New Light House at Gay Head
Vineyard Gazette

We learn from Samuel Flanders, Esq., that a light house is to be erected at Gay Head the coming fall. It is to be located about five or six rods back of the present one. The light, at an altitude of 60 feet, will be seen by mariners over Noman’s Land, which will be of great service. A new dwelling house is also to be erected. An appropriation of $13,000 was made at the last session of Congress to cover the expense of constructing these buildings.

 

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Gay Head School Out for Summer and for Good
Edith Blake
High on a windy promontory at the end of the Island stands the Gay Head School. It is a one-room school with all the traditional trimmings, from flag to red paint, that one-room schools are supposed to have. Outside there is a playground and a pond, and inside there are actually two rooms, but one is used as a kitchen-storeroom-catch-all sort of place and the other is a classroom.
 
For the past eleven years, Mrs. James Manning has been the teacher at the school, teaching kindergarten through the fourth grade to a varying number of children.
 
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Historic Transfer of Indian Lands Signed
W.C. Platt
The town of Gay Head signed the deed conveying the ancestral Wampanoag Indian Common Lands to the federal government yesterday, ending a protracted legal struggle for the tribe with quiet agreement.
 
The face of the Gay Head Cliffs, the Herring Creek and the cranberry bogs will be under the control of the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head Inc. as the representative of the Gay Head Wampanoag Tribe.
 
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When Gay Head Was Still Just a District
Vineyard Gazette
A collection of old documents dating far back in the last century has been unearthed in the old Jeffers house at Gay Head by Lorenzo D. Jeffers, the present owner of the estate of his ancestors. These documents consist of letters, ledgers, bills and notations kept by Thomas Jeffers, grandfather of the present owner.
 
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Island Is Special, Secretary Udall Says at Gay Head
Peter S. McGhee
In a friendly but eloquent mixture of encouragement, advice and warning to the whole Island, Secretary of the Interior Steward L. Udall formally dedicated the colorful clay cliffs of Gay Head as a National Landmark on Saturday afternoon.
 
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Aquinnah Sites Reveal 10,000 Years of Wampanoag History
Louisa Hufstader

A 2001 Aquinnah bylaw requiring archaeological reviews of proposed building sites has unearthed scores of significant discoveries.

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Aquinnah Officially Turns 20, But Gay Head Name Endures
Landry Harlan

Just over 20 years ago this week, the Island’s smallest town voted to rebrand itself from Gay Head to Aquinnah, the area’s original Native American name.

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Menemsha Opening
Vineyard Gazette

The board of Harbor and Land Commissioners seems to have come to a satisfactory understanding on the question of the boundary line between Gay Head and Chilmark. There flows from Menemsha pond a small channel to Vineyard Sound, which shifts from time to time.

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Gay Head
Vineyard Gazette
The following is a copy of the bill incorporating the new town of Gay Head.
 
Sect. 1. The district of Gay Head is hereby abolished, and the territory comprised therein is hereby incorporated into a town by the name of Gay Head. And said town of Gay Head is hereby invested with all the powers, privileges, rights and immunities, and subject to all the duties and requisitions to which other towns are entitled and subject by the constitution and laws of this Commonwealth.
 
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Having Faith in the Power of History
Louisa McCullough

Established in 1693, the Gay Head Community Baptist Church is the oldest continuously operating Native American Baptist Church in the country.

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