USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > The history of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
1Tisbury records, page 284.
2N. Y. Col. Mss. (Council Minutes), II (2), 51.
3Mass. Archives, CXII, 422.
28
General and Statistical
statement or record for fifty years, during which time immi- gration and the natural increase had greatly affected the numer- ical strength of the white race. In 1742, a contemporary writer placed "about two hundred fencible white men on the Vineyard,"1 and computing the known increase, with the adopt- ed multiple, we have about twelve hundred persons resident in the county, exclusive of negroes and native aborigines.
The Provincial census of 1765 gives us the first definite figures of enumerators, and from it the following statistics are extracted :
Whites Under 16 Years 16 Years
Ditto Above |Negroes Indians
Neutrals Under 16 Above 16 Ditto
Total
Houses
Families
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Male
Female
Edgartown
128 150
234 209 233
248
12
S
37
49
1030
Chilmark
90
114 152
156
159
179
9
8
72
II6
S51
Tisbury
110 100 165
I66
226
233
4
5
15
24
838
328 364 551 531 618 660
25
21 |124 189
2719
It will be seen that there were 2460 white persons, a doub- ling in twenty years and an average annual gain of about three hundred in the half century. It will be seen that the average family consisted of six persons, the multiple used in previous computations, and that the families exceeded the number of houses by sixty-six, and there were seven persons to a house. When we recall the size of the buildings erected in those days for dwellings, it is easy to understand that they lived in "close quarters." The next enumeration by the Provincial author- ities in 1776, shows the following statistics: families, 482; persons, 2822; negroes, 59, an increase of nearly twenty- five per cent. in twelve years. These figures take no account of the population of the Indian settlements, which will be dealt with in a separate chapter. In the period between 164I and 1776, the average annual growth had been two hundred, while in the same time the unfortunate native element had been decreasing in about the same ratio. No further figures are available for statistical purposes until 1790, the date of the first census of the general government, from which time,
1Douglass, Summary, I, 405.
29
History of Martha's Vineyard
by decades, with the intervening enumerations of the state, we reach accurate tabulations.
The following figures show the population of the county as enumerated in the decennial census of the United States from 1790 to the present time:
In 1790 were 3245; in 1800, 3118; in 1810, 3290; in 1820, 3292; in 1830, 3517; in 1840, 3958; in 1850, 4540; in 1860, 4403; in 1870, 3787; in 1880, 4300; in 1890, 4369; in 1900, 456I.
The population of the county shows a gradual increase of 1300 for sixty years, when the number dropped about 800 from 1850 to 1870, which may be accounted for by the losses and changes of residence during the war of the Rebellion.
During the 110 years of the census enumerations, the county has increased 40%, notwithstanding the losses which followed the emigration into Maine in the first decade of the above named period, and a similar exodus into the western states between 1820 and 1840. Losses of this character have been constant ever since, but they are in part made up by the immigration of others who in recent years have availed themselves of its climatic and natural attractions to select the island not only as a summer home but for a permanent resi- dence.
3
OLD CEDARS AT WEST CHOP.
SURVIVORS OF THE " TALL AND STRAIGHT " CEDARS SEEN BY BRERETON IN 1602.
30
The Aboriginal Inhabitants
CHAPTER II.
THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.
At the dawn of the 17th century the island now known as Martha's Vineyard was simply one of the nameless, shape- less islands seen on the rude charts of the early explorers, constituting a part of that fringe of islands on the eastern coast of the new but unknown continent toward which the voyagers of all the European nations had been for a century turning the prows of their adventurous crafts. Could we see it in reproduction now we should behold it in its modern shape and size, for it has not been materially altered by sea action, except on its southeastern littoral, but differing in respect to the fulness and character of its foliage. Then it doubtless had a more luxuriant growth of evergreen trees, plentifully intermingled with clumps of wild fruit trees and bushes bear- ing native berries. The same condition existed on Noman's Land.
