The history of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume II, Part 53

Author: Banks, Charles Edward, 1854-1931
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Boston : G.H. Dean
Number of Pages: 720

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THE MARTHA'S VINEYARD SUMMER INSTITUTE

This institution was another unique feature of this unique town. Established in 1878 as a normal school for teachers, its object was to afford special instruction in advanced studies, scientific and literary, to teachers who desire to combine such work with their weeks of rest and recreation. The professors in the various departments were those who held high place in institutions of learning in all parts of the country, and, like the students, combine this work with their play. A large, fine building, known as Agassiz hall, built in 1882, was specially designed and built for the business of this summer school, and during July and August for about five weeks it was a busy place. Hundreds of teachers availed themselves of the oppor- tunity, and nearly every state and territory has been represented among its pupils. It had a dormitory and dining halls for the accommodation of the students. The number of the latter had increased from 75 in 1878 to over seven hundred in 1896, and a corps of forty instructors comprised its faculty. Col. Homer

History of Martha's Vineyard

B. Sprague was its first President (1878-82), and he was suc- ceeded by Prof. William J. Rolfe, the well-known Shakesperean critic (1882-7), and Col. William A. Mowry, Ph.D., LL.D. (1887-1905). The Institute was disbanded in 1905 and its charter surrendered.

PRESENT STATISTICS OF THE NEW TOWN

Since its incorporation as Cottage City this township has passed through thirty years of exaggerated and normal periods of growth. At the time of its change to Oak Bluffs (1908) the following statistics taken from the assessors' books show its material condition. Personal estate assessed, $143,375; real estate assessed, $1,806,075, of which two-thirds is held by non-residents; total tax assessed, $38,520, including tax on 293 polls. Acres of land, 3,423; dwelling houses, 1,126; horses, 108; cows, 100; tax payers, 1454, including 110 who pay poll tax only. It will be seen upon comparison with the statistics of the other towns that although the youngest com- munity, it has the largest valuation and raises the greatest tax on the Vineyard.

S. MARY'S CHURCH, GREAT BADDOW, ENGLAND, WHERE JOHN PEASE WAS BAPTIZED.

ANNALS OF GAY HEAD

DOVER CLIFF, 1602

The discovery and christening of this peninsula has a definite date, in 1602, and an authentic sponsor in the person of Bartholomew Gosnold. "The four and twentieth of May," wrote the journalist of that voyager, after they had left Nomans Land, "we set sail and doubled the cape of another island next unto this, which we called Dover Cliff, and then came into a fair sound." The resemblance of this remarkable headland to the famous high chalky cliffs at Dover on the English channel, doubtless suggested to Gosnold and his companions the appropriation of the name for these new-found cliffs of like character. This name, however, did not survive the pages of Gosnold's journal, and it remained for later comers to apply a name to it of their own conception. Some time before 1662 it was "called . . . by the English Gayhead," and this name has lasted as its title ever since.1 This name, of course, was given to it as descriptive of the gaily colored cliffs seen from the west when approaching the island from the sea.

The Algonquian names at that period were Aquinniuh and Kuhtuhquehtuet, which are elsewhere considered in their philology.

BOUNDARIES

Under a resolve of the General Court, approved March 9, 1855, three commissioners, appointed by the Governor to establish a boundary between the Indian lands on Gay Head and the lands of the white inhabitants of Chilmark, determined upon the following lines:

Beginning at a rock on Nicodemus' Neck, on Squibnocket pond, thence due south across marsh and beach to the sea. From the same rock S. 55 E, across Squibnocket pond to a rock on Hillman's Point, so called; thence N. 1o2º E, crossing said pond to the southern end of a stone wall on Nashawaqueedsee, which parteth that neck from Gay Head; thence N. 25° E, three rods, by said wall; thence N. 472° E. sixty-seven rods, by said wall; thence N. 26° E. three and three-quarter rods, by said wall to its

1Dukes Deeds, III, 12. It is always written Gayhead, as if one word, with a lower case h in head.

