In the late 19th century, one out of every 155 people on this island was born deaf -- 37 times the national average. Rather than isolating the deaf community, islanders did something remarkable: nearly everyone learned sign language. Hearing and deaf residents conversed seamlessly in Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, a system distinct from American Sign Language, and deaf Vineyarders earned average or above-average incomes. There was no language barrier, no social divide. The last person born into this signing tradition, Katie West, died in 1952, but the story captures something essential about Martha's Vineyard -- an island that has always done things its own way, from its Wampanoag roots to its status as the quiet retreat where presidents, poets, and movie stars go to disappear.
Long before English explorers arrived, the Wampanoag people called this island Noepe -- "land amid the streams" in the Massachusett language. In 1642, roughly 3,000 Wampanoag lived here. The English name likely honors Martha Golding, the wealthy mother-in-law of explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, who partly funded his 1602 expedition -- the first recorded European voyage to Cape Cod. Remarkably, when Thomas Mayhew purchased the island and established the first settlement at Great Harbor (later Edgartown), he honored Wampanoag land rights and cultivated genuine friendship with its people. This relationship bore extraordinary fruit: Peter Folger, grandfather of Benjamin Franklin, taught in island schools alongside Wampanoag instructors, and Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck became one of the first Native American graduates of Harvard in 1665, delivering his address in Latin. A substantial Wampanoag community endures today in Aquinnah -- whose name means "land under the hill" -- maintaining a living connection to the island's deepest history.
Like neighboring Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard rose to prominence through 19th-century whaling, sending ships around the world in pursuit of oil and blubber. The discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania collapsed the industry by 1870, but the island found its next chapter quickly. When the Old Colony Railroad reached mainland Woods Hole in 1872, summer visitors began arriving in earnest. The campmeeting grounds at Wesleyan Grove in Oak Bluffs sprouted hundreds of ornate gingerbread cottages -- colorful, fairy-tale Victorian confections that remain one of the island's most photographed landmarks. The island also harbored one of nature's last stands: the heath hen, an extinct subspecies of the greater prairie chicken, found its final refuge here. Despite conservation efforts, the last known bird -- nicknamed "Booming Ben" -- perished on Martha's Vineyard in 1932.
Martha's Vineyard is divided into six distinct communities, each with its own character. Edgartown, the largest, carries the legacy of wealthy whaling captains in its stately white houses along harbor lanes. Oak Bluffs pulses with nightlife along Circuit Avenue and holds a century-old tradition as a cherished destination for affluent African American families, particularly in the East Chop area. Tisbury, home to the village of Vineyard Haven, serves as the island's year-round port of entry. Up-island, West Tisbury anchors the agricultural heart, hosting the beloved Agricultural Fair each August. Rural Chilmark contains the fishing village of Menemsha and claims the birthplace of George Claghorn, master shipbuilder of the USS Constitution. And Aquinnah, with its dramatic clay cliffs, remains home to the Wampanoag Indian tribe. The three down-island towns serve alcohol freely; Chilmark stays dry; and West Tisbury and Aquinnah split the difference with beer and wine only.
In 1974, Steven Spielberg transformed the fishing village of Menemsha and the town of Chilmark into the fictional Amity Island for Jaws, casting island natives in key roles and scores more as extras. The film made the Vineyard internationally famous, but celebrity has always had a complicated relationship with this place. In 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy's car went off the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, killing Mary Jo Kopechne. In 1999, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s small plane crashed off the coast, claiming three lives. Presidents from Ulysses S. Grant to Bill Clinton to Barack Obama have vacationed here -- Obama purchased an Edgartown estate in 2019. John Belushi loved the island so much his family buried him in Chilmark's Abel's Hill Cemetery. Writers James Taylor, Carly Simon, and Walter Cronkite have all called it home. Yet the Vineyard's unspoken pact endures: celebrities come here precisely to not be seen, and locals protect that privacy fiercely.
The numbers tell the Vineyard's essential tension. Year-round population: 20,530. Summer population: over 200,000. About 56 percent of the island's 14,621 homes sit empty most of the year. The year-round working population earns 30 percent less than the state average while facing a cost of living 60 percent higher. Schools see declining enrollment as families are priced off-island. Yet this small community punches far above its weight in activism and self-governance, from the Martha's Vineyard Commission regulating development to annual fundraisers like the Possible Dreams Auction. In 1977, islanders even flirted with secession from Massachusetts, receiving offers from Vermont and Hawaii to join their states. The separatist flag -- a white seagull over an orange sun on sky blue -- still flies on the Vineyard today, a half-serious reminder that this island, the third-largest on the East Coast and one of only five U.S. place names to carry a possessive apostrophe, has always charted its own course.
Located at 41.40N, 70.62W, Martha's Vineyard is clearly visible as a large island south of Cape Cod. Martha's Vineyard Airport (KMVY) on the south-central part of the island provides the primary approach. The island's distinctive shape, with the Chappaquiddick peninsula extending east and the dramatic clay cliffs of Aquinnah at the western tip, makes it unmistakable from altitude. Best viewed at 3,000-5,000 feet AGL for the full island panorama, or descend to 1,500 feet to pick out the gingerbread cottages of Oak Bluffs and the harbor at Edgartown. Cape Cod Canal and Nantucket Sound provide excellent visual navigation references. Vineyard Sound separates the island from the Elizabeth Islands chain to the northwest.