Quarterly

FEBRUARY
& MAY 2021

VOLUME 62
NOS. 1 & 2

Martha’s Vineyard Museum’s Journal of Island History MVMUSEUM.ORG

The Last Voyage of

Captain William Martin

Epitaphs from Island Gravestones

Letters from the Summer Institute
Summer People: The Blackwells of Chilmark
The Federated Church Bell
The Cleveland House Poets MVMUSEUM
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Details
The details are where God—or, depending on one’s choice of apho-
risms, the Devil—is said to reside. The Quarterly takes no position on
such cosmic matters but, as the six pieces in this expanded issue make
clear, historical truth certainly dwells there. One uses newly discovered
letters written by Capt. William A. Martin of Edgartown to reveal the
day-to-day realities of life for an African American whaling master in the
waning days of the industry, revealing a man of unshakeable confidence
and fierce pride in his skills as a master mariner. Another uses epitaphs
in some of the Island’s oldest cemeteries to reveal the complex ways in
which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Islanders dealt with the too-
frequent pain of death, and the challenges of moving past loss and grief.
The third featured article explores life at the Martha’s Vineyard Summer
Institute in the 1880s, where lectures and teacher-training classes min-
gled fishing trips, hymn singing, and picnics on the bluffs at East Chop.
Shorter articles revisit familiar topics—the Blackwell family of Chilmark,
the Federated Church in Edgartown, and the Cleaveland House Poets
writer’s group in West Tisbury—from unfamiliar perspectives. All use
a wealth of small details, carefully observed and artfully arranged, to
reveal larger historical truths.
This issue, 25% larger than normal at 64 pages, combines the February
and May 2021 iterations of the Quarterly. Regular quarterly publication
will resume with the August issue.
— A. Bowdoin Van Riper
On the Cover: “The Captain,” a portrait of an African American whaling cap-
tain inspired by Capt. William A. Martin, of whom no historical images exist, by
Darrel Morris (darrelmorris.com).
MARTHA’S VINEYARD MUSEUM
QUARTERLY
Vol. 62, Nos. 1 & 2 © 2021 February & May 2021

The Last Voyage

by Skip Finley........................................................................................ 3
Silent Voices from the Past
by E. St. John Villard....................................................................... 22
From the Archives:
Things to Write Home About:
Letters from the Summer Institute
by A. Bowdoin Van Riper................................................................. 41
Summering with the Blackwells:
Meeting Ghosts in Research and Real Life
by Janice P. Nimura........................................................................... 51
The Federated Church Bell
by Herbert R. Ward.......................................................................... 57
The Cleaveland House Poets
by Ned Sternick................................................................................. 63

Founding Editor: Gale Huntington (1959-1961, 1964-1977)

Dorothy Scoville, Editor (1961-1963)
George Adams, Editor (1977-1979)
Arthur R. Railton, Editor (1979-2006)
John Walter, Editor (2007-2008)
Susan Wilson, Editor (2009-2014)

The Martha’s Vineyard Museum Quarterly is published by the Martha’s

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Articles in the MVM Quarterly do not necessarily represent the opinions of
the Museum or its officers. Every effort is made to confirm dates, names and
events in published articles, but we cannot guarantee total accuracy.

ISSN 0418 1379

 Martha’s Vineyard Museum
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Cathy Weiss, Chair
Paul Schneider, Vice-Chair
David Grain, Secretary
Meredith Degan, Treasurer
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A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Research Librarian &
Editor, MV Museum Quarterly
 • MVM QUARTERLY •

The Last Voyage

by Skip Finley

W
illiam A. Martin was one of some 50 men of color whose
talents led to them becoming captains of American whaling
vessels.1 Eight handwritten letters that Martin wrote to Samuel
Osborn, Jr., the owner of the Eunice H. Adams, were recently discovered
in the archives of the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. They chronicle events
during what proved to be Martin’s last whaling trip, from October 16, 1887
to January, 1890.2 Fortuitously, the log of this whaling trip is also available,
providing context for the letters and allowing for a shipboard view of the
circumstances under which they were written.
William A. Martin, Whaling Master
The whaling industry was a major economic engine for America from the
mid-1700s to the early 1920s, achieving its peak production in the mid-1800s
when slavery was the law of the land. The industry was marked by the dif-
ficulty and discomfort endured by crews during voyages that averaged three
to four years on relatively small vessels, shared by 20 to 30 or more crewmem-
bers. Reportedly, some 90% of 175,000 men who pursued the difficult occupa-
tion only went whaling once, creating opportunity for the more than 30% of
the workforce that were men of color. William A. Martin was one of them: a
black man from Edgartown, which—like Nantucket, New Bedford and Sag
Harbor—became a nexus of the American whaling industry.
Martin was first brought to public attention in 1997 by Elaine Wein-
traub and Carrie Tankard, the founders of the African American Heritage
Trail of Martha’s Vineyard. In census data and on his death certificate, as
1 Skip Finley, Whaling Captains of Color: America’s First Meritocracy (2019).
2 Martha’s Vineyard Museum, RU 335 (Osborn Family Papers), Box 1, Folder
7. The letters, filed among other business correspondence of Osborn’s, were
discovered, transcribed and edited by MV Museum Research Librarian A. Bow-
doin Van Riper in 2020.
Skip Finley, a retired broadcaster, is director of sales and marketing for the
Vineyard Gazette Media Group. A longtime resident of Oak Bluffs, he is the
author of Historic Tales of Oak Bluffs and Whaling Captains of Color (both 2019)
and a frequent contributor to the Quarterly.
3
well as in genealogical sources, he is explicitly listed as Black.3 The crew
list for the Rebecca Sims in 1857 describes Martin as “light” skinned. The
Emma Jane’s 1881 crew list describes him as “dark,” which seem to be the
only clues in whaling records to his racial description.
Martin’s roots on Martha’s Vineyard date to the mid-1700s. His great-
grandmother, Rebecca, born in Guinea, West Africa, was enslaved by
Colonel Cornelius Bassett of Chilmark. Zaccheus Mayhew, a Chilmark
justice of the peace, owned another African slave named Rose, whose son
Sharper Michael (born 1742) had two children with Rebecca: a daughter
named Nancy, born in 1772, and a son named James. Sharper Michael, af-
ter gaining his freedom, moved to Gay Head (now Aquinnah) and married
a Wampanoag widow named Lucy Peters in 1775. Sharper Michael, like
the half-Black, half-Wampanoag seaman Crispus Attucks killed by British
troops at the Boston Massacre, was a martyr to the Revolution. In Septem-
ber 1777, an American ship grounded on the beach at Squibnocket, on the
border between Gay Head and Chilmark, and was set afire by the pursu-
ing British privateer Cerberus. Locals, including Abner Mayhew and an
“unknown negro” rained fire on the attackers, wounding many. Sharper
Michael, who had happened upon the fracas—was killed by a musket ball,
making him the first person killed by the British on Martha’s Vineyard.
Sharper Michael was William A. Martin’s great-grandfather.4
Sharper’s daughter Nancy Michael inherited the home that brother James
(believed to have been a mariner) owned in Edgartown. She never married
but had two daughters: Rebecca in 1804 and Lucy in 1808. By 1812 Nancy
ran into financial difficulty, was declared a pauper, and was forced to sell
the small house in 1819. Rebecca, who had problems with drinking and the
law, gave birth to William A. Martin in 1827. Driven by personal demons,
Rebecca served nine jail sentences after William was born and died in 1854.
As a result of Rebecca’s trials Martin was raised by his grandmother Nancy,
who was known as “Black Nance.” An article about her death described her
fondness of children—and that there were “few among us who at some time
have not been indebted to her.” She was thought to be a witch whose remon-
strations provided “good or bad luck to those bound on long voyages.” The
article noted: “her strange power and influence over many continued till
the day of her death.” Although Nancy Michael died before her grandson
became a captain, one suspects that whatever powers she may have had con-
tributed to William A. Martin’s whaling career.5

3 R. Andrew Pierce and Jerome D. Segal. Wampanoag Families of Martha’s

Vineyard. Vol. 2, pts. A and B (2016).
4 R. Andrew Pierce, “Sharper Michael, Born a Slave, First Islander Killed in
the Revolution,” Dukes County Intelligencer, May 2005, pp. 147-152.
5 “An Old Landmark Gone,” Vineyard Gazette, January 2, 1857.
4
 Data derived from Finley, Whaling Captains of Color; Alexander Starbuck, History of the American Whale Fishery
(1878); Reginald Hegarty, Returns of Whaling Vessels Sailing from American Ports (1959); Judith A. Lund, Whaling Masters
and Whaling Voyages Sailing from American Ports (2001); New Bedford Whaling Museum, Whaling Crew List Database,
https://www.whalingmuseum.org/online_exhibits/crewlist/.

5
 Martin was well known locally due to the activities of his mother and
grandmother and apparently received a good education in the Edgartown
public schools. Martin is believed to have gone to sea in 1846, when he was
16. It was rare for someone Black, almost 20 years before the Civil War
ended, to be able to read and write, and to be entrusted with the respon-
sibility for a whaleship and crew. During Martin’s whaling career from
1846-1890 he made fourteen voyages on eleven ships. Five of them owned
by Samuel Osborn, Jr. including two (Emma Jane and Eunice H. Adams) of
the three on which he sailed as Master.
Samuel Osborn, Jr. 6
Samuel Osborn, Jr. (1823-1895) was born in Edgartown, one of seven
children of Samuel and Mary T. Osborn. His uncle, Capt. Abraham Os-
born (1798-1865), commanded the Ed-
gartown-based whaler Almira on a voy-
age to the Pacific in the 1824-1826 and
then became a ship owner and agent.
His cousin, Capt. Abraham Osborn, Jr.
(1831-1910) “went master” on five whal-
ing voyages in five different ships—in-
cluding the Almira and the Ocmulgee,
which was burned by the Confeder-
ate raider Alabama—between 1856
and 1878. Samuel, like his uncle, had
an entrepreneurial bent. After attend-
ing school, he opened a clothing store
on Lower Main Street in Edgartown,
then became involved in the whaling
business as agent for the Almira and
Europa. He initially invested in whal-
ing ships in partnership with others,
and then—as his fortune increased—
became sole owner of several, begin-
Four years older than William A. Martin, Samuel ning with the bark Clarice in 1872. By
Osborn, Jr. (1823-1895) was “probably the largest
individual owner of whaling property in the United 1880 he had a fleet of eight vessels and
States.” Vineyard Gazette, “Death of Samuel Osborn, was (according to his obituary in the
Jr.” March 21, 1895.
Gazette) “the largest individual own-
er of whaling property in the United
States.”7 The proceeds of his whaling investments allowed him to amass a
fortune valued, in contemporary terms, at over $13 million. The immacu-
6 “Death of Samuel Osborn, Jr.” Vineyard Gazette, March 21, 1895. vineyard-
gazette.com/news/1895/03/21 /death-samuel-osborn-jr
7 “Death of Samuel Osborn, Jr.”

6
late Charlotte Inn on South Summer Street—built by Samuel Osborn Jr.
for his wife, Zoraida, and their two sons—is a monument to his success.8
Businessmen like Samuel Osborn, Jr. were essential to the offshore
whaling industry. All of the 15,913 recorded whaling voyages that sailed
from American ports were structured as individual business enterprises,
with at times different owner/investors, managers, and crews. Whaling
was a venture capital enterprise—indeed, a forerunner of today’s simi-
larly structured private equity firms and hedge funds—in which inves-
tors (and crews) took substantial risks in the hope of reaping large re-
wards.9 Whaling ships were bought, repaired, maintained, and equipped
using money paid out by their owners at the beginning of each voyage.
Captains and crews were paid, and investors’ expenses repaid, when
the ship returned home years later. If whales were scarce or the crew’s
luck was bad, a voyage might not even cover expenses. If the ship was
lost—as the Ocmulgee and several
others owned by the Osborn fam-
ily were—the investors would lose
everything they had put into her.
Hiring the experienced masters
and mates, and signing on the best
possible crews, was a key to success-
ful, profitable whaling voyages. The
fact that seven of William A. Mar-
tin’s fourteen whaling voyages were
aboard ships owned by the Osborns
suggests their high level of confi-
dence in him. Abraham Osborn was
principal owner the of the Europa
and Almira and Samuel Osborn was
principal owner of the Clarice, as
well as the Emma Jane and Eunice A.
Adams, which Martin commanded.
It is probably not coincidental that Figurehead of the Eunice H. Adams, presumably
representing her namesake. Mystic Seaport Photo
Samuel Osborn, Jr. was a prominent (1956.745)
member of the Republicans: the party
of Abraham Lincoln, credited with freeing America’s slaves. He represented
the Island in the Massachusetts legislature, served on Governor John A. An-
drew’s advisory council during the Civil War, and acted as the Governor’s
8 Arthur R. Railton, Walking Tour of Historic Edgartown (1986), pp. 51-52.
9 Tom Nicholas, and Jonas Peter Akins, “Whaling Ventures,” Harvard
Business School Case 813-086, October 2012 (revised February 2019). https://
store.hbr.org/product/whaling-ventures/813086

7
emissary to Washington. It is from this aspect of his life—coupled with the
activities of many Vineyard abolitionists, who invited Frederick Douglass
who spoke on the Island in 1857 and 1876—that it can be perceived as a rea-
son the Osborn’s placed such great faith in Capt. William A. Martin, whose
last command was the whaling schooner Eunice H. Adams.
The Eunice H. Adams and Vineyard Whaling
The Eunice H. Adams, launched in 1845, was built for Freeman E. Ad-
ams of Nantucket by the Amos Crandall Shipyard in Bristol, RI. It was
named for the original owner’s wife, the former Eunice H. Nickerson,
whose likeness—in the form of the ship’s carved wooden figurehead—is
on display at the Mystic Seaport Museum. Built as a two-masted, single-
decked coasting schooner, the 82-foot, 110-ton vessel spent 20 years car-
rying cargo before becoming, in the same month the Civil War ended,
the last whaling vessel registered on Nantucket. The Adams made four
voyages from Nantucket (1865-1870) under the command of Capt. Zenas
M. Coleman, then five more out of New Bedford (1872-1882) under five
different masters. She was rerigged as a brig after her second trip under
Captain Coleman, and her subsequent voyages lasted 20-22 months rather
than the 4-6 of her first two. Bought by Samuel Osborn in the early 1880s,
the Eunice H. Adams spent its final years in Edgartown, making five more
whaling voyages between 1884 and 1894.10 Already old when converted
for whaling, she continued whaling for another 27 years. Launched late in
the whaling era when prices were low and with shorter trips lasting fewer
than 3 years, her useful life produced just under 4,500 barrels of oil valued
at $3.7 million dollars in today’s funds.11
The Eunice H. Adams was diminutive by the standards of her era. Dis-
placing only 110 tons, she was less than one-third the size of the iconic
Charles W. Morgan (351 tons) and less than one-fifth the size of the 500-
ton behemoths that were, in the last decades of the nineteenth century,
sailing to the North Pacific and Arctic Ocean whaling grounds. The Eu-
nice H. Adams was lighter than Vineyard Haven’s 170-ton topsail schoo-
ner Shenandoah, as well as nearly thirty feet shorter (82 feet v. 110 feet).
The interior spaces of the Adams, were approximately twice the volume of
an average American home, but had to house 24 men—along with all their
supplies and equipment—for more than two years.
Cornelius M. Marchant, co-owner of the Eunice H. Adams along with
Samuel Osborn, commanded her on her first two Edgartown voyages. A
veteran of the industry, he had sailed as captain on seven previous whaling
voyages from Edgartown over the course of nearly a quarter-century (1860-
10 American Offshore Whaling Voyages (AOWV) Database, National Mari-
time Digital Library, https://whalinghistory.org/av/voyages/
11 Author’s estimate, see chart.