History of Martha's Vineyard

THE GAY HEAD CLIFFS.

From the U. S. Geological Survey.

Annals of Gay Head

northern end, by Menamsha pond. Thence N. 514º E. crossing said Menamsha pond, in the direction of a rock upon Pease's Point, so called distant about four hundred and fifty rods, until it strikes the middle of the channel or outlet from said pond to the Sound; then by the middle of the said channel as the same now is, or hereafter may be, - the said channel being somewhat subject to change - unto the Vineyard Sound.1

On all other sides it is bounded by the waters of the Sound and ocean.

The stone wall referred to has been the dividing line between Nashaquitsa and Gay Head for nearly two centuries. It was first set up in 1714, shortly after "The Corporation" acquired control of the land .? The other lines are modern.

POPULATION

There is very little accurate material at hand for a resumé of the population of this town, except within recent years. The inhabitants being of Indian extraction and of a roving disposition, gave but little concern to the census takers before the 19th century. In 1698 there were 260 souls reported as attending church services at Gay Head.3 There were fifty- eight houses on Gay Head neck in 1712 (Sewall). In 1747 the guardians of the Indians stated that they were "in number about one hundred & twelve, men women and children," ''4 a decrease which is not understood, as shortly before 1786 they numbered 203,5 and in 1790 there were reported to be 276 Indians living in the peninsula.6 In 1806 a traveler, visiting the island, states their number to have been 240 that year," In 1838 there were 235 residents in the town.8 In 1860 an official report states there were 46 families actually resident, comprising 204 souls, of whom 106 were male and 98 female. In addition to these there were 49 persons of the Gay Head "tribe" living elsewhere, temporarily, but claiming tribal rights, making a total of 253 belonging to the town by birth

1House Document, No. 48, pp. 8-9. Report of the Commissioners, John Vinson, Asa R. Nye and J. Whelden Holmes. A previous commission had run a division line about 1830 between Gay Head and Squibnocket, but no record of it remains.

2Sewall Diary.

3Report of Commissioners for Society for Propagating the Gospel.

4Mass. Arch., XXXI, 550. There may be an error of 100 in the count. The report states: "the number of houses at Gayhead is 28; we compute four persons to a house which is 112, and of these about 19 Labouring men."

5Memoirs of American Academy, II, 153.

6Information furnished by Capt. Thomas Jernegan and Benjamin Bassett that year (Ist Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., I, 206).

"Kendall, "Travels," II, 196.

8Barber, "Historical Collections " (Mass.), 148.

History of Martha's Vineyard

or residence.1 The oldest was 86 years of age, and six others were over seventy.

Since the incorporation of the town four national censuses give the following figures: 1870, 160 persons; 1880, 161; 1890, 139; and 1900, 173. The state census of 1905 showed a population of 178.

ANCIENT LANDMARKS

ALGONQUIAN PLACE NAMES

Aquiniuh (1662) .- This name as applied to Gay Head, is composed of the words, Ukque-adene-auke, or Acqui- adene-auke, meaning "land under the hill," perhaps referring to the shore under Gay Head itself.

Kugh-tuh-quich-e-wutt (1681). - This is the Indian name for the narrow neck of land joining Nashaquitsa and Gay Head. Kuh-kuh-equht-wutt, or Kuh-tuh-que-i-yeu-ut, means "at the going up," as of a hill, and probably refers to the topography of that region, the ascent to the Gay Head plateau. A variation used in 1687 was Catackutcho (Deeds, IV, 128).

Mash-atan-auke .- This aboriginal name has been curi- ously corrupted into "Shot and Arrow" and "Shot Nigher" hill! It is a compound word, meaning the "great hill land," descriptive of the hilly character of the neck.

Wanummusit. - This name occurs but once (1681) in the records, without any indication of its exact locality. It marked the terminal point of the sachemship of Metaark, starting from Nashaquitsa, and may refer to the Gay Head cliff.

THE EARLY SACHEMSHIPS

Ever since the settlement of the Vineyard, in 1642, Gay Head has remained an Indian reservation and town, and very little of its annals in two hundred and sixty-seven years of existence relates to the white man or the white man's customs and development. Every attempt of the Caucasian to intro- duce himself with a view to permanent attachment has resulted in his withdrawal from the field, and today this peninsular and insular town is unquestionably Indian in the warp and woof of its very fibre.

1Report of Indian Commission to Governor and Council, 1861. Senate Document, No. 96, pp. 30-I.

Annals of Gay Head

As usual the English made early efforts to obtain it from its owners. The first occasion was when "Womsuttan alias Alexander, chief sachem of Cossomsett & of the rest of the country thereunto adjacent," sold Gay Head to William Brenton, merchant of Newport, on May 5, 1661-2.1 This sachem was the elder brother of King Philip and son of Massa- soit of the Pokanoket tribe. In this sale he reserved one- twelfth to himself. Nothing ever developed from this grant, as Brenton never made any attempt to claim the rights deeded to him. It may have been that the Sachem of Gay Head, Nohtoaksaet, refused to recognize this transfer made by a chief on the mainland, but for some reason it had the distinction of being recorded in our local land records and in the registry at New York.2

After the death of Nohtoaksaet his younger son, Metaark, succeeded to the sachemship in the absence of an elder brother. In 1675 this elder brother returned to the Vineyard and claimed a portion of Gay Head as his birthright. The negotiations are thus recorded :

This was at Gayhead in 1675.

To me Mittark Sachim at Gayhead there came the person called Ompohhannut, and said I am older than thou art, and I ought to be the Sachim, for I am the first born of our father Nohtoaksaet; or otherwise I should have some part of the land of the Gayhead parted off to me, that so I may be still (or quiet) as may be found right by the Indian Sachims and Chiefmen.

Agreeable hereunto I Mettark, Sachim, and my Councel (or chief men) and also the Common Men of Gayhead did appoint a Great Court. We called the Sachims of this Island, and the people as far as the main land to find what might be right with respect to us and Ompohhannut, relating to his claim of land, or of the Sachimship; and we held a Court at that time in Sept. 1675; and we found or did thus in our Court: - we made or sent a jury to judge of the matter of Ompoh-hannuts rights in Gayhead and we gave them, the jury, such proves that what they should determine we would confirm. And these were their names: - Samuel Cashomon foreman, Hosea Manhut, John Hannet, Masquattukquit, Joshua Momatehogin, Stephen Togomasun, Japheth Hannet, Isac Om- pany, Samuel James, Pattompan, Matthew Nohnahshesket, Joseph Pem- mahchohoo.

And we the jury have found by persons knowing that Ompohhannut speaks true and in the whole, therefore, we now judge that in a division of four parts of the Gayhead, one belongeth to him, and all his heirs forever.3

1Dukes Deeds, III, 12. This sale was "certified" by Tahcomahhatack, Papamoo, Pessuccook, Poxine, Akeemo, Caleneanute, Teequannum, "natives and Inhabitants on the westermost end of Nope."

2It was recorded in 1670 at Fort James.

3Dukes Deeds, VI, 369.

History of Martha's Vineyard

In accordance with the decision of the "Sachems and Chief Men" Metaark executed a deed conveying to his brother, Ompohhannut, one-quarter part of Gay Head, and requested the "Great Rulers among the English" to confirm the deed.2

Several years after this, on Sept. II, 1681, Metaark issued a formal declaration, signed by himself and some of his chief- men, that none of the lands in his sachemship should be alienated. In the quaint formulary of the Algonquian language this idea was expressed as follows:

I Mettack Sachem att Kuhtuhquehtuet and Nashauakquetget as far as Wanummuset:

Know yee all People that I Mettack and my principal men my children & people are owners of this: this our land forever. They are ours, and our offspring forever shall enjoy them: -

