Finding Martha's Vineyard Read online

  In 1997, the Steamship Authority, the quasi-government agency that runs the ferries to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, eliminated the policy of traveling standby (i.e., without reservations) to Martha’s Vineyard from May 13 to September 5, Friday through Monday. It was hard to see this decision as anything but an effort to discourage and bar the arrival of black young people coming to celebrate the Independence Day holiday. This new policy effectively served to exclude anyone trying to get on the island with a car who hadn’t made a reservation months in advance. They needn’t have bothered. Offended, disgusted, and unable to enjoy themselves after the police overkill and hostility of 1995 and 1996, far fewer people came in the following years. By 2000, it was obvious that many young, single, affluent black vacationers had taken themselves and their money elsewhere.

  Like it or not, Martha’s Vineyard is a prime vacation spot for many people who can afford to spend time here, and there doesn’t appear to be an end in sight. The issues of overbuilding, overpopulation, garbage, and too many cars in the summer must be grappled with. Crucial, too, is preserving the natural beauty and ecosystem of the island so that what brought us here will remain for our children and grandchildren. The lack of affordable housing, steady employment with benefits, and the economic hardships that many year-round residents contend with need to be addressed seriously, creatively, and collectively with all the island towns—the down-island towns of Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, and Vineyard Haven and the up-island towns of West Tisbury, Chilmark, and Aquinnah, sometimes known as “uppity island”—doing their part.

  A mechanism needs to be created that includes the concerns of summer residents, who pay the bulk of the island’s taxes but do not vote there and have essentially no impact on the decisions of elected officials concerning how those tax dollars are spent. These are issues that elected officials, year-round, and summer residents must begin to think about and become actively involved in. The traditional way of doing things, which boils down to the selectmen having a few meetings where summer people can complain, then waiting until we’re gone and doing whatever they want, is both unacceptable and unhealthy for the island.

  Of all the things that can divide us, what unites most everyone on this small island is a love of this place, not very far in nautical miles from the mainland of America, but, at its best, a world away in spirit. Truly—whatever our race, class, politics, or economic status; day tripper, year-rounder, or summer resident; whether we were born here or came here in slave ships or SUVs; four thousand, four hundred, or four years ago— most of us, coming here in search of what can be called a state of grace, have the island’s best interests at heart.

  Helen Vanderhoop Manning, eighty-five, is an elder of the Wampanoag tribe, the indigenous people of Martha’s Vineyard, and former director of the Wampanoag Nation of Aquinnah/Gay Head’s Education Department. Born in Aquinnah in I9I9, she lived on the island until she was seven and afterward spent summers there. Educated at Miner’s Teacher College in Washington, D.C., and New York University, Manning returned to live year-round in Aquinnah in 1956. She was the last teacher in Aquinnah’s one-room schoolhouse when it closed in 1968, after which she taught at the Oak Bluffs school for twenty-three years. From I960 to 1974 she ran Mannings Diner in Aquinnah. She is the author of Moshup’s Footsteps, a book about the Wampanoag people of Aquinnah.

  Helen: I live in Aquinnah, right next to the Gay Head Lighthouse, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the cliffs of Aquinnah. I was born here in 19I9. My great-great-grandfather was from Suriname. He came here on a ship. Now, whether he was just traveling on the ship or whether he worked on the ship, I don’t know, but he came on the ship, met a Wampanoag woman here, married, and just stayed. His last name was Vanderhoop. Vanderhoop is a Dutch name. I am related in some way to all the Vanderhoops in Aquinnah.

  Before the whites came the native population was all over the island, now we’re mostly in Aquinnah. That happened because when Mayhew bought the island— when he came to colonize it—Edgartown had the best living facilities to offer. It had the best harbor. You could look across and see the mainland. There was a lot of good fertile land available. No one should ever starve on Martha’s Vineyard because there’s plenty of food in the ocean, there are plenty of berries, there are plenty of animals, and there are plenty of herbs and roots and plants that you can use that

  Helen Vanderhoop Manning

  would keep you from starving forever. The Indians weren’t interested in selling land. They felt that the land would always be there and many times they thought that they could use the land even though they said they had sold it; they could still use it for hunting. But of course the English people brought over their domesticated animals. They needed fences to fence them in and that hindered the Indian people from doing their hunting.

  The coming of the English pushed the native population up-island, oh definitely. It pushed, it pushed, and it pushed until they couldn’t push anymore, because you’re going to be in the water if you keep on pushing. Now we’re on a cliff. Before the English, the land was divided so that it was underneath the jurisdiction of the Sachem, and the Sachem did all the transactions of selling property. The Sachem was like a chief and so there would be a community over which he was the leader. There were four Sachemships: Taakemmy (West Tisbury), a mid-island place to grind corn; Nunne-pog (Edgartown), home of the water people; Tchepiaquidenet (Chappaquiddick), the separate island; and Aquinnah, land under the hill or end of the shore, where we are now. When the whites came they negotiated only with the Sachem. All of these people who lived in the Sachemships were displaced. The Sachem essentially cut a deal that disenfranchised his own community. As far as I know, the Sachems were usually men, although there may have been a woman in Taakemmy or Chappaquiddick.

