Between the Elizabeth Islands and Martha's Vineyard is the great route
of vessels passing to and from New England waters, and the lighthouse
keeper at the entrance has counted more than a thousand of them
passing in a single week. Aquatic birds skim the waters, and all about
the Sound are islands great and small, their granite coasts
contrasting with the blue waters they protect from the severity of
ocean storms. A tale is told of the origin of the names of some of the
islands, which is original, if apocryphal. The story comes as a
tradition from the "oldest inhabitant" of these parts, who is said to
have been the owner of all these islands, and who determined, before
he died, to bestow the chief ones upon his four favorite daughters.
Accordingly, Rhoda took Rhode Island; Elizabeth took hers; Martha was
given "the Vineyard;" and there was left for Nancy the remaining large
island--so "Nan-took-it."
Martha's Vineyard is shaped much like a triangle, and is twenty-three
miles long and about ten miles broad in the widest part. Vineyard
Haven, its chief harbor, is deep and narrow, opening like a pair of
jaws at the northern apex of the triangle, the entrance being guarded
by the pointed peninsulas of the East Chop and West Chop, each
provided with a lighthouse. Within is one of the most fairly
constructed natural harbors ever seen, a spacious haven of protection,
often crowded with vessels, which run in there to escape rough
treatment outside. Here is the pleasant village of Vineyard Haven,
prettily located upon the sloping banks of a small cove inside, and
having down at the end of the harbor a Government Marine Hospital.
"The Vineyard's" famous western promontory of Gay Head is composed of
ponderous cliffs, falling off steeply to the water, and presents an
interesting geological study. The inclined strata rise about two
hundred feet above the sea, being gaily colored in tints of red,
white, yellow, green, and black. About forty-five hundred people
reside on this island, including fishermen, sailors and farmers, but
mostly gaining a livelihood by ministering to the wants of the large
population of summer visitors. The first colonist was Thomas Mayhew, a
Puritan from Southampton, who came in 1642, being then the grantee
both of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket.
Cottage City is the chief settlement, built upon the eastern ocean
shore of "the Vineyard," a wonderful place attracting twenty to thirty
thousand people in the summer. The bluff shore rises precipitously
for thirty feet from the narrow beach forming the verge of the sea,
and there are myriads of cottages, many hotels, and a complete summer
town spreading over a large surface. Here are held the great Camp
Meetings which are the attraction in August--one Methodist and the
other Baptist. The former is the "Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting
Association," first established and meeting in the Wesleyan Grove,
back from the sea. The other is the "Oak Bluffs Association," out by
the ocean's edge. This place, thoroughly alive in summer, is dormant,
however, for nearly nine months of the year. From it a railroad runs
several miles southward along the shore to the little village of
Edgartown, the place of original colonization, and the county-seat of
Dukes County, Massachusetts, which is composed of all these islands.
Towards the southeast, out of sight, is the distant island of
Nantucket. Nearer is seen the misty outline of old Chappaquadick
Island, called "the Old Chap," for short, with its long terminating
extremity of Cape Poge. To the northward is the hazy mainland of Cape
Cod, a streak upon the horizon, whence, long ago, these islands are
supposed to have been sliced off during the glacial epoch, and going
adrift, were thus anchored out in the ocean.