8
1884). His earlier com-
mands included the barks
Ellen and Clarice and the
schooner Emma Jane, the
latter two owned—like
the Eunice H. Adams—by
Samuel Osborn. March-
ant took the Adams out
of Edgartown for the first
time on June 4, 1884,
but returned only three
weeks later (June 24) due
to a hurricane that car-
ried away three whale-
boats and caused the
ship to leak badly. After
repairs at a yard in New
Bedford, Marchant took
the Adams to sea again
in July 1884. The ship re-
turned to Edgartown in
April 1885—still chroni-
cally leaking, a condition
that would have reper-
cussions later—under the The Eunice H. Adams, William A. Martin’s last command, and one
of the last whalers to sail from the Vineyard. Author’s Collection.
command of Capt. John
Pardee. Marchant had died in Barbados in February, a few months before
his 60th birthday.
Capt. William Martin took command of the Eunice H. Adams in the
fall of 1887, and set sail from Edgartown on October 16. It was the Adams’
thirteenth whaling voyage—the ship’s next-to-last, and Martin’s last—and
it lasted for 29 months, ending in March 1890. The Eunice H. Adams would
call at the Cape Verde Islands, St. Eustatius, Dominica, Monserrat, St. Mi-
chaels, Barbados, and the southern US ports of Beaufort and Port Royal,
South Carolina, and Norfolk, Virginia (where Martin’s letters to Samuel Os-
born, reprinted below, were written). Throughout the history of the Ameri-
can whaling industry, from the mid-1700s to the early 1900s, good weather
and the availability of whales were the key variables that determined success
or failure. Martin’s luck, on both counts, was bad. Whales were scarce, with
an average of 45 days elapsing between kills, and the voyage included the
second time the Adams had been driven into port as a result of inclement
weather, and the third time—December 6, 1887—that it had been under sail

9
during a hurricane.12 The voyage was also dogged by a variety of other prob-
lems: accidents, desertions, a leaking hull, and uncooperative port officials.
Captain Martin weathered these setbacks until February 1890, when he was
replaced by Capt. Thomas E. Fordham for reasons that are unclear but be-
lieved to be related to Martin’s health.13
Over the course of the offshore whaling era, a total of 98 vessels, com-
manded by 175 different captains, sailed from Vineyard ports on 247
whaling voyages.14 The sloop Diamond, which left Edgartown under the
command of Capt. Joseph Chase in 1738, was the first. The Eunice H. Ad-
ams was among the last. The fourteenth and final voyage of her whaling
career, under the command of Capt. John T. Gonsalves, began in April
1893 and ended in September 1894. The Hattie E. Smith, a small Osborn-
owned schooner commanded by Capt. John E. Johnson, Jr., left Edgar-
town a year after the Eunice H. Adams, in April 1894.15 When she returned
that November, the Vineyard’s days as a home base for whaling vessels
ended for good.16 The whaling industry had, over a century-and-a-half,
transformed the Vineyard in general and Edgartown in particular. Mar-
tin’s final voyage aboard the Adams was part of its swansong on the Island.
Logbooks had been part of seafaring long before offshore whaling be-
gan, and were part of the whaling industry from its earliest days. Logs for
roughly 3,000 of the 15,000 offshore whaling voyages made by American
crews have survived to the present day, and approximately one-third of
those are in the Nicholson Whaling Collection of the Providence Public
Library. Among them is the log of the Eunice H. Adams, kept by Capt.
Martin on his final, hard-luck voyage.17
The log’s hardbound cover, aging and stained, contains 224 pages, the

12 The first time was in June 1884, under Capt. Marchant, and the second in
December 1885, under Capt. Manuel Costa.
13 AOWV Database
14 These numbers do not include vessels that, though owned or commanded
by Vineyarders, sailed from New Bedford and other mainland ports. The first
(1845-1848) voyage of the Charles W. Morgan, for example, was commanded
by Capt. Thomas Adams Norton of Edgartown and included XX Vineyarders
among its crew.
15 AOWV Database
16 Whalers continued to operate from mainland ports on both coasts for
another three decades, and Vineyarders continued to sail on them. The Arctic
whaling careers of Captains James A. Tilton of Chilmark and Hartson Bodfish
of Tisbury, among others, began in the 1890s and lasted until World War I or
even later. Amos Smalley of Gay Head (now Aquinnah) famously killed a white
sperm whale off the Azores in 1903, while a harpooner on the bark Platina, out
of New Bedford.
17 Logbook of the Eunice H. Adams, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/
details/logbookofeuniceh00euni_2 /mode/2up
10
first 172 of which reflect Martin’s leadership and activities. Written across
the top of each set of two facing pages is the inscription:“Remarks of a
Whaling Voyage onboard the Brig EH Adams—W. A. Martin Master”
Pages 174 to 181 were used by Martin’s replacement, Thomas E. Fordham.
Pages 182 to 209 are blank and unused, while pages 210 to 213 contain
lists, kept by Martin, that detail amounts of oil sent home and the names
of crewmembers who had sighted and struck the seventeen whales taken
on the voyage. Most whaling-log entries are cursory at best: The informa-
tion in a typical one details the location of the ship, the weather, and any
important shipboard events, such as the taking of a whale. Martin’s log is
no exception. It exercises brevity, detailing only what was important: the
date, weather and location of the ship. Sightings of other ships and sea life
are noted in addition to where and when prey was spotted and caught.
Nevertheless, the log’s pages provide a valuable overview of the portion
of the 27 months of the voyage when Captain Martin was in charge, and
context for the weeks in August and September of 1889 when he wrote to
Samuel Osborn from Norfolk.
A Master’s Last Voyage
William A. Martin’s voyage as master of the Eunice H. Adams began with
difficulty and ended badly. On the day the brig cast off, he wrote in the log:
October 16, 1887: Took our anchor from port of New Bedford at 9
O’clock AM and shaped our course for sea with a company of 25 all
told. At 12m [Noon] discharged the Pilot. Wind blowing strong from
South west. At 3 O’clock PM kept off and steered for Tarpaulin cove.
Came at anchor at 6 PM in eight fathoms of water. So ends this day.
Bad weather caused the ship to lay over at Tarpaulin Cove for three days
before finally leaving on October 19. Contrary winds and bad weather con-
tinued to hamper the voyage, however, and log entries frequently reference
it: “the wind blew so that we could not lower the boats” . . . “strong winds” . .
. “continuous gales” . . . “squally with rain.” There were numerous accidents
(men falling, sometimes overboard) and cases of sicknesses, some specified
as diarrhea and mumps. Despite the bad luck, however, there is not a single
notation about Martin feeling badly about it or sorry for himself.
Winds that began on December 1, 1887 rose to hurricane force by De-
cember 6, and badly damaged one of the whaleboats. More importantly,
it stressed the hull of the ship and loosened the seams between its aging
timbers, caused severe leakage that continued for the balance of the trip.
The ship’s pump, mounted on deck but equipped with an intake pipe that
reached deep into the ship’s bilges, was operated by two men who stood
on opposite sides of a see-saw-like handle. The work was monotonous and
exhausting, but necessary to keep the ship from filling with seawater and
sinking. Notations in the log record virtually continual pumping: up to

11
400 strokes an hour at times of peak danger, and 4000 strokes per day.
Almost immediately, the crew was perturbed both by the work and the
danger it was meant to avert. Stopping for repairs at Port Royal, South
Carolina, a crewman jumped ship, but was returned by a passing boat. The
majority of the crew, Martin noted in the log, “sent a letter on shore to the
authorities stating that they considered the vessel unseaworthy. And that
they did not wish to go to sea in the vessel again.”
Working conditions on a whaleship were difficult and dangerous even
when conditions were good. Historians estimate that from half to two-
thirds the crew that signed onto a ship at the beginning of a voyage might
desert before it returned home.18 Whaling crews worked not for a regular
wage but for a “lay:” a specified fraction of the profits that they agreed to
when they signed onto the ship, with the understanding that they would
be paid when the voyage ended and the books were balanced. Sailors who
jumped ship forfeited their right to any profit from the voyage, which (in
principle) saved the owners money. They also, however, deprived the cap-
tain of their labor; if too many men deserted, the entire crew’s ability to
catch and kill whales (and thus earn a profit that would ultimately benefit
them all) would be compromised. Preventing desertion and replacing de-
serters was thus part of the business model of whaling.
Desertion was a continuing problem during Martin’s command of the
Eunice H. Adams. On December 7, 1887, in the aftermath of the hurri-
cane, some members of the crew deserted and others refused to work. One
sailor jumped ship and returned with a lawyer who interviewed the rest of
the crew. Evidently, nothing came of the lawyer’s intervention. The crew
finally agreed to return to work, and on January 3, 1888, Martin raised an-
chor and headed for sea with a full complement. The crew of the Eunice H.
Adams numbered 25, but by the end of its voyage the names of 47 men had
been entered in the ship’s books. Eight were recorded as having deserted,
and as many as fifteen others may have followed them.
Whaling captains rarely had the benefit of training in management, and
many are the horrifying stories of poor and dangerous leadership. There is
no evidence in the log that this was Captain Martin’s problem. He was dili-
gent in reporting the food he “broke out” to feed the crew, including bread,
water, flour, molasses, vinegar, sugar, butter and, at alternate times, beef and
pork. There are no indications of crewmen being severely punished and the
captain provided for occasional leave for the entire crew. There were sev-
eral times the crew refused to work but, in each instance, Martin was able
to re-engage them—his managerial skills seemed adequate. Nor is it likely
18 Briton Cooper Busch, Whaling Will Never Do for Me – The American
Whaleman in the Nineteenth Century (20009), Chapter 6; Elmo Hohman, The
American Whaleman (1928).

12
 Original Crew of the Eunice H. Adams, 1887
Name Rank Lay Age Race Residence Disposition
William A. Martin Captain 57 B Edgartown
Arthur O. Gibbons 1st Mate 1/18 28 B
Philip Sylaveiro 2nd Mate 1/24 31 B Deserted
Joseph Gomez Harpooner 1/25 28
Benjamin Hazzard Harpooner 1/75 55 Hawaii
Thomas Taylor Steward 1/120 28 Boston
Domingo Fleming Harpooner 1/75 24 B Fogo, CVI
Joseph Lopes Cook 1/140 40 B Sao Taigo, CVI
Manuel J. Pera Seaman 1/130
Antone Roderique Seaman 1/125
John Lopez Seaman 1/140 25 B Sao Taigo, CVI
Albert E. Vaughn Greenhand 1/150 21 New Bedford
S. F. McArther Seaman 1/150 21 Portland Deserted
C. C. Briggs Greenhand 1/150 26 Philadelphia Deserted
James McNally Greenhand 1/150 18 Marblehead
C. C. Hamilton Greenhand 1/150 21 Nantucket Deserted
John McNamara Greenhand 1/150 31 Boston Deserted
Fred Ridson Deserted
George Ridson Carpenter 1/140 21 London
Abram L. Josh Greenhand 1/150 23 Edgartown
Replacements & Additions
Name Rank Lay Notes
Thomas E. Fordham Captain Resident of Edgartown
Theophilus S. Almeida 1st Mate 1/18
Frank Perry 2nd Mate 1/28
Henry Allen Harpooner 1/75
Isaac Simmons Harpooner 1/80
Girard (?) Solomon Greenhand 1/125
Jose Antonio Duarte Greenhand 1/140
Charles Thompson 1/140
Edgar La Bruce 1/140
John Alves 3rd mate 1/40
Fred D. West 2nd mate
John Domingo Lopes Greenhand Hired “before the mast”
Antoine Joseph Harpooner Hired “before the mast”
Cesar Brava Greenhand Hired “before the mast”
Segeo Marrier Farrar Deserted
Benjamin Dice Deserted
John A. Chapman
Ernest Kennedy
Manuel D. Bourgo
Joseph Queltho (?) 1/140
John Le Canto (?) 1/140
John Rodrick (?)
Rufino Gonzales
Lobario Farues (?)
Mr. Perez
Alan (?)
Otten (?)