While Brereton's description of Noman's Land gives us a picture of a dense jungle of trees tangled with undergrowth, we shall be in error if we apply this literally to the Vineyard. Noman's Land was then "without house or inhabitant," while the Vineyard was the home of several thousand aborigines at that date. In the nature of things they could not travel nor hunt under such conditions, and we do not have to imagine the denizens of the island devoid of means to render the terri- tory they inhabited suitable for their occupation and in a con- dition to support life. There were large, open spaces, over- grown with grass and planting fields which they had cultivated for centuries. Wood in his New England Prospect (1634) speaks of the Indian custom of burning the ground each fall: "there is no underwood save in the swamps and low places; for it being the custom of the Indians to burn the woods in November, when the grass is withered and the leaves dried it consumes all the underwood and rubbish." Morton refers to the same thing, and we can readily believe their statements that on the coming of the English to this coast there were open fields covered with grass. It is a fair presumption that the Vineyard presented a general aspect of fresh verdure to the explorers, for its virgin soil had not been exhausted by the
3I
History of Martha's Vineyard
improvident whites, nor its groves of beeches, cedars, and firs denuded to provide tribute for hundreds of wasteful fire- places, where ancestral shins were toasted and "all outdoors" heated through chimney flues large enough to exhaust a brick- yard.
The hills and meads of the island were clad in a rich covering of evergreen that is now all gone, and its place taken by the walnut and hickory and the endless prospect of dwarf oaks that now struggle for a parched existence on the great plains of Tisbury and Edgartown. It is difficult for us to conceive of Noman's Land, which is now as innocent of any foliage as an infant's poll, once supporting great forests and a thicket of undergrowth, yet in two centuries the whites, without forethought or wisdom, had despoiled it of its verdure and rendered it an unproductive, barren isle, where for cen- turies the aboriginal occupants had preserved its fertility and the productiveness of the Vineyard, sparing the trees as a part of nature's household economy. On Noman's Land, in the swamp, may be seen the trunks and stumps of huge cedars, the decaying remains of a noble forest growth that existed two hundred years ago.
INDIAN NAME OF THE VINEYARD.
To the people who held it by that unwritten tenure of nomadic tribal authority, a people without records or civiliza- tion, but to whom it was a home, there belonged a name at- tached by them to it, which from the point of a later literary standard is superior to the name bestowed upon it by its English sponsor. The aboriginal name for the island was Noë-pe, a compound term consisting of the radical Noë, signifying, middle of, midst, amid, and the generic -pe, which in all Algon- quian dialects signifies "water,"-and thus we have the full and free definition "amid the waters," a name of singular beauty and poetry. While this might be said to be applicable to any island, yet it appears to have a deeper significance. If the Algonquian sagamore who perhaps first gave it the name of Noë-pe had merely wished to call it an island," he would have chosen another word, Aquiden.1 But the savage was a child of Nature, observant of her myriad manifestations, and in his method of bestowing names on persons or things
'This word, in the form of Aquiden-et or Aquidnet, is familiar to us as the name of the city of Newport, an island.
32
The Aboriginal Inhabitants
he usually selected some special attribute attaching as the basis for the title. So he observed in his crude way the tidal peculiarities of the waters as they were ceaselessly flowing about the sound, and noted that this island was at the meeting place of the currents coming from the northeast and south- west. This phenomenon, now well known to the residents here and to all those engaged in navigating our coast, results in a subdivision of the daily tides, by which we have four in- stead of two as common elsewhere along the New England littoral, two ebb and two flood, churning northeastward through the Vineyard sound and Buzzard's Bay and southwestward over the treacherous Nantucket shoals. "The region about Martha's Vineyard," says a report of the U. S. Coast Survey, "is the dividing space between the co-tidal hours of XII and XV, and in this locality the combination of two apparently distinct tidal waves is observed. This combination presents the most singular forms, giving at times four high tides in one day near the junction of Nantucket and Martha's Vine- yard sound. These tides exhibit diurnal and semi-diurnal elements. The semi-diurnal waves exhibit two heads at the locality of the greatest interference (Falmouth), one of their meeting points."1
The authority for Noepe as the true Indian name of this island rests upon indisputable ground, and is none other than the statement of the Rev. Thomas Mayhew, the apostle to the Vineyard Indians, who was learned in their speech and taught them in their own tongue. In a letter written by him dated Oct. 22, 1652, reciting the conversion of the Indians, he says: "I drew forth the same morning in the Indian Lan- guage, which I have here sent in England," the covenant of the Indians, which begins, "We, the distressed Indians of the Vineyard, (or Nope, the Indian name of the Island)."2
The use of this curious word, pronounced in two syllables, No-pe, is of rare occurrence in the early records. The first instance is the one just cited; the second is by Daniel Gookin in his "Description of the New England Indians," written in 1674 (I Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., I, 141). The next is quoted by Freeman (History of Cape Cod, II, 274), from a deed dated Sept. 7, 1680, when John Yanno, "Indian of Gay Head at Nope Island," sells certain property in Barnstable. Another is a reference made by Josiah Cotton, at the end of
1Report, 1855, pages 222-3; 1856, pages 261-263.
