From the May 4, 1951 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
“I wish you could have talked with my mother,” Miss Eva Ryan told an interviewer recently, “I have no gift of the gab at all.” Miss Ryan, who lives in Lobsterville, is a descendant of the Gay Head Indians and knows a number of old legends, which were handed down to her by her mother.
Born at Gay Head, she spent thirty years of her life off-Island, twenty of which were taken up with a job she held at the Stern School in New Hampshire, and the other ten in Boston. “New Hampshire is beautiful country,” she said, “When I left, I couldn’t believe that I’d spent twenty years in the same place.”
After the Stern School closed, a casualty of the depression, she took a job in Boston, which she left to come back to the Vineyard in order to keep house for her brother Grover. “My brother told be not to come unless I wanted to, but I did want to. And,” she added, “the house is untidy enough as it is, even with me here.”
The untidiness, if any, was invisible to the casual observer. Miss Ryan had taken her visitor into an attractive room that was half sun porch, with a table in the broad window covered with potted plants, a bow and arrow hanging over the door, and the walls bright with oil paintings done by her brother. There were several pictures of Lobsterville fishing shacks, one winter study of a house and tree with ocean beyond, and the largest showed the Gay Head cliffs in all their profusion of color.
The house itself is more than a hundred years old, and belonged originally to Miss Ryan’s grandmother who had it moved to its present site. A small and attractive edifice, it sits back behind a rise and is hard to see from the Lobsterville road.
All the adjoining land is full of Indian tradition, and there are several old graves nearby. “It is said to be enchanted,” Miss Ryan said, “but I never paid any attention to that sort of thing myself.”
In the place where the Ryan garage is now built, there is the foundation of an old tepee said to have belonged to a woman named “Spaniard.”
“Weather she was a Spaniard or not I don’t know,” Miss Ryan remarked, “but old Deacon Jeffers, Linus Jeffers’ grandfather, used to say that he remembered going to see her when he was a boy, and she would give him things to eat.”
Whether enchanted or not, the land around the Ryan house is a good place to look for relics, and many beads and arrowheads, as well as domestic utensils have been found there. These relics, she thinks, probably were left by Indians who camped or lived there.
In the area known as East Pasture, there is a mound which, according to tradition, is the grave of an ancient chief. He is supposed to be buried in a sitting position, with all his weapons and other gear around him. This grave is circular, and ringed with stones. Her mother took her to see this burial place many years ago, Miss Ryan says and told her never to show anyone else where it was as she feared the grave might be desecrated by the curious.
Other graves are located near Max Eastman’s house and around the church.
Referring to the Indians that used to live down-Island, Miss Ryan mentioned that there was once a large settlement directly on the spot where Mohu, the large house belonging to Mrs. William M. Butler, now stands. Some of these may have been the ancestors of the Indians who later formed the congregation at Christiantown.
The clay works that once operated in East Pasture, and was known as Duncan’s Folly by the local people, is the source of another old story.
It seems that an Indian girl was out berrying in the vicinity with some of her people, and somehow she was separated from the rest of them. She wandered into the clay works and was astonished to see very dark men working there. They greeted her kindly, and led her through tunnels. She stayed there for a long time, and when she finally returned to her own people, she brought a number of the Africans with her. They settled at Gay Head, and intermarried with the Indians.
Behind the Manning house which once belonged to James Cooper, are a small hill and a pond. The pond is known as Witch Pond, and the story of this odd name is still extant.
One of the Gay Head Indians long ago was taller than any member of the tribe had ever been before or since. He was also gifted with prophecy. This huge man used to stand on the little hill overlooking the pond and stare out across the Sound. One day he saw a white whale rise and spout in the Sound and prophesied that that was the color of the race of people who would come one day and drive the Indian out. He is buried on the top of the hill where he used to watch. Miss Ryan has seen his grave, and she says that it is the longest grave she has ever seen.
“But I don’t remember much about these old stores,” Miss Ryan reiterates after reeling off all these fascinating yarns; “I just don’t have the gift of gab.”
Compiled by Hilary Wallcox
library@vineyardgazette.com
This article appears in May 1, 2026.