13
that the captain’s race played any significant role in the desertions. Several
crewmembers were black and there were no doubt other men of color hired
from stops in the West Indies and Cape Verde. It is more than likely that
the weather and working conditions caused rancor. The log’s constant refer-
ences to the ship leaking, harpoons breaking, major and minor accidents,
terrible weather and few whales spotted suggest a miserable voyage that did
nothing to sustain the happiness of the crew.
Indeed, from departure on October 16, 1887 it took until November 21
before the crew of the Eunice H. Adams even sighted a sperm whale and
until May 14, 1888—seven months later—before they caught one. Along
the way they did harvest blackfish (pilot whales) and porpoises, possibly
for consumption. On June 29, 1888, the ship sent its first cargo of oil home
from Barbados. February, May, June and July of 1889 were particularly
productive, accounting for 10 of the 17 captured on the voyage, which ul-
timately produced 375 barrels of sperm whale oil.
At July’s end the weather had worsened enough that Captain Martin de-
cided to anchor at Norfolk on August 1, amidst a rainstorm. With the storm
continuing through August 13, Captain Martin had 123 barrels of oil made
ready for transfer for shipping home and drafted the first of these newly
discovered letters. In it, Martin details damage to the ship and repair costs
caused by the weather necessitating the unusual stop at Norfolk where as
a black man, just 24 years earlier, he could have been accused, under the
Fugitive Slave Act, of having “escaped” and been “returned” to enslavement.
Norfolk, Aug 13th, 1889
Mr. Osborn Dear sir
I suppose you think strange my not being gone. I think so too, but
we had hard weather, not fit to go to sea [even] if I could, and I think
it is a good thing that the pilot did not take me out as we should have
been on the beach and all hands lost, as the wind has been blowing
[a] fearful gale from [the] NE then back to the north and then to
Northwest and blew [a] heavy gale so that we [unclear] two anchors
& the [unclear] [unclear] on a schooner took her jibboom and sprung
her bowsprit: broke off at [the] stanchions and set her to leaking. All
the damage it done [was] the broken spritsail yard, parted flying jib
guy. I shall be gone before you get this letter [and] will report as often
as I can. Settle damages to schooner [unclear] $500; tow boat $8. I
shall not come here again. The weather will be too cold & it may get
froze up here. Do not know where I will go.
Yours truly,
Wm. A. Martin
Martin and the ship remained in Norfolk until September 23, 1889
through daily bad weather, the period during which he corresponded with
Osborn. He may have received letters from Osborn in reply but, if they
survived, their whereabouts are unknown.

14
 On August 15, crewman John A. Chapman deserted. On the 16th, Fred
West, one of the mates, did as well.
Norfolk, Va. Aug 16th 1889 [first letter]
Mr. Osborn Dear Sir,
I pen you a few lines to Inform you that I have got the sails made,
and [bought] some spare canvas & twine, and have sent a draft to
you. [I] have gotten [them] as cheap as I could. I have not shipped the
oil. It is all on deck and ready to land, and [I] shall send it as soon as
I hear from you, which I hope will be very soon, for laying here is a
waste of time and money. West the second mate has left. If you can
find one send him out, or I shall [go] without one. I think you can
find someone. If [name unclear] is there, send him out, or any one
you can find [unclear]. West said he was coming back but I don’t be-
lieve it. He is in Provincetown. His name is Fred West. He may come
back. If he does not come soon he will be too late.
I will write again soon.
Yours,
Wm. A. Martin
During the stay in Norfolk, Martin kept the crew busy with maintenance,
repair and painting aboard the old ship. The log entry for Friday, August 25,
contains the following note: “Last entry to be made by Arthur O. Gibbons.” Gib-
bons, the first mate, had been keeping the log, and after August 25 it is contin-
ued by someone else—possibly Martin, since the handwriting is similar to that
in his letters to Osborn.
Norfolk, Va. Aug 16th 1889 [second letter]
Mr. Osborn Dear sir
I pen you a few lines to inform you the sails is done and I send you
the draft for sails and spare canvas and twine. I have not shipped the
oil yet but shall as soon as I hear from you and find that everything is
all right that [I] have done. Has been a great trouble and I would like
to be square with him. The Second Mate has left gone home and said
he was coming back, but I don’t know about that. If you can find one
send him or I should go without him. I can catch a whale yet. Please
write soon and let me know how thing is. I shall ship the oil as soon
as I hear from you, which I hope will be soon.
Yours truly,
Wm. A. Martin
The following day, Martin wrote again, this time looking for instruc-
tions from his employer.
Norfolk, Va. Aug 17th 1889 - Mr. Osborn Dear Sir
I pen you few more lines asking you if you do not think it will be
just as well to stay on Hatteras & Charleston felt [?] Dec 25 and then
go to Blanco and Samu Bay and be back to Charleston and Hatteras
in April and not Go to St. Antone as the brig is so low the copper
is coming off and it will take 2 months to go down to Cape Devard
[?]. But if you say go I will go please write what you think of it. The
Provincetown schooners has done well at Sam Bay & Blanco so it

15
 lays with you to say where I shall go after.
Do please write soon and let me know what I am to do. You wrote
that you thought it would [be] as well to stay to the North till the
hurricanes is over. I think it would be a very good plan as I think I
can get out of the range of them. I shall send the oil as soon as I hear
from you. It is all ready to land and it will be home very quick. I will
write when I ship.
Yours truly,
Wm. A. Martin
The August 17 letter, Martin’s third in two days, suggests he has had
whaling information from other captains. The following day, August 18,
he wrote again, this time in response to a letter written by Osborn on
August 16, perhaps in response to Martin’s letter of August 13.19 At four
pages, it is his longest letter of the series.
Norfolk, Va. Aug 18th 1889
Mr. Osborn Dear Sir
Yours of the 16th came to hand today and wants answered. The
men that is on the list I sent you run away at Bravo months from
home. I thought that if they run away that they lost the money that is
the [unclear]. I only guess[?] at it. Those bills was something an bear
for to bacon. Mr. Gibbons is at least on board. He is the only one left.
[evidently of the original crew?] You spoke of going out at night. You
would have heard of me at sea if I could get there, but you see they
went to the Customs House and told them not to give me my papers
or I should [have] left the same night that the lawyer notarized me.
I can get out fast enough if I had my papers and should [have] been
gone long ago but they have got me fast for the present. It will not do
to say anything to Mr. Peed about it. I have found that out. I wish
I had gone to Bermuda. It would have been all right [but now] it is
too far for that [unclear; poss. “contemptible cur”] to do anything. I
could hang him with a good will but I hope it will end all right.
The oil is on deck ready to send home if I dare to send it. They
are waiting on my account as I have told them that they need not be
afraid of my running away with the brig, but if I get the chance I am
gone although I do not see any way yet. The provisions is paid for but
am not on board for if they should make attachment they will not get
them so I don’t take them on board if I see a sight I shall take them off
in my boats and get the first chance. I will write again soon.
Yours truly,
Wm. A. Martin
That Captain Martin does not seem enamored by his experience in Nor-
folk is clear. His wish that he had gone to Bermuda instead suggests his be-
lief that the British-ruled island would have been more hospitable to a whal-
19 Editor’s Note: The speed of late-nineteenth-century mail service along ma-
jor trade routes was remarkable by modern standards. A letter reaching Norfolk
two days after being mailed in Vineyard Haven was impressive, but not incon-
ceivable, performance.
16
ing captain who was black. In the Antebellum period prior to the outbreak
of the Civil War, whaleships stopping at southern ports are virtually unre-
corded. Martin’s letter hints at poor treatment by individuals in Norfolk,
including the “contemptible cur” who he could “hang with a good will.”20
Martin’s frustration with his treatment in Norfolk also surfaces in his
next letter to Osborn, written the following day:
Norfolk, Va. Aug 19th 1889
Mr. Osborn Dear Sir
I pen a few lines to inform you where the $700 is gone and how
much more it will take to finish up. I wrote you the men would have
to have some clothing, which I shall get as low as I can and I have
tried to get along as small as possible under the trouble I have had &
have to get along as easy as possible. I have not seen any of the crew go
on shore but I do not think that anyone will run away, as they are well
treated & have no reason to complain. This buying [of] provisions
makes [for] big drafts [and] if you would send out I should not have
to draw so heavy but as it is I do the best I can. I write to let you know
what has become of the money that you sent to Mr. Peed. Had this
one not come up with that bill I should [have] been gone. Mr. Peed
told me that if it was carried into court they would not get anything
out of it and I hope they will not, for it is a mean thing to do. If the
Brig was at home it would be different, but to try and take the advan-
tage of a man out here is a mean act. No man would do such a thing
if it was in my care. I would fight it out with him. We shall send home
oil which helps out some and I think I shall get enough to get the brig
away again. If nothing it will not always be this hard and [I] hope luck
will change soon. I will give you a list of what I have bought [and] I
[will] send the bill: Bread, Beef, Pork & more Bread. Sail $4.28. It will
probably take $100 more for to get clothing for the crew. I will get [it]
as cheap as I can. I wish you would fin[ish?] up as soon [as] possible
and let me get to sea as soon as possible.
Yours truly,
Wm. A. Martin
The identity of “Mr. Peed,” whose name comes up in both the August 18
and August 19 letters, is a mystery, as is his role in Martin’s affairs. Osborn
has sent him money, presumably to pay debts incurred by Martin on behalf
of the ship, but the August 19 letter suggests some discord of which the de-
tails are clearer to Martin and Osborn than they are to the modern reader.
Had Peed, after receiving the money from Osborn, declared that it didn’t
fully settle the debt? Had he rendered some service, or provided supplies,
for which compensation had not yet arrived? Martin seems to suggest that
20 Editor’s Note: That Martin, as a black man, felt comfortable using such lan-
guage about their common enemy—an unnamed (but presumably white) man
in Norfolk—in a letter to his white employer speaks volumes about the relation-
ship between Martin and Osborn. Had Martin spoken the same words aloud on
the docks at Norfolk, his life would likely have been forfeit.
17
someone else in Norfolk has threatened legal action, but that Peed thinks it
will be dismissed if brought before the courts. Perhaps someone in Norfolk
is using the threat of a court hearing (and further delay) to leverage Martin
and Osborn into paying more money than they believe they owe.
The letters of August 18-19 contain the first negative comments from
Martin in his log or letters. It is not clear whether Peed is the “contempt-
ible cur” who Martin would “hang with a good will” if given a chance, but
Martin is clearly unhappy with him. “It will not do to say anything to Mr.
Peed,” he writes on August 18. “I have found that out.” On August 19 he
describes his treatment as “a mean thing to do” and declares that to “take
the advantage of a man out here is a mean act” in which he himself would
not engage.21 Clearly the man had backbone.
Three weeks pass before the next letter in the series. In the interval,
Martin and Osborn’s disputes with suppliers in Norfolk seem to have been
resolved, leaving only the business of getting the ship ready for sea again.
Norfolk, Va. Sept. 6th 1889
Mr. Osborn Dear Sir
You sent me word by telegram to let the second mate outfit her. I
have cleared up all my business and am ready for sea so I shall have
to send you a 30-dollar draft, which I am very sorry to do as I thought
to have been to Sea by this time. This has been a hard task and I hope
it will not happen again.
Yours truly,
Wm. A. Martin
The final letter reiterates Martin’s less-than-complete happiness with
the situation in Norfolk. Its tone reflects the relationship between Samuel
Osborn, a wealthy white shipowner, and Martin, both his employee and a
man of color. Even in the racially charged atmosphere of the late 1880s, it
is marked by candor and directness on Martin’s part.
Norfolk Sept. 14th 1889
Mr. Osborn Dear Sir
I pen you a few lines to inform you that 5 men ran away last night
and I should [have] been to sea by this time, as the weather is getting
better and [there is] nothing to stop me from going. I have sent you
telegram to send 6 men and a boatsteerer. [I] will take them out of the
steamer so that they cannot get on shore, and go to sea the same day.
If it had not been such bad weather I should [have] been to sea long
ago, but it has been a heavy gale here [unclear] thing strangely, but it
is over and I want to get on the Hatteras ground at once, which will
take 2 days. I hope to get a good season, and I believe I will if I have

21 Editor’s Note: The use of “mean” to describe another’s behavior is now as-
sociated primarily with squabbling children, but in Martin’s era it was a sting-
ing insult. To call another man’s actions “mean” was to suggest that they were
shabby and dishonorable, with overtones of pettiness and stinginess.

18
 weather to do so. I wrote you yesterday that I do not want to come
here again. It is a bad place in the winter. I do not know where I will
go. It depends on the quantity of oil we get. Hurry up the [unclear].
The officers tell me that there is plenty of men in New Bedford hard
up. Capt. Lapham [?] can find plenty.
Yours truly,
William A. Martin
The message is clear: Had the weather been better Martin would have
left Norfolk, and his men might not have deserted. Martin confidently
explains his situation, the actions he has taken, and what he needs from
Osborn. He does not, in the least, seem subservient.
The Eunice H. Adams was able to depart Norfolk on September 22 after
a frustrating, unproductive month-long stay. On September 28, Martin
sighted the first sperm whale the crew had seen since July 30, two months
earlier. They caught and killed it, and the voyage continued with mod-
est success, despite the persistently awful weather and never-ending leaks.
The record in the log continues until the first week of 1890, when Martin
made his last entry on page 172: “Monday, January 6 Commences with a
calm, one ship in sight…”
After a blank page, page 174 begins with a new header: “Remarks of A
Whaling Voyage on Board Brig E. H. Adams T. E. Fordham, Master.” Cap-
tain Fordham’s first log entry is brief and direct: “Thursday, Feb 20 arrived
on board about noon and find all hands dissatisfied with everything brig
leaking bad and provisions bad and long lays. So ends this day.” There is
no indication of what happened to Martin from January 6 to February 20,
when he left the ship, or under what conditions. Typically, when masters
were replaced it was due to illness, but this time there is no indication of
the circumstances that led Thomas E. Fordham to replace Martin.
More mysteriously still, first mate Arthur O. Gibbons left the ship. Ford-
ham’s log entry states: “Remarks on board Friday 21st. This day the mate
took what belong to him an went ashore without ‘saing’ one word to me.
I told him he had better see Mr. Billinghams [?] but he did not …” Here,
again, the reasons behind the departure remain a mystery. Perhaps Gib-
bons had been loyal to Capt. Martin and was less enamored with Captain
Fordham or simply offended by the decision to bring him aboard at all. In
any event, according to the log (page 182) Fordham returned the ship to
New Bedford on Monday, March 9, 1890.22
“So Ends”
The Eunice H. Adams began its final whaling voyage in August 1893,
three years after Captain Fordham returned it. The voyage lasted thirteen

22 The AOWV Database, for unknown reasons, lists the return date as Sep-
tember 1890.
19
months, ending in September 1894, under the command of Capt. Clarence
J. Silvia and his replacement, Capt. John T. Gonsalves—another whaling
captain of color who was also master of the Charles W. Morgan on one of her
last voyages. Two years later, the Eunice H. Adams met the fate that eventu-
ally befell every American whaleship except the Morgan. Over fifty years
old, worn beyond repair and part of a slowly declining and increasingly un-
profitable industry, it was “broken up” (scrapped) at New Bedford 1896.
William Martin returned to Edgartown and his wife Sarah G. (Brown)
Martin, a woman of African American and Wampanoag descent who he
had married in 1857. No record exists of his life after the voyage of the
Eunice H. Adams, but a Vineyard Gazette article from 1907, celebrating
his fifty-year marriage to Sarah, recorded that he had been “a paralytic
for the past seven years, and is now practically helpless.” The Gazette
profile, which also mentioned his service aboard the Eunice H. Adams,
closed on a note of warmth and understanding: “To those who remember
Captain Martin as he appeared some twenty-five years ago, and recall
his quick, alert movements and crisp, decisive speech, qualities which
went far to make him a successful whaleman, it is difficult to realize his
utter helplessness at the present time, and he has the deep sympathy of
all in the community.”23
Captain William A. Martin died on September 5, 1907, two months
after his fiftieth wedding anniversary. He and Sarah (who died on April
25, 1911) are buried together at North Neck Cemetery on Chappaquid-
dick, not far from the modest house to which he returned after his final,
troubled voyage.

