HISTORY Louis Pease Store, North Water Street, Edgartown Photo courtesy Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society mvy.com/history T he earth here tells the story erased elsewhere in New England. The famous Aquinnah Cliffs lay bare to geologists the history of the past hundred million years. Traveling the South Road to Aquinnah, one goes over low hills and valleys cut by streams that ran off melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age. The first humans probably came here before the Vineyard was an island. It is thought that they arrived after the ice was gone, but before the melting glaciers in the north raised the sea level enough to separate Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket from the mainland. Native American camps that carbondate to 2270 B.C. have been uncovered on the Island. The Wampanoag aboriginal lands on the southwestern end of the Island, a 3,400-acre peninsula called Aquinnah. At present, there are over 1300 members listed on the Tribal rolls. Of these, approximately 300 reside on the island of Martha’s Vineyard; approximately 110 live in the town of Aquinnah. Legend surrounds the much later arrival of the first white men. Some believe Norsemen were here about 1000 A.D. In 1524, Verrazzano sailed past and named the island Louisa. Other explorers gave different names, but the one that stuck was given in 1602 by Bartholomew Gosnold, who named it for the wild grapes and for his eldest daughter. Within 40 years of It was a long trip in 1910 from Oak Bluffs to people have lived for thousands of years on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. “Wampanoag” means “People of the First Light.” Before Europeans renamed the island Martha’s Vineyard, it was called Noepe by the Wampanoag which means “land amid the waters.” Many Aquinnah Wampanoag still live on the Gay Head Lighthouse, but it was always a favorite summer excursion for Marion Cargill and her father, Walter John Cargill. Photo courtesy JoAnn Cargill Ewing. Gosnold’s visit, all of New England was being claimed and divided up by Europeans. Thomas Mayhew, a Bay Colony businessman, bought Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands for 40 pounds. In 1642, the first white settlement on the Vineyard was established at Great Harbour, now Edgartown, under the leadership continued on next page 2020 -21 Travel Guide 111
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