2 "Tears of Repentance, etc." (London 1653).
33
History of Martha's Vineyard
his Indian Vocabulary, compiled about the year 1727 (3 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., II, 147-257), who says, in a dialogue between himself and a Plymouth Indian, that the Indians of the main- land find it difficult to understand him because he learned from his father (Rev. John Cotton), who had acquired his knowledge "at Nope," his father having been a missionary to the Indians at the Vineyard, 1665-8.1
It is true that the early writers who published descrip- tions of New England from the time of the first explorations, Smith, Winslow, Wood, Gorges, and others, call it the Isle of Capowack (in variations of spelling), and I am familiar with the authorities of that period so far as to admit that this name was generally used to designate the Vineyard. This name had the advantage of undisputed usage (up to the time which I shall cite hereafter), and therefore is entitled to all the priv- ilege which exclusive occupancy of the field may bestow.
An examination of the Coast Survey charts and current maps of Martha's Vineyard will show off its eastern shore and closely contiguous, a curiously shaped island, with a long, sickle-shaped neck of land extending therefrom, now called the island of Chappaquiddick, while the extreme north end of this pointed neck is known as Cape Poge. The evolution of the name Cape Poge is easy of demonstration. The name was originally, as I believe, Capoag or Capoak, and by giving each vowel its syllabic value in pronunciation, we have Ca- po-ag, or Ca-po-ak, which was, probably, an Indian name of a definite locality; and the early voyagers, hearing this pronounced and noting the phonetic resemblance of the first syllable to our geographical word "cape," immediately applied it to that portion of the island answering the physical features of a cape, and the map-makers accordingly registered their decrees. In the DeLaets map of 1630, showing the Vineyard, we see the legend "C. Ack," or Cape Ack, and in the Novi Belgii map of 1671, it is repeated with ' a slight change, "C. Wack als Ack," that is Cape Wack or Ack, appearing in both instances at the eastern side of the island, where Cape Poge is known at the present day. In the DesBarres chart of 1781 it is Capoag (one word), and by pronouncing it in two syllables we have Ca-pog, which is the general local pronunciation to-day. It is, however, spelled Cape Poge or Pogue.
1In a deed dated June, 1681, Matthew Mayhew is called "Sachem of all Nop." (Dukes Deeds, VIII, 67). Kendall writing in 1814 while on a visit to the island says it was called "by the Indians Nope and Capawac." (Travels, II, 183).
34
The Aboriginal Inhabitants
From all evidence now obtainable the tip end of Chappa- quiddick was a separate island two hundred years ago, and was then called the island of Natuck or Capoag, as shown by the following deeds:
I. 388. Pahkepunnasso, sachem of Chappaquiddick, sold the island called Natuck to Thomas Mayhew, 16 (6) 1663.
IV. 158. Micajah Mayhew leased "the island of Natick alias Capoag near unto Chappaquiddick," 4 March, 1727.
IV. 328. Micajah Mayhew leased the "Isle of Capoag . . . which lieth a little to the Easter Northard of the Isle of Chapaquidet" 27 Feb- ruary, 1729.
This last seems entirely conclusive of the fact that a little island bore the name of Capoag or Capawack from time im- memorial, but in further evidence of the general proposition that Capowack is not the correct Indian name of Martha's Vineyard I submit the following facts:
I. Neither the town records of Edgartown, from 1642 to 1670, which are, in fact, the earliest muniments of title on the Vineyard; the court records of the county of Dukes County, from the earliest entry in 1673 to 1700, nor the town records of Tisbury, from 1671 to 1700, all of which I have examined personally, and from which I have full abstracts for the periods cited, disclose the use of the name Capowack as a place name for the island as a whole. This is of course negative testimony, but it may pass as such for cumulative or circumstantial evidence.
II. In the court records of the county of Dukes County, under date of Oct. 13, 1675, an order relative to trading with the Indians is entered, and as a part of the plan for pro- hibiting non-residents from bartering surreptitiously with them, it was provided "That no man presume to land any goods anywhere at Marthas Vineyard, Capepowak, Nomans Land, or Elizabeth Isles, unless at the places appointed." This topographical list includes the whole of the county as then and now constituted, and serves to show that "Cape- powak" was by the inhabitants considered as distinct and separate a place from Martha's Vineyard as Noman's Land or the Elizabeth Isles.
III. When the New England charter of 1692 was issued it disclosed the fact that unbeknown to the people of the Vine- yard, and to the government of New York, under which it had been since 1671, the island was placed under the govern-
35
History of Martha's Vineyard
ment of the Massachusetts Bay. In the acts of the General Court of that year, providing for the control of, and the civil authority on the Vineyard, it was called "Martha's Vineyard alias Capowack." This official designation aroused the in- habitants to protest against the further use of this title for the island, and in obedience to this sentiment, and acting on his instructions as representative of the towns of Edgar- town and Chilmark to the General Court, at the next session after the passage of these acts, Mr. Benjamin Smith addressed the Governor and Representatives in this language :-
I am to shew that it seemeth grevious to us that wee seem to be named in divers acts of the assembly here by a name in no waies acknowl- edged by us. .
I am to shew to your honours that if an act be made that whereas in the divers acts mentioning Martha's Vineyard Alias Capowick, If it be inserted Martha's Vineyard and Capowick, it will be more satisfactory to our people. (Mass. Arch. cxii., 453.)
This evidence seems to me to establish conclusively that however much others, through ignorance or inadvertence, had given credence to the original use of the title Capowack as representing the Vineyard in its entirety, yet the inhab- itants, who were peculiarly familiar with the Indian language and had been brought into long and intimate relations with the natives through their missions, disavowed the name as applicable to the whole island.
It is a difficult matter to dislodge a fixed belief, even if it be erroneous, but it is hoped that this will find its quietus now that the means of correction have been found.
THE POKANAUKET INDIANS.
The race of men who peopled the Vineyard at the be- ginning of the 17th century were members of that almost-van- ished aboriginal family known to ethnologists as the Algon- quian Indians.
This great family with its numerous tribal divisions ranged the entire eastern half of North America, from the frozen waters of Hudson Bay in the north, to the tepid savannahs of the south, and from the promontories of Nova Scotia in the east to the snow-clad peaks of the Rocky mountains in the west. It is the race known to us in song and story. They were the Indians of Sprague and Cooper, of Longfellow and Catlin. Of members of this great family in the northeastern
36
The Aboriginal Inhabitants
portion of our country those most familiar to us are the Mic- macs of Nova Scotia, the Abnakis of Maine, the Massachu- setts of our own Commonwealth, and the Narragansetts of Rhode Island. Of the last-named tribe, whose great chief- tain, Metacomet, long held the white invaders at bay, were the Pokanaukets, a sub-division residing to the eastward of Narragansett Bay, and probably dwelling on the shores of Buzzard's Bay.
Daniel Gookin in his description of the New England Indians, written in 1675, makes the following statement:
The Pawkunnawkutts were a great people heretofore. They lived to the east and northeast of the Narragansetts, and their chief sachem held dominion over divers other petty sagamores, as the sagamores upon the island of Nantucket, and Nope or Martha's Vineyard. 1
This authority on the Indians of New England is cor- roborated by an example of this control which is to be found entered in our land records under date of March, 1661, when Womsettan, "chief sachem of Cossomsett" sold to William Brenton of Newport "all my right on Nope, alias Martha's Vineyard," and the next year personal delivery was made by Womsettan by turf and twig of this property, of which he reserved one-twelfth to himself.2 The Vineyard Indians were members of this tribe, and until Christianized, owned fealty to King Philip of Pokanauket during his life-time.3
TRIBAL GOVERNMENT.
There does not appear to have been any single chieftain on the island to whom the subordinate sachems yielded pre- cedence, and it is probable that these local head men were directly responsible to the great chief of the Narragansetts.
As these people were without written records, it is not possible to accurately define the relations which did exist, but from the fragmentary allusions in the early writings of the English historians and observers, the island was divided into four parts, each presided over by a sagamore, as will be more particularly explained. As to their form or method of government, if it may be so termed, we have the detailed
1I Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., I, 141-227.
