This weekend, the Island remembered a time when many of its residents were bilingual -- when Vineyarders spoke both English and sign language and for over 250 years the deaf were accepted, not stigmatized by society.
It is a remarkable part of Island history, yet it seldom is the cause for celebration as it is a history that has been largely forgotten in recent years.
Until last Friday. On Friday, Vineyard residents and visitors were reintroduced to the Island’s signing history at the very first Sign Language Heritage Event, held at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown.
Richard Meier and Justin Power, linguistics professors at the University of Texas, have published a new paper entitled The Historical Demography of the Martha’s Vineyard Signing Community, inspired by the seminal work of anthropologist Nora Ellen Groce.
David Martin, former educator and administrator at Gallaudet, visited Vineyard Haven on Sunday to talk about the legacy of the Martha’s Vineyard deaf community of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The death of Alexander Graham Bell arouses renewed interest in the great inventor’s connection with Martha’s Vineyard. Bell’s concern with the island and its people was much more than a thing of the moment. His visits and at least one prolonged stay on the island were the result of his desire to investigate the so-called “deaf-mute” town in Chilmark about which a fictitious tradition had sprung up.
Just a few issues back, this column carried the biographical sketch of Joseph West of Chilmark, who is a deaf mute. This present article contains a similar sketch of his sister, Mrs. Sophronia E. Hillman, whose faculties are normal. Reared in the same family, it is interesting to correspond the two stories relating to Chilmark of nearly three-quarters of a century ago, as seen by two different pairs of eyes, directed by natural inclinations that had little in common.
This is the story of one who has lived always in the eternal silence, nearly three-quarters of a century without ever hearing the sound of human voice or the song of a bird, and who has never been able to voice a greeting to a friend, for Joseph E. T. West of Chilmark is a deaf mute, the last man of that town to be so afflicted.
Chilmark fishermen Christopher Murphy approached medical anthropologist Nora Groce after her delivery of the last Nathan Mayhew Seminars lecture of the summer Thursday night, and recalled a remnant of sign language use by old-timers he used to work for.
The news came as pleasant confirmation to Miss Groce, who has spent the better part of the last six years tracing the origins of a community of deaf people who lived pretty much like - and in harmony with - the hearing populace of the Vineyard from its earliest settlement through the 19th century.
In an interview with Mr. Frank Z. Maguire, of Washington, who has been on the Vineyard the past week looking up deaf-mute statistics, that gentleman expresses himself as follows with reference to the matter in its local application, and on the general subject:
