After Captain Bartholomew Grosnold had discovered Cape Cod in May,
1602, he coasted along its shores, and coming down into what is known
as Vineyard Sound, found himself in an archipelago of islands. He
halted at the one called "No Man's Land," and gave it the name of
Martha's Vineyard, which is now applied to the largest of these
islands. Who his favorite Martha was, and why she should have been
immortalized, old Bartholomew never told, thus disappointing many
industrious people who have vainly sought the lady's personal history.
"The Vineyard," as it is familiarly called, lies southeast of
Buzzard's Bay, across which is the extended and narrow range of the
Elizabeth Islands, trending far away to the southwestward, and ending
with Cuttyhunk, where the first English spade was driven into New
England soil. It was upon this, the outermost island, that Gosnold
landed and planted his colony, naming it Elizabeth, in honor of his
queen, a title afterwards given the entire range. The island had a
pond in which was a rocky islet, and here, as they feared the Indians,
the colonists built a fort and resided while they gathered a cargo of
sassafras for their ship, that being then a much-prized specific in
Europe. The settlement was brief; frightened by savage threats and
rent by quarrels, they soon abandoned the place, loading their ship
and returning to England disheartened. This settlement antedated by
eighteen years the arrival of the "Mayflower" at Plymouth.
The Elizabeth group is a range of sixteen islands, stretching in a
long line from the Cape Cod shore for eighteen miles southwest to the
extremity of Cuttyhunk. It makes the southeastern boundary of
Buzzard's Bay, with Martha's Vineyard beyond, there being between them
the long and rather narrow channel of Vineyard Sound. The mariner
going eastward out of Long Island Sound passes Sakonnet Point at the
eastern verge of Narragansett Bay, and finds in front a chain of
beacons posted across the route. Two of these are lightships, marking
reefs to which are given the bucolic names of the "Hen and Chickens"
and the "Sow and Pigs." If the shipmaster wishes to enter Buzzard's
Bay for New Bedford, he sails between these two unromantic shoals,
passing a lightship on either hand, and being further guided by a
lighthouse on the extremity of Cuttyhunk. But if he wishes to follow
the great maritime route to the eastward around Cape Cod, he gives the
"Sow and Pigs" a wide berth to the northward and passes between it and
the splendid flashing red and white beacon on Gay Head, the western
extremity of Martha's Vineyard, south of Cuttyhunk. Gosnold was the
first Englishman who saw the brilliant and variegated coloring of this
remarkable promontory when the sun shone upon it, and appropriately
called it the Gay Head. Its magnificent Fresnel lens, the most
powerful in this region, is elevated one hundred and seventy feet
above the sea, and is thirty miles east of Point Judith. The breadth
of the entrance to Vineyard Sound from this lighthouse across to the
lightship is about seven miles.
The northeastern extremity of the Elizabeth Islands is Naushon, and
between it and the main land of Cape Cod are the strait and harbor
formerly known to the sailor as Wood's Hole, but now refined into
Wood's Holl, just as "Holmes's Hole," another popular harbor over on
"the Vineyard," has since become Vineyard Haven. Both of these
"holes," and particularly the latter, have always been favorite places
for schooner skippers to run into and avoid adverse winds. The
Elizabeth group has four large islands, the others being small. Narrow
and often tortuous channels separate them. Cuttyhunk is about two and
one-half miles long, and the present successor of Gosnold's
ill-starred colony is a club from New York who have a seaside
establishment there. Not far away, to the northward, is Penikese
Island, covering about one hundred acres, which was formerly the
location of Professor Agassiz's "Summer School of Natural History."
East of Cuttyhunk is Nashawena, three miles long, and next comes
Pasque Island, also the abiding-place of an attractive club
comfortably housed. Naushon is the largest island, eight miles long,
stretching from Pasque almost to Wood's Holl, and having opposite each
other, on its northern and southern shores, two noted harbors of
refuge, the Kettle and Tarpaulin Coves. Upon Naushon, early in the
nineteenth century, lived James Bowdoin, the diplomatist and
benefactor of Bowdoin College in Maine, which was named for his
father. Naushon is a very pretty island, and was described in those
days by a distinguished English lady traveller as "a little pocket
America, a liliputian Western world, a compressed Columbia."
Clustering around its northeastern extremity are some of the smaller
islets of the group--the Ram Islands, and Wepecket, Uncatina and
Nonamesset. The strait at Wood's Holl forms a rocky gateway leading
from Buzzard's Bay into Vineyard Sound, and just beyond, on the Cape
Cod shore, is its guiding beacon on the point of Nobska Hill. Wood's
Holl has but a small harbor on the edge of the contracted and
tortuous passage, which is full of rocks, difficult to navigate, and
generally having the tide running through like a millrace. The
settlement is small, displaying attractive cottages on the adjacent
shores, and here are located the station and buildings of the United
States Fish Commission and the Marine Biological Laboratory.