After nearly a decade of planning, two years of construction, over $30 million raised, and the restoration of exactly 1,008 refractors on the Fresnel lens, the Martha’s Vineyard Museum is open to the public in Vineyard Haven.
MV Museum History
July 11, 1969
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Hens’ gravestones, a scrimshaw toothpick, a spittoon of General Grant’s, a plank from the Constitution and a spanker for naughty boys are among the many curiosities on display at the Duke’s County Historical Society museum on School street in Edgartown.
July 3, 2019
Louisa Hufstader
Fireworks lit up the sky over Vineyard Haven Harbor Saturday night as a finale to the Evening of Discovery gala at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
October 25, 2018
Noah Asimow
The $31 million Martha’s Vineyard Museum restoration project is weeks away from becoming a reality.
July 5, 2018
Noah Asimow
Construction is set to finish in September on the new museum campus , the former 19th century marine hospital in Vineyard Haven.
June 30, 2016
Alex Elvin
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum has entered the home stretch of a major capital campaign to relocate to the former Marine Hospital in Vineyard Haven.
September 24, 2015
Tom Dunlop
How do you go about fixing a whaling logbook damaged centuries ago by water? It sounds odd, but among the first things an expert might do is soak the afflicted pages in yet more water.
December 9, 2014
Ivy Ashe
The Martha's Vineyard Museum has received a $500,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant. “Sometimes you ask for the moon, and you get it,” said museum executive director David Nathans.
February 2, 2013
Martha’s Vineyard Museum has received a $293,900 grant to make detailed descriptions of its collections searchable online, museum officials announced this week. The grant is the largest in the museum’s 90 year history, and builds on preservation work that has been supported by Community Preservation grants from five Island towns.
June 6, 2011
Mike Seccombe
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum expects to sign within days a purchase and sales agreement to buy the former Marine Hospital in Vineyard Haven for an undisclosed price.
The purchase of the historic property, perched on a hill above the harbor, would mark a major step in the museum’s long quest to find a new home for its historical collections outside of Edgartown.
Museum executive director David Nathans said yesterday morning he hoped to have a deal completed by week’s end.
December 2, 2010
Lauren Martin
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum has taken an option on the former Marine Hospital in Vineyard Haven, giving the museum’s board until the end of January to decide whether the historic property perched on a hilltop above the harbor could serve as the new home for the Island’s historical collections.
The marine hospital went on the market in April with an asking price of $3.19 million.
June 17, 2010
Megan Dooley
“It is Sunday, and a very pleasant day. I have read two story books. This is my journal. Goodbye for today.”
So opened six-year-old Laura Jernegan’s journal, in an entry dated Dec. 1, 1868, as she set sail on a three-year sea expedition with her family aboard the whaling vessel Roman.
August 11, 2008
Sam Bungey
A painting of a well-known Menemsha-based trawler by Heather Neill has been given to the Martha’s Vineyard Museum by an anonymous donor. The eight by four-foot painting, titled Strider’s Surrender, evokes the decline the local fishing industry.
The Quitsa Strider II is owned by respected Island fishermen Jonathan Mayhew. In a move symbolic of the dire state of the local fishing industry, Mr. Mayhew sold his federal permits last year, giving up his license and putting up the vessel itself for sale.
July 27, 1999
Mark Alan Lovewell
The Martha’s Vineyard Historical Society doesn’t have a whaling ship for its museum, nor a schooner.