  In history books they talk about when Thomas Mayhew came to Martha’s Vineyard in 1641, and that’s when he bought the Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands from two Englishmen, they say for forty pounds. The history books say he came here proselytizing Christianity, and the books always say the native population was so happy to see him and immediately were happy to become Christians. I will never understand why. But I do know that they had had a plague and many of the people died. The English people, the Christians, had medicine, so that they could cure certain diseases they brought here. The people who were here, the Indians, had their medicine men, who were unable to cope with the illnesses that the English brought.

  I wonder why we were so welcoming. It still exists today. You take a new person that comes into the community, especially if they are a little different from the people who are in the community, and they’re so curious. I remember when I was a kid and we used to go to those Saturday afternoon serial pictures and it was always this goddess who was blond and blue-eyed and all the natives were trying to do their best to win her favor. I think it’s still that way. Doesn’t have to be blond.

  I’m not sure what kind of work my great-great-grandfather did, there is so little information. But one thing he did, he was interested in educating his nine children, and he gave each one of them the opportunity to go on to college if they wanted to go. Of course they had to go to the South because the northern universities wouldn’t accept them. And half of his children did become professional people. My father was one of his great-grandsons. My dad was a restaurateur, he had a restaurant and inn here in Aquinnah, called Not-O-Way. My parents met when a friend of my mother’s invited her to the island. That’s when she met my father. He didn’t have the Not-O-Way then. They met here and married. I was an only child. After that they lived in Washington, D.C.,in the winters and we came here in the summer. When we were here my father did scalloping, he was a fisherman. What did I do growing up here in the summers? We did lots of things. We went to the beaches because they were uncrowded. We went up and down the cliffs. In season we gathered blueberries. We all had some kind of chores to do at home. Everybody had a cow, so if you were a boy you milked the cow. My father always had pigs, so
you’d have to gather up the scraps of food for the pigs. You didn’t need to go out of the town because you had so many things to do.

  We’ve had tourists, it seems to me, forever, really. They used to come up by oxcart. The steamboat used to land over there, which was before my time, and they could ride up on the oxcart for ten cents. They’d ride up and go to the lighthouse. I think the first paved road was put in in 1924. At that time my father’s mother ran a restaurant called Vanderhoop Restaurant.

  When I was a girl there weren’t all these houses that you see here now. From here you could see about three houses, at the most. And you knew everybody who lived here. Were there whites living here then? There were a few people who came and rented and there were the tourist buses that used to come and stay an hour so

  that people could see the cliffs, the lighthouse, get something to eat, and buy souvenirs. And they had many private taxis that used to come up.

  Jack and Nellie Belain were members of the tribe who used to have an oxcart at the cliffs, and they dressed in native dress and took pictures with the tourists. Was I embarrassed? No, I thought it was a good idea. They were trying to make a living.

  And you always had to depend on what the fishing season would be as to how the winter would go.

  Over the years there have been lots and lots of changes, particularly in the population, both the number and kind of people who come here. The people who are here and coming now are not the same type of people who used to come. Most of the people who were here before came because they enjoyed the island. I think now they come because they think the Vineyard is the place to be. I guess it’s a status symbol. And of course, there were once open fields where we could go and pick berries and do all the things that you can do in season. That’s limited now because people buy a lot or build a house and the first thing they think about is putting up a fence and a “No Trespassing” sign.

  I was very much involved in tribal politics when we were fighting for federal recognition, which we got in 1974.

  We got some of our lands back. That was our major fight, to get federal recognition and to get the land back, the Common Lands. The Common Lands were lands that had been designated for the people of Aquinnah, and at the time that they were designated there were only Wampanoag here and a few other people who had been adopted by the tribe. So there is no question about who was in control of the Common Lands. The Common Lands were very necessary to the Indians because that’s where they would catch their shellfish and lobsters and scallops. And also pick berries, cranberries and blueberries and things like that. Everybody was able to use the Common Lands. Now one of the rules of the tribe is that there are no adoptions of non-Indians into the tribe, that’s been ever since we received recognition in 1974. If you can trace your ancestry back to the 1870 roll, then you’re considered a member of the tribe, and so are your children and grandchildren. That way the tribe will continue.

  The coming of so many whites and tourists, I think it was gradual. Then in the sixties, whenever Ted Kennedy went off the bridge in Chappaquiddick, I think that was the beginning of the really large population wanting to come. I think at first they were just curiosity seekers. But people came and they found that it was a beautiful place and they wanted to stay here.

  There’s a different class of people coming now. A different class of people building and living here. The day trippers and the people who come for a week or a couple of weeks. Now there are more of them than us. And the builders build these monstrosity houses next to you and your taxes go up. We’d better do something about that.

  We have been pushed to the edge of a cliff. That’s right, exactly. If they could push us off, they’d push. Maybe not 100 percent of the non-Indians who live in Aquinnah, but 75 percent would. And build more houses. But as it is now, I think that they’re doing a good job of limiting how many houses can be built in each town. But some of the regulations make it difficult for people who live on the island year-round to build or buy houses. Just to be able to maintain a house here is a tremendous expense now. For the most part we have a seasonal economy. In the winter there are no jobs. It is tough to make it here year-round.