I Mettack and we principall men together with our children and all our people are agreed that no person shall sell any Land; but if any person will stealingly sell any Land: take yee your Land because it is yours for- ever: but if any one will not perform this Covenant he shall fail to have any of this Land at Kuhtuhquehtuut and Nashanaquetget forever:

I Mettack and we principall men and our children say this shall be forever

I Mettack sachem and my chief men speak this in the presence of God it shall be thus forever.2

GAY HEAD SOLD TO GOVERNOR DONGAN

The authenticity of this document was disputed twenty years later, and it was alleged to be a forgery, as will be ex- plained further on. Shortly after this the old sachem died, Jan. 20, 1683, and was succeeded by his son, called Joseph Metaark. Two years later (April 25, 1685) Matthew May- hew received the grant of the "Manor and Lordship of Martin's Vineyard" from Governor Thomas Dongan of New York, and less than a month after (May 12th) the latter had purchased from the grantee the title and the property appertaining to it, as previously detailed.3 The property appertaining and remaining was the Gay Head peninsular principally, and in pursuance of the policy adopted by the Mayhews he quieted the Indian "rights" to it by a purchase from " Joseph Mittark Sachim of the Gay Head in Martin's Vineyard, Indian native,"

1Dukes Deeds, VI, 370.

2Mass. Archives, XXXI, 10. This was signed by Metaark, John Keps, Puttuh- quannon and Tasuapinu. The paper was used in 1700 at Barnstable before a com- mittee of which William Bassett was a member. At that time Metaark had been a "praying Indian" for nearly twenty years.

3Vol. I, 174-7.

Annals of Gay Head

for £30 of all his interest therein. This transaction was dated May 6, 1687, and took place in New York, whither the Sachem had gone, evidently with Matthew Mayhew, who was one of the witnesses.1

This sale was in direct violation of the covenant of the old Sachem and his "principal men," made six years previously, and may be taken as an evidence that the document was, as alleged, a forgery. With this transaction began the manorial system in this Indian settlement, and soon the Indians were gravely paying "ears of corn" as quit rents to the Lord of the Manor.2 As the years passed by the natives found they had no rights in the soil which their ancestors had peopled and which they were now tilling and improving; and after the change of government from New York to Massachusetts had taken place, complaints were made to the new authorities of the injustice of their situation. These complaints were repeated until the General Court, in 1703, appointed a com- mittee to investigate the conditions of the Indians on Gay Head.3 In their report, dated Aug. 18, 1703, the committee took up the question of this "covenant" of the Indian Sachem offered in evidence by the complainants:

In the contest about Gay Head it appears to us by deed that Colonel Dongan bought it of Joseph Mataack, sachem; but the Indians object and say that old Mataack by his will did settle it on his sons for the use of Gay Head Indians never to be sold or alienated from them; and to prove it produce an old writing; and upon inquiry into the truth of it, an Indian called Josiah Hosewit, which seemed to be a sober, honest man, came before the committee and owned that he wrote that writing long since Mataack's death; and by the testimony of sundry other Indians we have good reason to think that said writing was forged and not true.4

This conclusion was not satisfactory to the Indians, who seemed to have faith in the document as genuine, and two years later (1705) the General Court, upon petition of Moses Will and Samuel Assewit (Horswet), ordered a rehearing. Summonses were issued to Matthew Mayhew, as steward of Lord Limerick, and the Indians affected by the decision and

1Dukes Deeds, IV, 128.

2" Josias Hosoe [Hoswet] saith that he took up with Gov's Dungans terms, brought a Red Ear of Corn to Mr. Thomas Mayhew to signify it. Terms were to pay a Peck of Wheat yearly for a while and then to pay a Bushel of Wheat per annum." (Sewall, Diary, II, 432.)

3The members of this committee were Barnabas Lothrop, John Thacher, Stephen Skiffe, John Otis and William Bassett.