23 “Passed their Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary,” Vineyard Gazette, July 11,

1907, p. 2.

20
Gravestone of Capt. William A. Martin on Chappaquiddick. Edgartown Cemetery Commission Photo.

21
 Silent Voices
From the Past
by E. St. John Villard

O
ne cannot wander through a pre-1900 New England cemetery
without noticing the remarkable iconography and art work. It
is impossible to walk by the flying skulls, winged souls, sailing
ships, anchors, and drawing compasses without stopping to admire or
puzzle over them. Martha’s Vineyard certainly has its share of these and
many articles have been written about them.
What is written on the gravestones, however, can be even more fascinat-
ing as it opens a window into the past. Some can be enjoyed just as you stand
there and read them. Others take more work and send you off to the internet
and the library to search for more information. You find yourself googling
bits of poetry to find a source or looking up families’ histories in town vital
records or in Charles Edward Banks’ History of Martha’s Vineyard.
The most compelling epitaphs are those which preserve the stories of
people who do not appear in the Island’s familiar mythology, and whose
lives are almost unknown today. Yet many of them have remarkable or
frightening stories that you can not forget once you have discovered them.
You also discover that Islanders had a remarkable knowledge both of the
Bible and of what is known as mourning poetry.
Puritan Epitaphs
Francis P. Goodridge, Jeffers Lane Cemetery, Chappaquiddick
Puritan epitaphs get their impact from the way they reflect the belief
that “Outward displays of grief were … (to be) discouraged.”1 Their fierce
attitude towards death is far more important that the identity of individ-
ual beneath the stone. They remind us that death waits impatiently for all
1 David Hackett Fischer. Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America
(1989), p.115.
Liz Villard is, or has been, a professor of drama, theatrical director, lighting
designer, playwright, walking and bus tour guide, Federated Church council
member, Rotary Club board member, Edgartown Cemetery Commission mem-
ber, and Chappy Ferry captain. This is her first contribution to the Quarterly.

22
 Detail from the gravestone of Henry Cooke, showing the death’s head. Unless otherwise noted, all pho-
tographs are by the author.

of us. The epitaphs are often paired with fierce and frightening winged
skulls, but the words are startling enough by themselves.
Francis P. Goodridge
Died April, 16. 1862
aged 58 yrs
Passing by a casting eye
As you are now so was I
As I am now, you must be
Then prepare to follow me
This version appears on the grave of Francis Goodridge (Goodrich). As
is typical, the words tell us nothing about the man. You have to go to the
Edgartown Vital Records and the 1860 census to discover he was a mari-
ner whose wife Theodate was a member of the Chappaquiddick Wampa-
noag. The vital records describe him as colored and the 1860 census lists
him as owning one swine and 20 acres in the Chappaquiddick Plantation.
His life could not have been easy, so perhaps this rather out-of-date epi-
taph has a certain amount of gloating over the fact that even those who
looked down on him will end up in the grave just like him.

23
 The most famous variant of this epitaph appears on a gravestone from
the 1880s in Nantucket. The Puritan-Congregational calm attitude to
death is perhaps summed up by the fact that he could make a joke about it.
Under the sod and under the trees,
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there’s only the pod.
Pease shelled out and went to God
Henry Cooke and Mary Anna Sylva,
Old Westside Cemetery, Edgartown
The emphasis on death as a destroying angel and the body lying in the
grave is still there in Henry Cooke’s 1789 stone, but there is a new empha-
sis on the possibility of the Resurrection.
Memento Mortis
In Memory of Henry Cooke
7th Son of Thomas Cooke Esq.
and Mrs. Abigail his wife whose death
was caused by bathing being taken
in a fit immediately expired July
21st, 1789
15 years, 3 months and 11 days.
Just as this youth began to flower
And tender branches spread
Almighty God to show his power
Did strike the prospect dead
Sent forth his angel to destroy
And in a moment sign’d
Death did find this lovely boy
In dust he lies confined
Till Christ the son and lamb of God
Shall call him forth from this abode2.
The length of Henry Cooke’s epitaph with its vivid flying soul above
the words makes it clear that he was a much beloved teenager. His fit was
probably a simple case of cramps brought on by swimming in cold Island
waters or perhaps the onset of some more serious conditions. There is no
way to know.
The nineteenth century saw the expansion of the Methodist, Baptist
2 In the only book about Puritan gravestones that include ones in
Island cemeteries, the authors seem to find both the idea of death by
bathing and the poem which they misquote as being a fine entry for the
“Unconscious Funerary Humor Sweepstakes.” Diana Hume George and
Malcom A. Nelson. Epitaph and Icon (1983), p.111.

24
and Catholic denominations on the Island. Their different approach to
scripture results in many epitaphs that concentrate only on the hope of
heaven rather than the reality of death.
Mary Anna Sylva
Daughter of
Manuel and Louise
Sylva
Died Feb 7, 1875
Aged 16 years
4 mos, 27 days
Yet again we hope to meet you
When the day of life is fled
Then in heaven with joy we greet thee
Where no grief with tears is shed.
Both of these elaborate gravestones contradict the often-repeated but in-
accurate theory that so many children died young that their families barely
mourned them, as they were hardened to loss. One only has to study the ge-
nealogical records in Banks, however, to realize almost all children on the
Vineyard survived at least into young adulthood. The surprisingly low infant
mortality rate is the result of a combination of isolation, cold that froze out
most tropic diseases, and the absence of doctors who, failing to understand
the dangers of infection, unwittingly transmitted it by failing to sterilize their
hands or instruments between patients. Henry Cooke was only a seventh son,
but his parents marked his loose with a long epitaph and a carving. Mary
Anna Sylva has the largest and most ornate marker in her family lot.
Capt. Ephraim Harding,
Tisbury Village Cemetery, Vineyard Haven
By the nineteenth century, the strict Puritan faith had shifted into a
firm stoicism, perhaps a necessary attitude when dealing with the reali-
ties of the maritime industries. The role of Holmes Hole (now Vineyard
Haven) as both a coastal harbor of refuge and a whaling port is reflected in
the many stones that record deaths from tropical diseases. It also has more
than its share of those that are memorials to those who were lost at sea.
On a stone obelisk in the Vineyard Haven Village Cemetery, for ex-
ample, there is a carved sailing ship and this impassive epitaph:
Capt. Ephraim Harding
Born Oct. 24, 1814
Died Feb. 20, 1858
Wrecked in ship John Milton, his son and all aboard
Man proposes and God disposes.

25
 Above: Obelisk marking the grave of Capt. Ephraim
Harding, Tisbury Village Cemetery. Top right: Gothic-
arched gravestone of twins Ephraim and Eliza Harding, Tis-
bury Village Cemetery. At right: Gravestone of Rodolphus
Harding, who died with his father in the wreck of the John
Milton. His body was never recovered. Photographs by A.
Bowdoin Van Riper.

Around the base of the obelisk are small stones for each family member.
His first wife, Deborah R. Harding is there. She was only 27 when she died
of typhoid fever on Nov. 7, 1844. Eliza Harding, his second wife, is not so
she may have outlived her husband. In 1858, she had to deal with not only
the loss of her husband and stepson, but the death of her twins, Ephraim
and Eliza. They were born and died the same year as their father’s ship was
lost.3 Their graves are marked by two small gothic arched stones which are
linked together. She also must have loved her stepson as she marked the
back of his small formal stone marker with the words “Dear Dolphy.”
3 Editor’s Note: A cargo vessel bound from Norfolk, VA to New York, the
John Milton went ashore in a gale at Montauk, Long Island. The frozen bodies
of her crew were brought ashore by residents of Montauk and East Hampton—
many of them mariners themselves—who erected a marble monument in their
memory. The story is recounted in Henry Osmers, They Were All Strangers: The
Wreck of the John Milton at Montauk, New York (2010).

26
 Biblical, Religious, and Poetic Epitaphs
During the nineteenth century, the Puritan winged skulls and flying
souls were replaced by a wide variety of Greek urns, weeping willows,
masonic compasses, sailing ships, and, for lost children, broken roses. As
Henry and Mary Anna’s epitaphs reflect, they also reveal an impressive
knowledge of both the Bible and “mourning poetry.”
The Biblical passages go well beyond the 23rd Psalm. John Cooke, for
example, who died on October 23, 1817 has a passage from Malachi 2:6.
“The law of truth was in his mouth and iniquity was not found in his lips.
He walked with God in peace and equity and did turn many away from
iniquity.” Three years later, Capt. Jason Luce has an epitaph from Job 9:12.
“Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him?” The gravestones of Daniel
Fellows, who died in 1832, and Mrs. Anna Pratt, who died 5 years later,
both use a passage from Revelations 14:13. “Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from
their labours; and their works do follow them.”
While it is not a biblical reference, Miss Jane Cooke’s epitaph is a quota-
tion from a poem by Isaac Watts, one of the founders of Methodism.
She was born from heaven
Fulfilled her visit and returned on high4
This gentler approach to death is echoed on gravestones all over the
Island and reflects the arrival of both Baptists and Methodists. Jonathan
Fisher, who died in 1837, and Hepzibah Holley, who died in 1842, use one
that emphasizes that Christ will be there to call them from the grave.
Friends and Physicians could not save
My mortal body from the grave
Nor could the grave confine me here
When Christ shall call me to appear.
This epitaph appears all New England, and was even used on the grave
of Elizabeth Paul who died in childbirth while passing through Wyoming
in a wagon train in 1862.5
The Joseph Dunhams, Old Westside Cemetery, Edgartown
This comforting style turns up even on monuments which are focused
on human accomplishments. Sometimes the stories on a gravestone or
group of gravestones bring to life people about whom nothing is known,
but a few dry references in the Vital Records or Banks. There is nothing in
those dry records that suggest that the older Joseph Dunham was a hero
4 Isaac Watts. Horae Lyricae (1705).
5 Randy Brown, “The Grave of Elizabeth Paul,” WyoHistory.org, April 29,
2017. https://www.wyohistory.org /encyclopedia/grave-elizabeth-paul
27
during the Revolutionary War. Banks does even not list him as a mariner,
but as an island shipwright. Yet his gravestone reveals another story.
Mr. Joseph Dunham
died March 11, 1796
During the seven year of the
revolutionary war with our
mother country, he was employed
in conveying corn from the
west to feed the starving people
of this place and our sister island
and was fortunate as to escape
the enemy unmolested.
Aged 55 years.
He could not have escaped the ships in the British blockade if he had tried
to make that run in daylight. The odds therefore are that he made his way
up Buzzards Bay and though either Quicks Hole or Woods Hole into Vine-
yard Sound at night. It is easy to say that his knowledge of the local tides,
sandbars, and other hazards made it possible for him to make this trip, but
anyone who has sailed these waters with modern navigational aids can only
stand in awe that he pulled this off in the dark for seven years.
Patience Hathaway, his wife, seems to have been a remarkable woman al-
though in a less dramatic way. She raised and saw all of her nine children
married, including one born after her husband died. She managed this feat
despite being left a widow when most of them were young. She sent her only
son, also named Joseph Dunham, off to Nantucket to learn ship building from
a master. It was the first step in his successful career in the whaling industry.
Joseph Dunham
He was left Fatherless at the age of
16 years: served his time at
boat building with Isaac Folger of Nantucket;
was one of three that brought
the first ships at Edgartown and
built whaling boats for 49 years
for the ships of this port: also planted
and sowed and tilled and reaped his
lands for 50 years. He was honest in all his dealings.
Yes! he has gone and left us:
But why should we mourn and weep
In the arms of his Jesus he fell asleep
He is blessed, has died in the Lord
And gone home to glory to reap his reward.

