From the Nov. 22, 1929 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:

While not entirely unlike that of the rest of New England, the language of Martha’s Vineyard has some unusual characteristics.

Among the early English words sometimes heard on the Vineyard, we note the following: “fleet” used in the sense of to move from one place to another, “clever” meaning good natured or kind, “tole” to entice, “lockram” an improbable story and “housen,” the latter word being, to our knowledge, used in but one section of the Island.