  It seems to me the island is becoming increasingly for the very rich. I don’t know anyone who wants it that way. I guess developers must want it that way. It is very difficult for young people who were born here or who grew up here to stay here. There are now jobs opening up like the telephone company and the electric company, and the schools are hiring more of the local people. But rents are so high and the price of land is so high, people who work here either have to get another job or they have to rent and move out of their houses in May and come back in September. And during those months it’s difficult to get a decent rental for themselves.

  Why did I leave Washington and come back to this island in 1956? I always thought the Vineyard was home. Because there’s something about the drawing back. If you were a true person of Gay Head, we used to call them Gay Headers, there’s always that drawing back. I think it’s about community and family, that’s what attracts most of us. If we trace back far enough, we’re all related. It’s that drawing and it’s a feeling that you can only get in Gay Head. I mean you can’t go to New York and consider yourself a Gay Header. But if you’re here you have a voice in government. You can make your own decisions as to what you’re going to do. Except get the kind of job you want. You might not get the job.

  Hopefully I’ll be able to stay here until I move on to the next life. I still travel but I always like to be able to have this place. Because of the cliffs. And the history. And the people. I think there’s a lot of magic in the area. People who live here live a long time, they really do. I go and say a prayer every morning up on top of the cliffs. You know, there’s so much magic there, the feeling of magic. Lots has changed, but magic doesn’t die out. It’s here.

  Doris Jackson and daughter, Lee Van Allen

  Doris Pope Jackson’s grandfather, Charles Shearer, was born a slave in Appomattox, Virginia, in 1854 to a slave mother and plantation-owner father. He and his wife, Henrietta Shearer, devout Baptists, came to Martha’s Vineyard in the late 1800s and bought Shearer Cottage in 1903. Henrietta, summering on the island with her three children, Sadie Lee, Lily (Doris’s mother), and Charles, Jr., built a laundry in 1903. After Henrietta’s death in 1917, her daughters converted the laundry into rooms and along with the main house opened the renowned inn for black Americans on Martha’s Vineyard, Shearer Cottage.

  Jackson spends half the year on the Vineyard and, with one of her daughters, Lee Van Allen, sixty, who lives on the island year-round since she retired, continues to operate Shearer Cottage. In 1997 Shearer Cottage, which has been in the family for six generations, was dedicated the first landmark on the African-American Heritage Trail.

  Doris: My grandfather graduated from Hampton University in 1880 or I88I and stayed on as a professor. Both he and my grandmother went to Hampton, that’s where they met. Eventually they wanted to go north, so they moved to Everett, Massachusetts, and bought property there. Then he heard of Martha’s Vineyard and the religious aspect at Baptist Temple Park, which was right down that path there. He was very religious so he came down to the island to worship and a few years later purchased land in the Highlands. Later, in 1903, he purchased this property up on the hill.

  At that time, there were many very wealthy whites on this island, and they weren’t going to wash and iron their fluted skirts, so Henrietta started a laundry business. She even had a horse and carriage to deliver the finished clothes. I marvel at it, that she built that building and started a business so long ago. She was ahead of her time, a woman saying, “I’m going to do something to use this land and make some money.” After they closed the laundry, they used the horse and buggy to take guests around.

  People started coming to visit: his friends, my mother’s friends, my Aunt Lucy Belle’s friends from New York. That’s what gave him the idea to turn it into an inn, though he originally bought th
is house as a summer residence for his wife and three children.

  So many New Yorkers came down here, and they all went to this Baptist church. Every week the people from Shearer would go down to the Baptist Tabernacle, beautifully dressed. That’s when Shearer started to become famous, because all these people from all over the country came.

  I think we took some kind of a train down here from Boston, and then we took a boat over. I don’t know if you’d call it a ferry, but it was a boat. We were all practically born here. If you were born in February, you were here in April or May. We were brought up here. Oak Bluffs hasn’t changed that much; it was built up then. You had Circuit Avenue and everything, it was the main street, and there were always lots of stores. I used to buy chocolate kisses from Darling’s candy store. I can remember when Shearer started serving food, there were horses and buggies that used to deliver the food, they didn’t have trucks. People had gardens and farms and raised and delivered the food.

  Shearer Cottage was a member of the East Chop Beach Club, that’s where we went to the beach, and our guests went there, too. There’d be fifty or sixty people up here just for dinner. Shearer Cottage used to rent houses just to take care of some of its extra guests. We had a very large dining room and there were chefs in the family. They did beautiful work; we were famous for our food. Even some of the workmen would come up for a piece of pie. They all knew Shearer Cottage’s kitchen. People who owned homes would come for dinner and bring their guests. It was more like a big family thing. Teachers, professors, heads of schools, assistant attorney general under Woodrow Wilson, William H. Lewis from Boston, sitting at the table with Harry T Burleigh, the composer, and Henry Robbins, who had the Sacco-Vanzetti case—he was the court stenographer—Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.,