28
 The emphasis on this monument is the younger Dunham’s earthly
achievements, but in the last five lines his family turns to the comfort of a
merciful God.
The remarkable thing about both men is how little is known about them.
The only other useful source beyond their epitaphs is the odd facts that
turn up in the Edgartown Vital Records, which really tell us nothing about
either man. How do you measure a man’s accomplishments by discover-
ing that the older man died of gout in the stomach and the younger one
of consumption. The records do suggest, however, that the younger man
had an abiding love for his wife Sukey (Susanna) who died of consump-
tion when she was only 35 and left four young children to be cared for.
(Daniel, her fifth, had been born and died the summer before her death).
In this situation, most men married again almost immediately, often to
the women who had been taking care of the children during their mother’s
illness. The younger Joseph, however, remained true to his Sukey, possibly
because his formidable mother was the one taking care of his children.
Memorial Stones
Village Cemetery (Deadman’s Corner), West Tisbury
There are three memorial stones in in this God’s acre6 whose epitaphs
are powerful enough by themselves, but even more so when you read them
on the same visit. They reflect how far Island men travel away from the
Vineyard.
Freeman Hancock was 19 in 1794, when he died in Marinicio (Mar-
tinque.) He was a cousin of John Hancock who signed the Declaration of
Independence, part of a distinguished New England family.
Stop my friends and drop your tears
My dust lies slumbring in saint pears
At Martinico intombed I lie,
Weep for your selves all are to die
Here I must lie, till Christ appears
Depart my friends and dry your tears
His death in the Caribbean reminds one of a part of New England
maritime history which most Vineyarders prefer to ignore. The ships
and sailors of this area were active participants in the Triangle Trade,
carrying goods from the US and Britain to buy slaves in Africa, car-
rying the slaves to the West Indies to sell for molasses and rum, and
then returning to their original ports to sell these articles and start
the process over again. In fact, a third of Island men who died at sea
6 Editor’s Note: “God’s Acre” is the traditional term for a churchyard, and
specifically its burial ground. The Congregational meetinghouse in West Tis-
bury was located here from 1701 until 1866.
29
lost their lives somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico or the Caribbean
Sea. Most of the others died in the whaling industry and fishing in
local, but often dangerous waters.7
Caleb Rotch was a fifth-generation Islander. William Rotch, his
grandfather, was a soldier and shipwright and John David Rotch,
his father, was a mariner. He was youngest of six children and Fran-
cis O. Rotch, his closest brother, was a master mariner (captain).
With all that heritage weighing down on him, it must have seemed
like a great adventure to do something different from his family. On
Oct. 15, 1949, he joined a group of Islanders who were setting out
for California to seek their fortunes in the Gold Rush. He was dead
within 9 months.
Caleb L. Rotch
Died in California
June 24, 1850
AE 22 years
No mother soothed his dying hour
No father watched with anxious care
No brother took the farewell hand
No loving sister knelt in prayer
But in a distant stranger land
He yielded up his feeble breath
And there within a lonely grave
He sleepth in the arms of death
But as the tears do freely flow
While stricken ‘neath the chastening rod
Oh, may we in submission bow
And grow the closer to our God.
While his epitaph is a classic example of Victorian sentimentality, it is
also a passionately felt expression of grief. He was not alone in dying in
California. Many of the islanders who set off to win their fortunes in the
gold rush lost their lives. None struck it rich.8
All over the island, there are memorial gravestones for those who fought
and died in the Civil War. Even in this quiet corner at the center of the
Vineyard, one still finds them.

7 The one-third figure is based on counting where sailors died in the Edgar-
town Vital Records.
8 Editor’s Note: The story of Forty-Niners from the Island is documented in
Record Unit 239 (Gold Rush and Martha’s Vineyard Collection) of the Museum
archives, and chronicled in the August 1989 and February 2007 issues of the
Dukes County Intelligencer, available on the Museum website.

30
 Lewis C. Luce
Died at Baton Rouge
Son of Capt. Aaron
and Harriet N. Luce
a member of company C. 41 S.
Regiment Mass Volunteers
General Banks Expedition
Died at Baton Rouge
August 20, 1863
Age 22 yrs, 8 mns, 2 dys
He died for his country
Lewis belonged to a family that settled on the Island in the seventeenth
century. When the call to defend the Union came, however, he joined the
Massachusetts forces assigned to support Grant’s drive down the Missis-
sippi. His life ended in Baton Rouge, a city near New Orleans. The stark
power of Lewis’s simple He died for his country is strangely more powerful
than the much longer epitaphs on Rotch and Hancock’s graves.
Rev. Samuel Kingsbury,
Tower Hill and Old Westside Cemeteries, Edgartown
If you read either of Rev. Samuel Kingsbury’s grave, possibly memorial
stones, he seems like a nice, but not particularly remarkable person who sadly
died of smallpox. This is the one from Edgartown’s Tower Hill cemetery.
Rev. Samuel Kingsbury
who died of the small pox
Dec. 30, 1778
ae 42 years, 2 days
He died in virtue and in meakness shine
A learned scholar and a good Divine.
Although longer with a few more details, his stone in Edgartown’s Old
Westside Cemetery evokes a similar response.
Sacred
to the memory of
Rev. Samuel
Kingsbury
He was born in Dedham
December 28th, 1736
Was ordained Pastor of the
Church at Edgartown
July 1761 and died of the
Small Pox Dec. 30th, 1778

31
 aged 42 years and 2 days
He did in virtue and meekness shine;
A trained scholar and a good Divine.
Erected by Private friends
1828
It is only a rare person who visits both graveyards that realize that
Kingsbury has a stone in both cemeteries. It suggests he must have been a
rather special person, particularly since the Old Westside stone was erect-
ed 50 years after his death.
The fall of 1778 was a grim period on the island. On September 10th,
Major General Charles Grey brought his fleet of 82 vessels into Holmes
Hole and demanded the Vineyard provide the British forces with 300 oxen
and 10,000 sheep. By the time he left on the 15th, he had not only forced
the reluctant Islanders to give up the animals, but had taken their guns,
burned their boats and appropriated £905 in tax money that had been col-
lected by town officials.
If that was not trouble enough, Edgartown Town Records show that at
the same time, a smallpox epidemic was raging out of control. In despera-
tion, Edgartown appointed Thomas Cooke, William Jernegan, and John
Pease, Jr to build a temporary shelter or pest house on Cape Pogue. The
ill were transported there, probably to die. It was an approach which may
seem cruel today, but did protect the rest of the town from contagion.9
Probably both of Rev. Kingsbury’s stones, particularly the one in Old
Westside, are in fact memorial stones since he may well have been buried
near where he died. Surely, he must have been a most beloved pastor to
achieve such recognition, one with the courage to serve his congregation
even to the point at which he fell ill himself.
Capt. Archibald Mellen, Old Westside Cemetery, Edgartown
Sometimes, an epitaph seems almost an attempt to be sure that the ver-
sion a father or other near relative finds acceptable is the one remembered
by history. When you read the gruesome story of Capt. Archibald Mellen’s
death, it seems to reflect how dangerous the whaling industry was and
how a good a man the young captain was.
Captain Archibald Mellen Junior
born
at Tisbury, June 5, 1830
and was murdered
on board the ship Junior of New Bedford
off the coast of New Zealand
Dec. 25, 1857 by Cyrus W. Plummer
9 Edgartown Records for 1878
32
 who with others of his crew had
entered into a conspiracy to seize
the Ship and proceed to the
gold digging of Australia.
Thus at an early age, at the flood
tide of successful manhood an
intelligent, honest and worthy man
became the innocent victim of the
insatiable ambition of
these conspirators.
His cenotaph seems to offer a
clear record of the events, but at the
trial of the mutineers a different side
to the story emerges. It is, in fact, a
tale that can be told two ways. The
“vicious” crew attacked the captain
and the third mate and threw their
wounded bodies into the ocean.
The “desperate” crew attacked Mel-
len because they were terrified of
his brutal treatment. The “vicious”
crew wounded the first and sec-
ond mates who hid in desperation.
The “desperate” crew let them get
away because they were not an-
gry with them. Plummer and the
“vicious crew” planned a mutiny.
They were an unruly mob, drunk
on the grog—a mixture of rum and
water—that the captain had given
them to celebrate Christmas Day.
The crew members were certainly
not very intelligent in their plotting
as none of them knew how to navi-
gate. At some point, the first mate,
“in desperate need of food and wa- sideGravestone of Captain Archibald Mellen, Old
Cemetery, Edgartown.
West-

ter” or perhaps just curious as to

what was going on, emerged from below, and made a devious bargain with
Cyrus Plummer. He promised he would take them to a nearby Australian
port and would tell no one what they had done. He promptly sailed them
to a different port where he turned them in to the authorities.
At their trial, four of the eight mutineers were found innocent, three
33
convicted of manslaughter and only one, Plummer, condemned to death.
These are rather lenient sentences for mutiny, which suggest that the court
saw some merit in their defenses. It is however his father’s version of the
story that is carved in stone for all time, long after the crew’s version has
been forgotten.10
Wilmot Luce, New Bedford
If Mellen’s cenotaph presents his death in the most positive light, there
are others that take a dim if humorous view of a deceased’s activities. Al-
though Wilmot Luce’s father, Barzillai Luce, had fought in the Revolu-
tion, his son legally changed his name to DeLuce when he moved to New
Bedford. His family, master mariners all, were not impressed and put this
epitaph on his gravestone.
His parent said Wilmot Luce should be his name
Since then his petition did improve the same
And after his name was Wilmot D’Luce
Old acquaintance, judge ye
Was he wise or
Foolish as a goose.11

Women’s Gravestones
Many times, women’s epitaphs do not seem to be speaking of a real
person, but merely offering a standardized description of a “good” wife.
One certainly has that sense when one reads the words this poem about
Mellen’s mother. It is located to the left of his own gravestone, between his
and his father’s.
An affectionate and dutiful wife
A kind and indulgent Mother
A dutiful and tender daughter
A firm and obliging friend
His wife
Sarah
1801-1852
Since it is located to the right of her husband’s, the carver felt no need
to give her full name and reduced her identity to “his wife.” These words
reflect neither her courage in marrying a total newcomer to the island—
a man who had been born in Newbury, VT—or her own position as a
member of one of the Island’s founding families. She was born in the
10 “The Mutiny and Murder On Board the American Whaleship Junior,”
Colonist, March 9, 1858, p. 4. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/
TC18580309.2.19
11 Banks, History of Martha’s Vineyard, vol III. p. 272.

34
Vincent House, now a museum
on the Vineyard Trust campus
in Edgartown.
The Puritan attitude to mar-
riage was based on Jesus’ state-
ment: “For this cause shall a
man leave his father and moth-
er, and cleave to his wife; And
they twain shall be one flesh: so
then they are no more twain,
but one flesh.”12 The one was, of
course, the man so a woman’s
identity became merely an ex-
tension of her husband’s. This
approach leads to a verbal chal-
lenge. What do you call what is
left when the man dies? Today,
a woman who outlives her hus-
band is referred to as a widow,
but an earlier usage can be seen
all over the Island, including
this stone from the West Tis- Gravestone of Sarah Torrey, West Tisbury Village Cem-
bury Village Cemetery. etery.

Here Lyes Interr’d the body

of Mrs: SARAH TORREY
the Relict of the Revd:
Mr JOSIAH TORREY who
departed this Life March
the first 1745
Aged 68 years 2 Months.
Sarah may have been an Athearn, the leading family in New Town (as
the present-day village of West Tisbury was originally known) and out-
lived her husband by more than 20 years, but on her gravestone in the
West Tisbury Village Cemetery she is merely a relict. The term lasts into
the 19th century.
Mary Daggett
Relict of Wm Daggett
Died October 14, 1835
Aged 87 years and 6 months
In the 19th century, maiden names finally begin to appear on grave-
12 Mark 10:7-8 (King James Version)
35
stones. This usage seems to have occurred most often when the husband
was a captain and so away at sea most of the time, particularly when he
came from off-Island. Perhaps, at some point Georgian, who outlived her
Harwich-born husband by over 60 years, just went back to her familiar
island name of Daggett, as her stone in the Vineyard Haven Village Cem-
etery seems to suggest.
Georgian Daggett Capt. Asa H. Calhoun
Wife of Capt. Asa H. Calhoun Born in Harwich, MA
Dec, 7, 1827 Died in New Orleans, LA
Oct. 12, 1919 July 13th 1858
The majority of the women’s gravestones on the Island seem to
contradict the general assumption that a majority of women and
children died young. Indeed, the very poignancy of the few that
honor a young woman’s death suggest that this was not a normal
event. Jonathan Worth would remarry barely a year after his wife
died of consumptions leaving him with four children, all under
the age of 12.13 The need for a wife to care for his children prob-
ably made a rapid remarriage a necessity, but the long epitaph on
her stone in Edgartown’s Old Westside Cemetery, an expensive in-
vestment, does suggest that someone, possibly her parents, deeply
mourned her untimely death.
In
memory of
Sarah wife of
Jonathan Worth who
Departed this life Sept. 1,
1797 in the 39th year of her
Age
Alas she’s gone out down at noon
By God most just but why so soon
Thus to remove tis natures Lot
Yet nevertheless she’s not forgot
But left behind to latest days
A monument of virtue praise.
An even clearer record of a husband’s grief is found in the extended
history and poem put up for Zerviah Butler by her husband. Although
Samuel Butler’s immediate relatives had moved to Providence, RI, they
were part of the large Vineyard Butler family, which may explain why he
chose to put her elaborate stone here—in the West Tisbury Village Cem-
etery—rather than elsewhere.
13 Banks, History of Martha’s Vineyard, vol. III, p. 517.
36
 Sacred to the Memory of
Mrs. ZERVIAH BUTLER
Wife of
Mr. Samuel Butler Junr.
of Providence Rhode Island;
and Daughter of Capt. Benjamin and
Mrs. Eleanor Allen.
She died at Tisbury when on a visit
to her Parents the 8th of Sept. 1791
aged 26 years & 4 days.
Whose Remains lie here entombed.
This Stone
an unavailing tribute of affection, is
by her Husband erected & inscribed.

To name her virtues ill befitts my Grief

What was my Bliss can now give no relief;
A Husband mourns the rest let friendship tell
Fame spread her worth a Husband knew it well.

Brown family gravestone group, Tisbury Village Cemetery.

The Brown Family, Village Cemetery, West Tisbury

Perhaps, the most terrifying group of gravestones on the Island belong
to the obscure Benjamin Brown Family, whose members are buried in the
West Tisbury Village Cemetery. Individually, they are merely sentimental.
But their cumulative impact is pure horror.
Susan Ellen was the third daughter of Benjamin and Susan Brown, but
in 1854 she was the first to die. She was 7 years and 10 months old when
she died of “Lung Fever.”

37
 Weep not morn not, over the dead
For in the spirit realms above
Thy little loved one ever lives
Rejoicing in a savior’s love.
In 1858, her younger sister Amanda was the second child to die. She was
10 years and 3 months old when she too sickened with “Lung Fever,” Her
epitaph is from the New Testament:
But words of Jesus comfort
our hearts ‘who said suffer little
children to come unto me, for of
such is the kingdom of heaven.”14

From left: gravestones of Amanda Brown and Susan Ellen Brown, Tisbury Village Cemetery.

