha. Gosnold later attempted to establish a settlement on nearby Cuttyhunk Island, but abandoned the attempt, citing unfavorable living conditions.

Though there is a story of white settlers arriving as early as 1632, the official settlement of Martha's Vineyard, by Thomas Mayhew, Jr., would not occur until 1642. During the previous year, in October 1641, his father, also named Thomas Mayhew, a merchant of Watertown, and Thomas Jr. were deeded rights "to plant and inhabit" the islands of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the neighboring Elizabeth Islands by William, Earl of Sterling, a representative of Charles I.
Thomas Mayhew, Jr., brought a group of 80 to settle at Great Harbor, which later incorporated as Edgartown in 1671. The settlement was renamed by New York Governor Lovelace to honor Edgar, the son of the Duke of York, and was no doubt done to earn the favor of the royal family. Edgar was the 3-year-old nephew of King Charles, and because the King did not have children of his own, Edgar appeared to be heir to the throne. Unbeknownst to Lovelace, poor little Edgar died a month before the town's incorporation.

White settlers and American Indians quickly learned to live together in this island paradise. As they had at the Plymouth colony, the American Indians shared their farming and fishing skills with the settlers. Hostilities between the two groups were nonexistent, and even during the King Philip War of 1676-77 (which saw white settlers and Indians battling on the mainland) relations on the island remained friendly. Yet, this paradise turned to disaster for the American Indians as they began to fall in great numbers to the diseases brought by the white settlers. Around 3,000 Indians lived on Martha's Vineyard when Mayhew and his group first arrived. Within 30 years, the Indian population had been cut in half due to disease. Many of the surviving American Indians converted to Christianity because they believed the English settlers' god was protecting the settlers from the diseases that swept through the Native American community.

Very soon the settlers outnumbered the dwindling American Indians. By the middle of the 18th century there were perhaps only 500 American Indians remaining. Fortunately, pockets of them survived, and today half the population of the town of Aquinnah are Wampanoag Indians.

Back to top -->

Return to Martha's Vineyard -->