Dylan Thomas
The birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses I rose in rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. – Dylan Thomas
July 30, 1999
Spirit of Aquinnah Is Based on Tribal Tradition of Consensus
As Gay Head entered the 1900s, it was one of the newest towns in the commonwealth. The English settlers at first considered it part of Chilmark, then decreed it an Indian district from 1855 to 1870, and finally granted it legal independence as the town of Gay Head in 1870. In creating the town, the…
People of the First Light Believe In Common Lands and Sharing of Ancient Aquinnah Traditions
We are members of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Wampanoag means “People of the First Light.” Aquinnah means “Land under the Hill.” We have survived on Noepe, “land amid the waters,” members of the Algonquin Nation and Eastern Woodland Indians. We are known as a praying tribe, along with the Chappaquiddick, Christiantown,…
Steamers of 20th Century Bound Island Ever Closer to Mainland
She was, quite simply, enormous. On those mornings or afternoons when she sailed past her older sister ship, it was possible to stand on the uppermost deck of the new steamship Islander and look down on the roof of the pilothouse of the sidewheeler Uncatena. Though only 21 years separated the launching of…
Riches of Whaling Industry Came to Frigid End As Vineyard Captains Lost Ships Off Alaska
You can name the place, date, and even the hour that whaling died as an industry on Martha’s Vineyard — 1:30 in the afternoon of Sept. 14, 1871, in a strip of icy water only 18 feet deep and barely wide enough for a whaling ship to swing in a full circle around her anchor.…
Distant Blazes of War Engulfed Island
For the sheep grazing in pastures above Vineyard Sound, the patches of weathered canvas beating toward Holmes Hole were barely worth a glance away from meals of September grass. Farmers, townspeople and public officials, however, greeted the approach of some four dozen English-flagged vessels with a bit more alarm. In 1778, coastal fishing, whaling and…
Rural Past Helps Fast Growing West Tisbury Envision Management of Island’s Future
West Tisbury, the youngest town on the Island, was created on April 28, 1892. But it was almost 300 years earlier, when Takemmy, the Algonquian word meaning “where one goes to grind corn,” was founded. Here along the up-Island streams the early settlers built mills to harness water power. “For generations thereafter,” said A…