After another four-year gap, in 1861, Sophronia, the oldest sister passed
away of consumption when she was 23 years and 5 months. Her epitaph is
the first verse of a hymn.
Calm on the bosom of thy God
Fair spirit, rest the now!
E’en while with us, thy footstep trod
His seal was on thy brow.15
14 Matthew 19:14 (King James Version)
15 Felicia Dorothea Hemans, A Book of Hymns for Public and Private Devo-
tion, 15th ed., #410. Hymnary.org
38
 In 1866, Lucretia, the second daughter, was the last to die. She passed
away when she was 23 years and 3 months, almost the same age as her old-
er sister had been when she died. She died of Phthisis which sounds very
medical and impressive until you realize that it merely the Greek word
for consumption (despite restoration work, her epitaph is still unreadable).
In 1868, Susan Norton Brown, their mother, died on the same day Feb-
ruary day as Sophronia had died two years earlier. She was only 47 years,
2 months and 12 days old, but in addition to having Phthisis pulmonalis
she had given birth to six children. Her epitaph is breathtaking given what
she had been through.
She died as a true Christian
relying on the hope which has
supported through her life.
The various names given to the cause of these five deaths are all nine-
teenth-century terms for the same wasting disease: tuberculosis. It is a
highly infection disease which until 1949 was incurable. As the mother
and her daughters slept together for warmth and comfort, they were pass-
ing on their infection. What must have made the situation even more
horrible was that in the nineteenth century tuberculosis was sometime
regarded as a form of vampirism. As one member of a family died from
it, other members would lose their health slowly as if the original victim
was draining the life from them.16 The repeated deaths may also have been
regarded as God’s punishment for some sin the family had committed.
Benjamin Brown, their father, worked in the whaling industry, but as
his family sickened he stayed home to work as a carpenter. The gravestones
do not revel what happen to him and the other two children. The 1870
census reveals that he and two younger children were still on the island
that year, but there is no later mention of them. Perhaps, all three of them
escaped by going to Little Compton, RI where Benjamin was born.17
Joseph Huxford and Alice B. Merry,
Old Westside Cemetery, Edgartown
On a lighter note, if the Browns are the most frightening story found on
island gravestones, there are also a number that suggest the phrase “mea-
sure twice, cut once” applies to stone carving as well as woodworking.
Joseph Huxford
died
April 8, 1843
AE 94
16 Abigail Tucker, “The Great New England Vampire Panic,” Smithsonian,
October 2012.
17 US Censuses for 1850, 1860, and 1870.
39
 He was a soldier of the
revolution
He was in the battle on
Bunker hill
June 17, 1776
Huxford was an islander, but served as a private in a unit raised in Con-
roy, MA. After his war service, he returned to Edgartown, married Mary
Arey, and lived on Chappaquiddick until his death in 1840. Nonetheless,
he would still have had trouble fighting at Bunker Hill on June 17, 1776 as
the battle happened a year before on that date, in 1775.18
And then there is Alice B. Merry. The words of a classical Easter hymn
would seem an effective choice for an epitaph
The strife is o’er, the battle done
The victory of life is won.
Unfortunately, the carver had to insert the word “done” above the line
as he had not left enough room to fit it in. This mistake draws your at-
tention to the name etched on the stone. Merry is a historic name on the
island with roots that go back to the seventeenth century. It is only when
you combine it with a middle initial “B” that you get a rather cheerful
thought for a graveyard: Alice, be merry.
These are only a few of the hundreds of stories carved on Vineyard
gravestones. The rest are waiting for you to find and explore them.

Gravestone of Alice B. Merry, Old Westside Cemetery, Edgartown.

18 Banks, History of Martha’s Vineyard, vol. III, pp. 215-216.

40
From the Archives:
Things to Write Home About:
Letters from the Summer Institute
(1883)
by A. Bowdoin Van Riper

A summer school for teachers, principals, and other professional

educators, the Martha’s Vineyard Summer Institute held classes in
Cottage City for thirty years, from 1878-1907. What follows is a glimpse
into the life lived by those who attended it, drawn from three letters
written in late July and early August of 1883. We have read, countless
times, about Nantucket Sound alive with sails, Vineyard Haven filled
with vessels waiting for a fair wind and tide, and Cottage City thronged
with middle-class residents of Boston, Providence, and greater New York
seeking cool breezes, spiritual renewal, and a sense of peace that the
sweltering, bustling cities could not provide. These letters show us those
familiar—even overfamiliar—pieces of the Vineyard story through the
eyes of an observer to whom they were fresh and new.1

C larence Edmund Meleney was twenty-nine in the summer of

1883, and already an accomplished man.2 Born in Salem, MA and
educated there and in Sydney, Nova Scotia, he went on to a preparatory
academy in Waterville, ME and then to Colby College, where he earned
his BA in 1876 and his MA in 1879. Graduate degree in hand, he went
on to posts as a teacher or principal Warren, ME; Quincy and Marlboro,
MA; Yonkers, NY; and Newark, NJ. A new position—superintendent of
schools in Patterson, NJ—awaited him in the fall. A protégé of progres-
sive educator Col. Francis W. Parker, he was a rising star in northeastern
educational circles: energetic, innovative, and dedicated to self-improve-
1 Transcripts of all three letters, found during reprocessing of the MVM
library’s genealogy files in December 2020, are now in the Vertical Files Collec-
tion, VREF 0716.001.
2 Details of Clarence E. Meleney’s life are taken from his entry in the Nation-
al Cyclopedia of American Biography, a copy of which is in in VREF 0716.001

41
 Agassiz Hall, named after Harvard ichthyologist Louis Agassiz, was the centerpiece of the Summer Insti-
tute Campus. Photo by Sidney Hicks, 1903. MV Museum Photo Collection (2017.050.022)

ment. He was, in short, precisely the kind of student for which the Mar-
tha’s Vineyard Summer Institute had been created.3
The Institute had been founded five summers before, in 1878, by Col.
Homer B. Sprague, principal of Girls’ High School in Boston. Inspired by
the Anderson School of Natural History, established by Harvard zoology
professor Louis Agassiz on Penikese Island, the Institute was a summer
school for men and women actively working in education: a venue for self-
improvement where they could take substantive courses in the arts, sci-
ences, and humanities, as well as elocution and teaching methods, taught
by experts in the field. The first summer school for teachers in the country,
it provided a model for similar ones run by colleges and universities: com-
petitors that, before the twentieth century was a decade old, had eclipsed
it and led to its closure.4
In 1883, however, the Summer Institute was fast-rising star in the educa-
tional world. It had incorporated in 1881, and—after four summers of meet-
ing in rented cottages and holding lectures in Union Chapel—dedicated its
permanent home in the Highlands neighborhood of Cottage City in July
1882. Built on the sloping land behind the Highland House hotel, Agassiz
Hall was four stories high in the front and three high in the rear. Inside
were sixteen classrooms, an assembly hall, along with other spaces. The land
3 For more on the history of the Summer Institute, see RU 535 (Martha’s
Vineyard Summer Institute Collection), VREF 0233.001.
4 Henry Beetle Hough, Martha’s Vineyard: Summer Resort (Rutland, VT:
Tuttle Publishing Company, 1936), 150-151.

42
on which it stood (six lots in all) had been donated in 1880 by the Vine-
yard Grove Company, developers of the Highlands; the cost of the build-
ing itself—all $6,000 of it—had been raised by private donations, many of
which came from the students and faculty. Members of both groups (as the
Vineyard Grove Company had doubtless counted on when they granted the
land) rented, or bought, cottages in the Highlands in order to be close to the
action. The Institute’s term ran for five weeks in July and early August, and
they came from across the country. Disembarking at the Highland Wharf,
which thrust into Nantucket Sound at the foot of East Chop Drive, they
were only a short walk from Agassiz Hall or the cottages beyond.5 The at-
tractions of Cottage City proper were a nickel horse-car ride away.

A horsecar line transported visitors from Highland Wharf to the Methodist Campground, and may have
brought Clarence Meleney to his cottage. MV Museum Photo Collection (2005.060.006)

“My Dear Friend . . .”

Meleney was joined, that summer, by his mother and sister, with whom
he shared a rented cottage in the Highlands. His single reference to them
is polite but perfunctory—a statement that they are “improving every op-
portunity”—but carries none of the affection evident in references to his
visiting brother George or his friend and fellow attendee Mr. Day. The
woman he clearly wished was in Cottage City to share the experience with
him was, instead, hundreds of miles away in New Jersey, and it was to her
that he wrote the letters.
5 Another of the Vineyard Grove Company’s projects, the Highland Wharf
provided easy access to the Highlands themselves and enabled Methodist camp-
meeting goers to reach the Campground without passing the secular tempta-
tions clustered around the Oak Bluffs wharf.
43
 Carolyn Ella Coit was five years Edmund Meleney’s junior. Born on Au-
gust 12, 1858, in Everettstown, NJ, she would turn 25 a week after he wrote
his third letter to her from the Summer Institute.6 Her father, John Sum-
merfield Coit, had been a New-Jersey-born builder turned Methodist min-
ister, who moved his young family—his wife Ellen and six children, rang-
ing from 13 to infancy—to Iowa after the Civil War. He spent two years
as a circuit-riding preacher on the prairies surrounding the growing town
of Montana (now Boone) in the central part of the state. Then, in late De-
cember 1867, typhoid fever struck the town and the family. Reverend Coit
died on January 7, 1868, at the age of 39; Emma (7), Mary (5), and John,
Jr. (no older than 3) quickly followed. Carolyn, then 12, was the youngest
survivor. Ellen gathered what remained of her family and abandoned the
prairie for New Jersey, where she (like John) had been born and raised.
Carolyn graduated from Newark High School and trained as a teacher
at Newark Normal School, and—in a professional baptism-by-fire—spent
two years as the sole teacher for eighty children housed at the Newark Or-
phans’ Asylum. Moving to New York City she studied at Hunter College
and then at the academy run by Maria Kraus-Boelte, the German educa-
tional reformer who played a leading role in bringing kindergarten to the
United States. Coit completed Kraus-Boelte’s two-year course—a year of
classroom instruction, followed by a year of practice teaching at a model
kindergarten on the grounds of the academy—in 1883. As Edmund Me-
leney wrote to her that summer from Cottage City, she too was preparing
for a new stage in her professional life: directing private kindergartens in
Newark, Mount Tabor, and neighboring northern New Jersey towns.
Edmund, who had likely met Carolyn when they were both teaching in
in Newark, felt close enough to her in the summer of 1883 to use the famil-
iar form of her given name: the envelopes are addressed to “Miss Carrie E.
Coit.” The letters themselves hover in an odd no-man’s land between inti-
macy and formality. They uniformly begin with “my dear friend,” but close
with some variation on “I remain, very truly yours” and are signed “C. E.
Meleney.” The bodies of the letters are informative and newsy: much about
what Meleney has been up to, and little about what he is feeling. Even there,
he seems hesitant to reveal too much of himself. “I sent you a paper describ-
ing this section of the state,” he wrote on July 27, “which, I thought, would
interest you and give you a better idea of the Vineyard than I could.” Stock
phrases, inoffensive but bloodless, abound: “Hope that you are all well . . .
remember me to your folks . . . hope to hear from you soon.”
Even when viewed through this dense scrim of Victorian propriety,
however, Clarence Meleney’s feelings are clear. He comes across, in all
6 Details of Carolyn Coit’s life are taken from her entry in the National Cy-
clopedia of American Biography. a copy of which is in VREF 0716.001.
44
three letters, as deeply taken with this energetic, accomplished young
woman who shares his passion for education. He pines: “I have been to the
post office every day to find a letter from you,” he begins his own letter of
July 27, “and each time have been disappointed.”7 He frets: “I hope your
work has not proved too much for you . . . I remember Madam Kraus said
you should not do so much.”8 Overjoyed at the arrival of her letter on the
afternoon of July 28, he burbles: “I pause for a little while to enjoy a little

A typical class at the Summer Institute. MV Museum Photo Collection.

chat with you, a one-sided chat you will say but the best I can do under
the circumstances (the distance between us).” Then, the headlong tumble
of words suddenly losing steam, he sighs: “I wish it were otherwise.”9 He
ends his letter of Sunday, August 5, by noting that she will be returning
to Newark on the 9th, but that he will leave the Island on the 7th for two
weeks in Melrose, MA. It sounds as if he wishes that, too, were otherwise.
“Enjoying Life to a High Degree”
Meleney’s first letter to Coit paints an idyllic picture of life at the Insti-
tute: challenging but not all-consuming, and with plenty of time for re-
laxation. “You see where I am,” he wrote on July 27. “Mr. Day [a colleague
from Newark] is with us and we are enjoying life to a high degree. We
7 Meleney to Coit, July 27, 1883.
8 Meleney to Coit, July 27, 1883.
9 Meleney to Coit, July 29, 1883.
45
spend the forenoon at the Institute, usually in Col. Parker’s department.
Then we take the afternoon for recreation and usually go to some lecture
in the evening.” He admits that he had “a good job of work to do this sum-
mer” but has touched none of it thus far “because of so many things that
occupy my attention.” The August 5 letter adds more details, which have
the collective effect of placing more stress on his studies and less on recre-
ation. “I am very busy every day with the Institute work, from 10 am to 1
pm with the class in Didactics, and lectures in the evening. I do not take
any special course, but go to some classes almost every afternoon.”
“Didactics” was the theory and practice of teaching—a course offered
by Col. Francis W. Parker, who had been Superintendent of Schools in
Quincy when Meleney had taught there—and it was one of the Institute’s
mainstay classes, and clearly the centerpiece of Meleney’s schedule. Park-
er had been a mentor and inspiration to him, as Maria Kraus-Boelte had
been to Carrie, and it may well have been Parker’ presence (or even his
direct invitation) that drew Meleney to the Institute.
The mixture of regular courses, special courses, and one-off lectures
made it possible for attendees to tailor their experience, and the level of
work involved, to suit their interests and energy level. In his August 5 let-
ter, Meleney described his schedule for “one day last week,” of which the
first three were recurring classes and the latter three one-offs.
7:30 Geography Mr. Frye
9 Desaite method of pronunciation Mrs. Parker
10 Col. Parker lecture
11:30 Lecture on History – Warren
2:30 Clay Modelling – Coolidge
8 pm Lecture A. D. Mayo
“Afternoons for recreation” on July 27 had, in the space of a week and
two letters, become “classes almost every afternoon” on August 5.
The week just past, Meleney reported, “has been a lively one in the way
of amusements for people who have had time to attend to it.” He men-
tions the “Annual Tournament,” with competitions in running, bicycling,
lacrosse, baseball, and tennis, as well as fishing for bluefish, “which is the
grandest sport there is.”10 There was also ample opportunity for socializa-
tion. “There are people here from all parts of the Union,” he wrote on July
27. “Three principals from Newark and three or four lady teachers. I have
made new acquaintances and renewed many old ones.” George Meleney,
who Clarence described to Carrie as “my only bro[ther],” arrived on July
28 (Saturday) having travelled from Boston through heavy thunderstorms
and howling winds to spend Sunday with his mother and siblings in Cot-
tage City. Clarence began his letter of July 29 lamenting the lost Saturday
10 Meleney to Coit, August 5 & July 27, 1883
46
 The Baptist Temple, erected in 1878 and demolished in the 1930s. MV Museum Photo Collection.