4Mass. Archives, XXXI, 17; comp., CXIII, 436. This confessed forger was afterwards the native Baptist preacher at Gay Head.

History of Martha's Vineyard

it was ordered that the will of Mataark the Sachem, with the proofs thereof be laid before the Governor and Council.1

Meanwhile the steward of Dongan, "by force and virtue of attorneyship," began to make grants or leases of land, "forever," to various natives, by metes and bounds, usually of forty acres each, the consideration being the payment of a quit rent yearly. Some of these unlimited leases were as- signed to the English residents of Chilmark later for trifling payments, or in liquidation of debts incurred in business dealings with the whites. This became a source of friction between the natives and their neighbors who had become land owners, and complaints of these irregular transactions reached the agents of the Society from time to time.

THE EARL OF LIMERICK SELLS THE LORDSHIP TO THE SOCIETY FOR PROPAGATING THE GOSPEL

The Irish peer who held the Lordship of the soil in this town was an absentee landlord. It is not of record that he ever visited his domain, and his business interests here had been attended to from the first by his steward, Matthew Mayhew. The quit rents were collected, and leases prepared by the Major until his death in 1710, and this event probably hastened the change of ownership which followed shortly after. The Society for Propagating the Gospel had been for many years looking out for the moral and spiritual welfare of the natives, and its representatives in New England, comprising some of the most influential and wealthy men in the Province, saw that this state of affairs, with a landlord across the ocean, was not for the best interests of their wards. Accordingly they entered into negotiations with Lord Limerick to buy out his interests in the Manor of Martha's Vineyard. This was successfully accomplished, May 10, 17II, and the company, upon payment of £550, "lawful monies of Great Britain," secured the title of Lord of the Manor and the fee of Gay Head. This purchase was made, as Judge Sewall states in his diary, "with the main design of benefitting the aboriginal natives." Livery and seizin was completed Oct. 6, 1712, when Major Benjamin Skiffe and Samuel Sewall, Jr., as agents for Lord Limer- ick delivered to Penn Townsend, Esq., attorney for "the Corporation," as the society was generally designated here, the lands and hereditaments of the Manor. It was simply a

1Mass. Archives, XXX, 501.

Annals of Gay Head

change of landlords for the natives, and they were still tenants on the soil once owned by their fathers.

In 1714 a "ditch of four feet wide and two feet deep" was dug across the neck and "set within with Thorns and Bar- berries," and the Corporation gate erected and closed to signify the exclusion of the public from the reservation. The Corporation, "with the main design of benefitting the ab- original natives" and to put a stop to the abuses of the inde- terminate leaseholds, decided (in 1727) to make a part of this reservation a source of income, and to invest the inhab-

CHEEPY'S CORN-FIELD.

itants with the sole use and undivided occupancy of the re- mainder. Accordingly, on May 10, 1727, Abel Hosuit and nine other chief men, "in consideration of the great care, kindness and expense toward us, the inhabitants of Gay Head," executed a quitclaim deed of a tract of eight hundred acres in the northeast corner of the peninsular, bordering on Menem- sha pond and the Sound.1 In consideration of this resignation Pain Mayhew of Chilmark and Samuel Wells of Boston, "attorneys to the Honorable the Company for Propogating the Gospel &c," on the same day, "set off and settled upon the said natives and their posterity, that now inhabit or shall

1Dukes Deeds, IV, 199.

