The history of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum is the latest sponsored collection to be added to the Time Machine, the Vineyard Gazette’s online tour through Island history.
More than 2,000 Portuguese family histories are included in a manuscript being prepared by the Dukes County Historical Society.
The document chronicles the arrival of Portuguese immigrants to the Vineyard, particularly the whaling crews recruited in the Azores and Cape Verde in the 19th century. It includes mention of approximately 7,000 individuals and 2,350 families, whose descendents today make up a significant portion of the Island’s year-round population.
The Dukes County Intelligencer is well on its way, according to Gale Huntington, its editor. The quality of the publication may possibly be judged by a sample of some of its surplus. These items were rejected by Eleanor Mayhew when she wrote her account of Christiantown:
For 73 years, the Dukes County Historical Society has been the resource for those interested in the history, genealogy, culture and natural history of Martha’s Vineyard.
But institutions need to move with the times. At the society’s annual meeting on August 19, the membership voted to change the name of the organization. From now on, the gate house at the corner of School and Cook streets in Edgartown will read Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society.
“What’s in a name?” asked Romeo. The answer the Society expects, will be recognition.
Vineyard Voices: Words, Faces and Voices of Island People. Excerpts from Interviews by Linsey Lee. Photographs by Linsey Lee and Mark Lennihan. Martha’s Vineyard: the Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society, 1998. 296 pages. $29.95, soft cover.
The Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society doesn’t have a whaling ship for its museum, nor a schooner. Although there is plenty of maritime history connected to the Vineyard, such great vessels would be too much of a burden to maintain. But the historical society does have an attractive old catboat and soon it will sail again.
Some of the relics from the Port Hunter that were salvaged this summer by a group of young and enterprising Vineyard skindivers from that “ghost ship” sunk on Hedge Fence Shoal in November, 1918, have been presented to the Dukes County Historical Society. They are now on display in the Squire Cooke House, and serve as real life illustrations of the two informative articles written by Sammy Hart Low which appeared in the Gazette recently, illustrated by pictures he had taken.
A new fireproof building to house the priceless records and collections of the Dukes County Historical Society is to be built on the land on School street, Edgartown, adjoining the grounds of the society’s Squire Cooke house. The new structure, although placed near School street on this lot, will face toward Cooke street, making an angle with the Gay Head lens tower and the Cooke house.