(“cold, dark, stormy”) and the “uncomfort of cottage life,” which intensi-
fied as “dark night shut down upon us.” Sunday dawned much the same,
but the storms gave way to bright sunshine and when George agreed to
extend his stay by a day, Clarence’s mood lightened with them. Relish-
ing the prospect that his beloved brother could now join him on a fishing
expedition scheduled for early Monday morning, he concluded, with sat-
isfaction: “I am glad we had the storm.”11
A number of Meleney’s new acquaintances were musical, and the dis-
covery pleased him greatly. He wrote on July 29 that:
There is a whole neighborhood of good singers: Mr. Burr of Brown
Univ. ’84 the leader of their glee club. His father and sister from N. Y.
both good singers. Mr. Ferris of N. Y. a sound Presbyterian. A Yale
student who is the college organist and others. Several denomina-
tions uniting in songs of praise. I doubt if you could tell the differ-
ences that separate us.
His own musical talents were sufficient that he was asked to perform for
local religious services. “I was,” he confessed to Carrie, describing the still-
stormy morning of the 29th, “the only one [of the family] who ventured out
at church time, and only because I had promised to sing at the Temple.”

11 Meleney to Coit, July 29, 1883

47
 “I Think This is a Glorious Place”
The Temple at which Meleney was invited to sing had been built by the
Baptists for summer worship five years previously, in 1878. A sprawling
structure with an octagonal wooden roof and open sides, it was 120 feet
across at its widest point and 60 feet tall at its highest. The circular clear-
ing in which it stood, ringed by a circular road, had been a key feature
in original plan of the Vineyard Highlands development—a bid to entice
the Methodists away from Wesleyan Grove and the rapidly expanding re-
sort of Oak Bluffs, with its noise and abundant secular distractions. The
Methodists, however, had made their peace with their less-devout sum-
mer neighbors, and the circle in the Highlands had remained empty until
1875, leaders of Cottage City’s growing community decided to establish
their own camp meeting. Officials of the Vineyard Grove Company, an-
ticipating that camp meetings would bring visitors eager to rent cottages
and purchase lots, offered the circle to the newly formed Baptist Vine-
yard Association at an attractive price. The wooden temple was an instant
success, and so impressed the Methodists that they commissioned their
own structure—similar in design, but larger, more elaborate, and made of
iron—the following year.
Both denominations’ summer camp meetings were well established by
the summer of 1883, the Baptists closing in on their first decade and the
Methodists on a half-century. Held on consecutive weeks in mid-August,
they brought a surge of visitors that—particularly for devout Christians
like Clarence Meleney—marked the peak of the summer season in Cot-
tage City. The pattern of summer visitors arriving before and staying after
camp meeting week was, however, well established by 1883. What had be-
gun in the 1830s as a short-lived community of transient pilgrims assem-
bling under canvas had become a sprawling summer colony that lived and
worshipped in permanent—albeit fanciful—wooden structures. In his July
27 letter he told Carrie that Cottage City was “a great center for Christian
people, especially of the Methodist and Baptist denominations, and the
people . . . are very pleasant and agreeable.” He attended informal “praise
meetings” and hymn-sings in Highland cottages, and reported that Dr.
Eddy of Brooklyn had preached “a sound gospel sermon” titled “Saved by
the Lord” on the stormy morning of July 29. The Lord, Meleney seemed
to suggest, also took a hand in the morning’s proceedings, and “as [Eddy]
drew his picture of Salvation the clouds rolled away and the sun came out
in its splendor, lighting up the grove of oaks which surrounds the Temple.
How changed was everything around! And what a perfect day it is!
The transformation in the weather, and the beauty that it brought to
the Island, transformed Meleney’s mood. Excitement surging through his
voice and an unexpected vividness emerging in his words, he told Carrie:
48
 Meleney’s view of the ships in Vineyard Sound from the bluff at East Chop might have looked something
like this photograph, taken roughly twenty years later. MV Museum Photo Collection.

I now look out upon Vineyard Haven, the greatest anchorage in

the U. S., on the West and the broad ocean to the North and East.
And this view of the ocean is what has electrified me this afternoon.
When the west wind commenced to blow at noon the fleet in the Ha-
ven unfuled sail and put to sea. We sat on the “Bluffs” as they sailed
away and watched them passing out of sign. I counted over ninety
vessels large and small coming from one anchorage and I think it was
one of the grandest sights I ever saw.
The letter continues in a similar vein, describing a school of bluefish
driving smaller fish toward the shore and “jumping out of the water in
their greed,” while sea birds swooped in to plunder the baitfish they had
concentrated. “Perhaps this is not the proper way to spend the Sabbath,”
he admits to her, “but I am thoroughly enjoying it.”
A week later, in his letter of August 5, he again described the view from
the Bluffs: Vineyard Haven Harbor full of ships riding at anchor. He fret-
ted that “they are not there to keep the Sabbath day holy, but to wait for a
fair wind or tide,” and wondered “how many of the men will take advan-
tages of the little Seamen’s Chapel over there.” The natural beauty of the
Island had, for him, become inextricably linked with a sense of spiritual
uplift, vanquishing his doubts about whether he was observing the Lord’s
day in a fashion of which the Lord would approve.
49
 I have never felt the influence and sweetness of the Sabbath as I do
here, where everything is quiet and entirely remote from the noise
and bustle of the busy wicked world. I look out now upon the water
and see the vessels sailing by with their white wings spread to the
wind, but it does not seem like business or Sabbath breaking, they go
so beautifully and so still.”
Referring to the New Jersey town in which Carrie was relaxing before
plunging into preparations for the fall term, Clarence declared: “I do not
think I could make you believe that this place is better than Tabor for the
enjoyment of Sabbath rest, and to be honest I suppose you have the advan-
tage of me. But I think this is a glorious place.”
After
Clarence Meleney and Carrie Coit were marred in Newark on May 20,
1885. Clarence had a long and distinguished career in the public-school
systems of New York and New Jersey, and—among many other achieve-
ments—served as the first principal of the Horace Mann School in New
York, and a professor of education at Columbia University. Carrie re-
mained a tireless evangelist for the kindergarten movement, and raised
money for hospitals, schools, and foreign missionary work. Clarence
served as a director of the Summer Institute, and Carrie lectured there
on early childhood education in the summer sessions of 1898-1900. The
couple bought a summer home in Cottage City, returning year after year
with their (eventually) six children; their descendants return still. Carrie,
for fifteen summers, hosted a play group for neighborhood children there.
She called it the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Club . . . thinking, perhaps, of
the letters that Clarence had written from the bluffs at Cottage City, back
when they both were young.

50
 Summering with the
Blackwells:
Meeting Ghosts in Research
And Real Life
by Janice P. Nimura

W
hen I was little, in the mid-1970s, the happiest place on
earth was Tashmoo Farm, at the bottom of Lambert’s Cove
Road. I fell in love with horses there when I was three. I fell in
love with Simone and Josepha DeSorcy, the young sisters who taught me
to ride. I remember the ponies as if they were people: Cookie, with a back-
ward question mark on her forehead; Robin, who had a nice canter and
a nasty temper; Tii, who was ancient and utterly dependable. Thistle and
Winkle, Puk and Dinari and Pixie and Wren. I remember the way their
shoes scraped on the worn concrete barn ramp, the way the milkweed and
goldenrod brushed their sides on the walk out to the lesson ring.
The farm was home to a pair of venerable ladies, Libby Belden and Elsie
MacLachlan, one sturdy, with a strong jaw and close-cropped white hair,
the other spindly, with high cheekbones and a bun. I remember sleeping
over at their farmhouse on the nights before horse shows: a creaky house,
full of old and well-used things.
I spent my first thirty summers in West Tisbury, and then the Island
chapter of my life ended, though not my Island friendships. Fifteen years
passed: I lived in Tokyo and then settled in New York, started a family,
wrote articles and essays and a book about nineteenth-century Japan.
For my second book, I decided to tell the story of Elizabeth and Emily
Blackwell, pioneering women doctors. Elizabeth was the first woman in
America to receive a medical degree, in 1849, and Emily had followed her,
receiving her degree in 1854. At the beginning of my research in 2016, I
sent a blast email to everyone I knew. “If you happen to have inside info

Janice Nimura is a freelance writer. This is her first contribution to the Quarterly.

51
 Alice Stone Blackwell (second from left, holding hat) poses with family members and friends in front of the
up-Island mail stage. MV Museum Photo Collection (2020.005.032

on any of the extended Blackwell clan,” I wrote, mostly in jest, “please call
me right now.”
Within days there was a message from Simone. Remember Libby at
Tashmoo? she wrote. Her full name was Elizabeth Blackwell Belden. She
was Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell’s great-niece, born in 1910, the year
both of her medical great-aunts died.
And there she was, in the Blackwell Family Papers at Radcliffe’s Schlesing-
er Library. Folder 1006 held Libby’s childhood copybooks from the nine-
teen-teens, her penmanship practice, her earliest compositions. There was a
notebook in which her grandmother, Emma Blackwell (the wife of Dr. Eliz-
abeth Blackwell’s youngest brother, George), recorded a very young Libby’s
transgressions: lying to her teacher, cursing at her grandmother, picking her
mother’s daffodils and trying to sell them to the neighbors. And there was
52
a letter from an older Libby to her cousin-once-removed Alice Stone Black-
well, circa 1934, in which she expressed her thanks for an unusual birthday
present. “I certainly appreciate being given Aunt Elizabeth’s thimble. It is so
nice to have it and know that it belonged to her and that she used it,” Libby
wrote. “I shall treasure it with great pride.”1
Was that thimble somewhere in Libby’s house when ten-year-old me
slept over? It made me shiver to think about it.
I had known about the Blackwell-Vineyard connection from the ar-
chives. In July of 1866, Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell’s brother Henry and
his wife, the suffrage activist Lucy Stone, arrived in Chilmark. “Harry has
extremely enjoyed his visit to the Vineyard,” Emily reported to Elizabeth.
“He & Lucy both represent the Island as very picturesque, rolling hills
covered with short turf, sheep pastures, fine cliffs, a splendid beach & surf,
and delightful temperature.” The extended family was intrigued—nature
lovers all, with memories of early childhood summers by the sea in their
native England, they had been yearning for a place to escape to. “I like the
prospect very much,” Emily continued, “for the steady reports of Harry &
Lucy make me think it must be altogether the finest seaside we have yet
found; ground, houses &c are still fabulously cheap, no hotel on the Island;
though in Nantucket they have put one up…”2
Within a month, more of the Blackwell clan had joined Henry and Lucy
for a summer sojourn that extended into September. Chilmark summers
became a Blackwell tradition, with Henry Blackwell’s family on Quitsa
Lane, and his younger brother George’s on State Road, near Allen Farm.
One of Elizabeth and Emily’s nieces, Florence Blackwell, married E. Eliot
Mayhew and settled permanently on the island. In 1882, Florence and her
cousin Alice—Henry and Lucy’s daughter—set up a shelf of thirty-three
books as a lending library at the Mayhew Brothers’ store; this collection
was the beginning of the Chilmark Free Public Library.
Exactly a hundred years after Henry and Lucy’s initial visit, my parents
came to the island for the first time, and before long they too had built a
summer home. I was tickled by this echo across time. In 2017, just as my
research was getting underway, a Vineyard visit seemed called for. An old
friend in Chilmark generously offered us a place to stay.
By the way, she added, did I know that her own parents had long ago
bought their property from the Blackwell family?

1 Elizabeth Blackwell Belden to Alice Stone Blackwell, circa 1934, Folder

1006, Collection MC411, Blackwell Family Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe
Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
2 Emily Blackwell to Elizabeth Blackwell, July 21, 1866, Folder 163, Collec-
tion MC411, Blackwell Family Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute
for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
53
 Florence Brown (Blackwell) Mayhew poses with her husband, Chilmark general-store keeper E. Elliot
Mayhew, and their son Walter Lloyd Mayhew in 1895. MV Museum Photo Collection (2018.001.124)

No, I did not know that.

“I have to think fate is on board with this Blackwell project,” I wrote in
my journal that night. “I can do this. The ghosts are waiting.”
Meanwhile, I had made the acquaintance of Jane Carey Blackwell
Bloomfield, a great-grandniece of Elizabeth and Emily’s who spent child-
hood summers on the Blackwell property. We met for brunch while I was
doing research at Radcliffe, and she became an inspiration and an ally.
She walked me through her family tree and described how her pioneering
aunts had established responsibility, honesty, and courage as cardinal vir-
tues handed from one generation to the next. She remembered each house
on Quitsa Lane with vivid nostalgia.
54
 Members of the Blackwell family pose outside their summer home at Quitsa. MV Museum, Gale Hunting-
ton Collection (RU 444)

In August my family arrived in Chilmark, and I discovered to my de-

light that our hostess had invited Carey Bloomfield to visit at the same time.
We walked the property together, with Carey annotating the landscape:
the clifftop house with blue shutters that they called “Seagull,” the stand of
gnarled pine at the head of the beach stairs that provided welcome shade
after a hot walk, the path to Quitsa Pond, where they learned to swim and
sail, away from the surf. The tangled green scent of huckleberry, bay berry,
beach rose, wild grape, and scrub oak was exactly as I remembered it from
my own childhood rambling. An osprey circled overhead. In the Blackwells’
time, their own houses would have been the only ones in sight.
I sat in the sun and listened to the goldfinches and catbirds, squint-
ing at the same blue horizon as the Blackwells had. At night, the cadence
of the waves was the same sound that lulled them to sleep in the 1860s.
55
My teenaged son hoped that we would “find something” while we were
there—a forgotten cache of letters, maybe, or an antique medicine bottle,
at least—but for me the shape of bluff and shoreline and the tracings of
fieldstone walls were enough. I was standing where the Blackwells stood,
feeling what they would have felt on a breezy August afternoon, the tem-
perature as delightful as Emily had hoped. The veil between past and pres-
ent was gossamer thin.
My book, The Doctors Blackwell, is out in the world now, reintroducing
Elizabeth and Emily and their family to the present. This past June I spent
another gorgeous blue-and-green-and-gold weekend at Quitsa Lane, revel-
ing not just in the double view of ocean and sound, but in the freedom to
travel at all. I made a pilgrimage to Dr. Emily Blackwell’s grave, in Abel’s Hill
cemetery: a granite block as stalwart and straightforward as she was, with the
markers of the extended Belden family, including Libby’s, spreading before it.
It was Emily Blackwell’s grandson, Elon Gale Huntington—son of Emily’s
adopted daughter, Anna (Nannie) Blackwell Huntington—who founded the
Dukes County Intelligencer, which has evolved into the MV Museum Quar-
terly. Just another circle that connects the Blackwell clan, the island they loved,
and another Vineyard sojourner and storyteller, more than a century later.