History of Martha's Vineyard

inhabit, said Gay Head, while they dwell on said Gay Head, the westerly and southerly part of said Gay Head: that is to say, all the lands of Gay Head aforesaid except what is resigned by said natives to said company."1 For this residuary tract the tribe was to pay to the Corporation, "as an acknowledg- ment annually, on the first Monday of November, one ear of Indian corn for each family," with the understanding that the natives and their posterity were to be "always under the direction, government and stent of said Company." The tract of eight hundred acres was immediately leased, the same day, to Ebenezer Allen of Chilmark for a term of twenty-one years at a rental arranged on an increasing sliding scale, which yielded a total of £845 to the funds of the Corporation.2

STATE CONTROL OVER THE TRIBE

In addition to the authority of the Corporation in its capacity as landlord over the natives as tenants, and their agreement to be under the "direction government and stent" of this Company, the Province of Massachusetts exercised its sovereign power of supreme control of them as wards of the government. As in all like conditions the wards became restless under the condition of legal restraint over their property and freedom of action, and often, when excited by designing men, would prefer charges of favoritism, malfeasance and other breaches of trust against these guardians. It is difficult to estimate the true situation between charges and counter charges of the one and the other, but when the history of the cupidity of the whites is read in the light of the simplicity of the red men, we can believe that it was not all groundless complaint which the Indians made against the men who had the power over their persons and property. In 1747 this tribe entered two complaints relative to the leasing of their land for a new term, the undesirability of the persons who obtained the leases, the insufficiency of notice to the public, and the various other charges which were answered in detail by the guardians. This answer takes up each complaint and is given verbatim to show the character of the allegations and denial. After stating that they "sett Public notification . .. that on a Certain Day in them Prefixt," bids would be received, they continue:

1Dukes Deeds, V, 51.

2Ibid., IV, 242.

Annals of Gay Head

We Leas'd s'd Land for Four hundred and sixty five Pounds, old Tenor p annum the One half to be paid at the end of every Six Months. As to their Indian built houses to be taken off s'd Land it is no more than what they commonly practice themselves. As for their Fire-wood there is enough for their own use on that part of s'd Neck which is sett off to them which is as good wood as is generally growing on any part of s'd Neck of Land; and the wood that is growing on the Leased Land is very small, Scarcely a stick large enough for a hedge Stake. As to the Article of Complaint: our turning off their Catle and not reserving Feed enough for them it is utterly false, for there is a great deal more Grass growing on the Land sett off to s'd Indians than their Catle can Eat before the Winter will ordinarily spoil the grass, as will appear by the evidence here- with submitted. And as to the Objection made against the Persons to whom the Lease was made we answer it being sett up at a Publick Vandue every Person present had a right to bid for it; and they themselves had but a little time before Let the privilege of Feeding the whole Neck to several of the same persons as appears by a writing in hands of their Com'tee herewith presented, and we doubt not but that the hon'ble Court will Dismiss s'd Petitions as groundless and Vexatious as we humbly apprehend they are, we having acted in the s'd affair with integrity, and with no other view than to serve their Interest and that we have used the likeliest methods, therefore we doubt not but that we could procure the Testimony of every unprejudiced Judicious person in the County.1

DISAPPEARANCE OF "THE CORPORATION" AS LANDLORD

Evidence exists of the benevolent control exercised for years by the "Corporation" over the lands in this town, and elsewhere on the Vineyard, acquired by the purchase made of the Earl of Limerick. The political relations of the Province to the Crown, however, becoming more acute as we approach the period of the Revolution, necessarily had its reflex upon the activities of this English Society. The religious and political phases of this subject are considered in another volume of this history,2 and it will only be necessary to state the fact that it resulted in a gradual withdrawal of contributions and a final loss of interest in the tribe at Gay Head, in common with the other beneficiaries. It is a singular fact that no record has yet been found, if one ever were made, which shows a conveyance of the rights of this corporation to the fee simple of Gay Head, and its other real property on the Vineyard occupied by the Indians. The exact legal status of the reserv- ation during and after the Revolution is therefore a question of ethics and equity. Perhaps it may be held by those who

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The history of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume II, Part 53

Author: Banks, Charles Edward, 1854-1931 Publication date: 1911 Publisher: Boston : G.H. Dean Number of Pages: 720

Author: Banks, Charles Edward, 1854-1931
Publication date: 1911
Publisher: Boston : G.H. Dean
Number of Pages: 720