'Dukes County Deeds, III, 12, 13. Wamsutta or Wamsettan was an elder brother of Philip or Metacomet, and son of Massasoit, the great chief of the Wampanoags. He resided in the region between Buzzards and Narragansett bays.
3Plym. Col. Rec., IV, 164.
37
History of Martha's Vineyard
explanation furnished by our first local author, Matthew May- hew, and it will be better placed before the reader in his own words, and is therefore reprinted here verbatim:1
Their Government was purely Monarchical: and as for such whose dominions extended further than would well admit one Princes personal guidance, it was committed into the hands of Lieutenants, who Governed with no less absoluteness, than the Prince himself: notwithstanding, in matters of difficulty, the Prince Consulted with his Nobles, and such whom he esteemed for wisdom; in which it was admirable to see the Majestick deportment of the Prince, his speech to his Council, with the most delib- erate discussion of any matter proposed for their advice; after which, what was by him resolved, without the least hesitation was applauded, and with at least a seeming Alacrity attended.
The Crown (if I may so term it) alwayes descended to the Eldest Son (though subject to usurpation), not to the Female, unless in defect of a Male of the Blood; the Blood Royal, being in such Veneration among the People, that if a Prince had issue by divers Wives, such Succeeded as Heirs who was Royally descended by the Mother, although the Young- est, esteeming his issue by a Venter of less Quality than a Princess, not otherwise than Sachems or Noblemen.
Their Nobles were either such who descended from the Blood Royal, or such on whom the Prince bestowed part of his Dominions with the Royalties, or such whose descent was from Ancestors who had time out of mind been so Esteemed as such.
Their Yeomen were such who having no stamp of Gentility were yet esteemed as having a natural right of living within their Princes Do- minions, and a common use of the Land; and were distinguished by two names or Titles, the one signifying Subjection, the other Titles of the Land.
Although the People retained nothing of Record nor use of Letters, yet there lived among them many Families, who, although the time of their Forefathers first inhabiting among them was beyond the Memory of man, yet were known to be Strangers or Foreigners, who were not Privileged with Common Rights, but in some measure Subject to the Yeomanry, but were not dignified, in attending the Prince, in Hunting or like Ex- ercise; unless called by particular favor.
The Princes, as they had not other Revenue than the Presents of their subjects (which yet was counted Due debt), Wrecks of the sea, the Skins of Beasts killed in their Dominions, and many like things, as First Fruits, &c, so they wanted none; for in case of War, both People and Estate was wholly at their dispose; therefore none demanded nor expected Pay. In respect to their Court, it was doubtless maintained in great Magnifi- cance in distinction from the Subject which is the utmost can be obtained by the greatest monarch; their Families and attendants being well Cloathed with Skins of Moos, Bear, Deer, Beaver, and the like; the Provisions for their Table, as Flesh, Fish, Roots, Fruits, Berries, Corn, Beanes, in great abundance and variety was alwayes brought by their Neighboring sub- jects; of all which they were as void of Care as the most Potent Princes in this Universe.
'Mayhew: "Triumphs and Conquests of Grace," pages 13-17.
38
The Aboriginal Inhabitants
As the Prince was acknowledged Absolute Lord of the Land, so he had no less Sovereignty at Sea; for as all belonged to him, which was stranded on the shore of his Sea Coast, so whatever Whales or other wreck of value, or floating on the sea, taken up on the seas washing his shores, or brought and Landed, from any part of the Sea, was no less his own.
THE FOUR SACHEMSHIPS.
The Vineyard was apparently divided into four govern- mental sections, of which two, Chappaquiddick and Gay Head, were separated by natural boundaries from the main island. This latter territory being divided into two chief sachemships, which had a definite line of demarcation, represented as accu- rate a partition as could be devised. By a straight line drawn from the Blackwater brook emptying into the sound, to Watchet, the sachemships of Nunnepog and Takemmy were divided by the "old Sachems and Cheefe men of Nunpoag on the one side, and the old Sachchims and Cheefe men of Takymmy on the other side." The particulars of this division deserve quotation in full:
"that is at the black water or wechpoquasit being the pond and Run of water into the sound and said bounds to Run southwardly as the said Run of water cometh from the spring called ponk quatesse and from said spring of water to the middle of watchet on the south side of this Iland so that all the Est side of said bounds to belong to Nunpoak and on the west side of said bounds unto Takymmy, which bounds was setteled many years ago." '
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.