Emily Blackwell holding her adopted daughter

Anna, who would become the wife of Dr. Elon O.
Huntington and mother of E. Gale Huntington. MV
Museum Photo Collection (1998.042.001)

56
 The Federated Church
Bell
by Herbert R. Ward

The bronze bell and its wooden headstock.

I
Photos in this article are from the author’s collection.

n late 1828 and early 1829, the Edgartown Congregational Church did
not have enough money to pay the minister, Reverend Martyn, nor had
the sale of pews been financially successful. But “there was enough money
to buy a bell, the Island’s first. On October 29, 1829, the bell in the [Congre-
gational Church] steeple rang for the first time, according to Thomas Cooke’s
diary.”1 The bell has been ringing ever since, for one hundred and ninety-two
years (as of 2021). Since October 1829, and on special occasions (such as the
end of World War II, and as recently as January 2021, to honor those who had
died from Covid-19, this bell has been heard throughout Edgartown.
1 Arthur R. Railton, “The 1828 Meetinghouse: It Was Almost Turned Down,”
Dukes County Intelligencer, May 1992, pp. 223-235, on p. 229.

Herb Ward is the Historian of the Federated Church in Edgartown. His article
about the 1910 wreck of the Mertie B. Crawley, and the rescue of all aboard by
Capt. Levi Jackson and the crew of the Priscilla, appeared in the Fall 2010 issue
of this journal (then titled the Dukes County Intelligencer).
57
 Careful inspection of the
Federated Church bell re-
veals an inscription: “G. H.
Holbrook, Medway, MA,
1829.” The initials are those
of the bellmaker, Col. George
Handel Holbrook, who took
over the family business in
1820. The Chepachet Baptist
The mark of bellmaker G. H. Holbrook.
Church, Rhode Island has
a National List of Holbrook
Bells. Unfortunately, our bell was not listed as being manufactured be-
tween 1828 and 1829. Many bells were not recorded.
George Handel Holbrook was born in 1798 in Brookfield, MA, and moved
to East Medway in 1816, where he worked with his father in the manufac-
ture of bells and church clocks. His father, Major George Holbrook fought
in the Revolutionary War and
apprenticed with Paul Revere
when Revere cast his first bell
in 1792. Five years later, he set
up his own business in Brook-
field, MA (in operation from
1797 to 1810). In 1816, Major
Holbrook moved to East Med-
way again, and set up his busi-
ness and cast a bell for the new
Meetinghouse in Attlebor-
ough in 1816. He died in 1846.
In 1820, Col. G. H. Hol-
brook took over the business
from his father; he continued
to operate it from 1820-1871.
There is a time gap, which
led to a new business being
formed in East Medford (op-
erated from 1834 to 1856). In
Schematic of a typical nineteenth-century church bell. The bell 1837 Col. Holbrook began
in the Federated Church is similar, but lacks the slider shown here. building church organs until
From: “Do You Like to Hear the Church Bells on a Sunday Morn-
ing?” Payhembury Village (www.payhembury.org.uk), 30 July 2017
1850, in addition to his bell
business. He became associat-
ed with the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston. He then formed another
business, George H. Holbrook & Son, in East Medway, which operated
58
from 1865 until his death in 1875. According to campanologist Carl S.
Zimmerman of St. Louis, Missouri: “There are no surviving records from
the Holbrook bell foundry. The list compiled by the Chepachet Baptist
Church is the most comprehensive.”12
The height of the Federated Church bell is 30 inches, which includes
the 25-inch bell and the 5-inch crown at the top of the bell that is needed
to hang it. The bell diameter is 32 inches. It is made of bronze—an alloy
of copper and tin—with the two metals in nearly equal proportions. Ma-
jor George Holbrook, between 1816 and 1820, cast a bell weighing 1,208
pounds that may have served as a prototype, so it is possible that the Fed-
erated Church bell weighed that much as well.
After reviewing photographs of the Federated Church bell, Mr. Zim-
merman commented: “There are several notable aspects. Firstly, all of the
fittings that I can see appear to be original, or nearly so. Secondly, the
headstock appears to have been cut from a single piece of timber, which
must have come from an old-growth tree …Thirdly, the two old bolts that
appear on top of the bell between the crown and the headstock suggest a
most unusual way to secure the Headpiece from which the clapper pivots.”
Zimmerman continues: “The
clapper is original, and the
clapper staple or headpiece is
sufficiently worn (not surpris-
ing after almost 200 years!)
that the wear spot on the bell
is very wide … I’m fairly sure
that all of the woodwork is
original too. One of the inter-
esting things about exploring
church bell towers is that they
are almost always the least-
modified part of the building,
and so are very likely to con-
tain interesting bits of really bellThe clapper, which produces sound by striking the wall of the
as the bell swings.
old stuff, if one is observant.”
Commenting on the bell’s clapper, Zimmerman notes: “That is a very
unusual—perhaps even unique—clapper mounting. Normally, a bell with
crown would have had a cast-in iron clapper staple; but I see no evidence
of that here. My guess is that the molder of the bell somehow forgot to
include the usual clapper staple, and this was rigged as a substitute. The
use of the bent sheet-metal predecessor of the cotter pin as a retainer on
the ends of the bearing rod shows that this assembly is extremely old, and
2 Campanology is the study of bell-casting and bell-ringing.
59
 The supporting framework of the Federated Church bell, showing the large wooden wheel that provides
the leverage necessary to swing the bell.

probably original to the bell. The clapper shank might be either cast or
wrought iron, but the clapper ball is undoubtedly cast iron. It is also very
unusual in that it appears to have been made in two castings; quite pos-
sibly it was realized that the first attempt yielded a ball that was too small,
and rather than remake the whole thing they just cast another layer onto
the ball. It’s lasted almost two centuries, so it was a pretty good job!”
The bell clapper is 27 inches long, made of iron, and rusty. There are
wear marks on the inside bottom of the bell, from where the clapper hits
the inside of the bell. Mr. Zimmerman further states that: “While there
are many forms of bronze (including gunmetal), bell metal has a copper to
tin ratio that typically is in the range 78:22 to 80:20, often with a fraction
of one percent being impurities of various kinds. Copper oxide is green-
ish in color (as you may recognize from having seen copper roofs), while
tin oxide is grayish in color. Variations in the color of the bell are due to
variations in which of the two metals is predominant at any particular
point on the surface. Copper and tin oxides do not corrode away as iron
oxide (rust) does; instead, they form a distinctive patina. This is why there
60
is such a significant difference
between the appearance of the
clapper and the appearance of
the bell.”
Commenting on the wear
marks visible on the inside
surfaces of the bell, Zimmer-
man explains that they “are
a different color because any
oxides formed there have been
pounded away by the clapper.
The shape of the wear marks
on the bell is typical, and they In the belfry, the rope attaches to a large wheel that provides
show that the clapper pivot has leverage.
become quite worn over the
years. The bearing blocks for the gudgeons (the pins on which the bell
swings) are recessed into the horizontal timbers that carry the weight of
the bell. That is typical for pre-Civil-War bells. The bellfounder would
have supplied the bell, clapper,
headstock, wheel and bearing
blocks, while a local carpenter
would have constructed the
frame, which in this case is
practically part of the struc-
ture of the tower. All of the
timber that I can see looks to
be in excellent condition.”
To install the bell, it need-
ed to be raised up from the
ground, up to the open arched
shuttered window, swung in-
side, and then set inside. The Third floor (“attic”) where stairs lead up to the bell tower;
the bell rope passes through this space to the fourth floor..
structure which allows the bell
to ring may have been assembled before the bell was raised up. This seems
likely considering the tight amount of space to work in the bell tower. The
bell is attached to a large block of wood, called the headstock, and secured
in place. The block is then attached to a large diameter wheel which is
grooved in the center. The rope is laid in the track of the wheel (you can
see where it is tied off to the right of the photo) and—in the Federated
Church—extends through the third floor (“attic”) space to the second
floor, also known as the balcony. There, it hangs against a section of the
wall behind the back of the organ.
61
 When the rope is pulled down by the bell ringer, the wheel is pulled
down counterclockwise, which raises the bell far enough for the clapper
to hit it. When the bell is raised, the open part is facing the north side of
the bell tower, overlooking the church courtyard. Ringers only see a short
piece of rope, and nothing more; they pull on it, and the bell rings. So,
the next time you hear the Federated Church bell ringing on a Sunday
morning, close your eyes and imagine the work it took to place and secure
the bell, and the equipment needed to make it ring. What you will hear is
probably the same exact sound made on October 29, 1829.

Special thanks to Mr. Carl S. Zimmerman, Campanologist and web-

master for www.TowerBells.org, for providing most of the information in
this article.

Further Information:
A National List of Holbrook Bells, https://www.chepachetbaptist.org/na-
tionl-list-holbrook-bells-htm.
Holbrook Bells and Bell Foundries, www.towerbells.org/Holbrook-
Foundry.html.
The Holbrooks & the Holbrook Bell Foundry, by Francis D. Donovan ©
1989; www.medwaylib.org/History/Holbrooks/Holbrooks.htm.

62
The Cleaveland House Poets
by Ned Sternick

Cleaveland House, pictured in a woodcut by Sidney Noyes

Riggs. All images in this article are courtesy of the author.

T
he Cleaveland family emigrated from England to America’s Mas-
sachusetts Bay Colony in the 1630s. Born a few miles from Boston,
Moses Cleaveland (1651-1717) became the first family member to
settle on Martha’s Vineyard. As a teenager, he joined an Edgartown mi-
litia company formed to deal with possible local community unrest caused
by King Philip’s War (1675-1676). The conflict pitted several Native Ameri-
can tribes against English settlers joined by supportive Indian allies. Bloody
battles erupted throughout the Northeast; but the Wampanoag chose to re-
main neutral, resulting in an absence of violence on the Island. Moses was
later married with several children, and acquired Edgartown property.1
A future descendant, whaling captain James Cleaveland (1824-1907), relo-
cated to Martha’s Vineyard after his mid-1800s retirement from a busy nautical
career. He purchased an old West Tisbury home built in Revolutionary War
times, and welcomed boarders with a “Cleaveland House” sign on the roof.2
1 “Original Vineyarders: The Island’s First Settlers,” New York Times.
2 “Welcome to the Cleaveland House,” Cleaveland House B&B, http://www.
cynthiariggs.com/cleavelandhouse/
Ned Sternick, a retired medical physicist and former director of the Medical
Physics Division at the Tufts New England Medical Center, is an MV Museum
docent and library volunteer. This is his first contribution to the Quarterly.
63
 James Cleaveland’s granddaugh-
ter, Dionis Coffin Riggs (1898-1997),
originally from Edgartown, lived
off-Island for many years. In the
1950s, Dionis returned to Martha’s
Vineyard with husband Sidney N.
Riggs (1892-1975), a career educa-
tor and talented artist. They began
a new life at the historic Cleaveland
family residence and made signifi-
cant upgrades to it, installing elec-
tricity, running water and an indoor
bathroom.3
Dionis emerged as a serious writ-
er of many poems that appeared in
Martha’s Vineyard and New York
newspapers. Community-oriented,
she invited other Vineyard poets to
share creative efforts on a regular
basis in her living room during the
1960s. Participants subsequently
Cynthia Riggs, age 2, on the beach at Quansoo in 1933. became known as the Cleaveland
House Poets.
Cynthia Riggs, the daughter of Dionis, was born in 1931 and grew
up onMartha’s Vineyard, but spent much of her adult life in Washington,
DC. There she worked as a museum aide, associate news editor, press sec-
retary for a congressman, and freelance writer, editor, and researcher at
the National Geographic Society.4
Coming back to the Vineyard in the early 1980s, Cynthia assisted her
widowed mother with transformation of the Cleaveland home into a bed
and breakfast that would cater to poets and writers. When Dionis passed
away at age 98, Cynthia, an acclaimed author of mystery novels set on
Martha’s Vineyard, continued to host the Cleaveland House Poets, who
have remained active for more than a half-century.
•
In the Company of Poets: Cleaveland House Poets Anthology 2021 will be
published this August.

3 Robert McG. Thomas, Jr. “Dionis C. Riggs, New England Poet, Dies at 98.”
New York Times, May 11, 1997.
4 Cynthia K. Wolfson, “Cynthia Riggs: Her Mystery Revealed,” Vineyard
Style (2018). http://cynthiariggs.com/profilevt.html
64
 Seamen’s protection certificates, like this one issued to Timothy Snow in 1805,
were a legal document stating that the bearer was a citizen of the United States.
The Royal Navy, perpetually short of trained seamen, claimed the right to force
British sailors serving on merchant vessels into naval service. Certificates like
Snow’s, issued through Customs Houses in port cities like New Bedford and
backed by the authority of the United States government, were intended to save
American sailors from impressment (which became one of the causes of — or
pretexts for — the War of 1812. Products of an age before photography, the cer-
tificates included a detailed physical description that could be used by authorities
to verify that the bearer of the certificate was the person to whom it had been is-
sued. Timothy Snow’s certificate is part of Record Unit 139 (Edgartown Customs
House House Records) in the Museum archives.

65
151 Lagoon Pond Road
Vineyard Haven, MA 02568
MVMUSEUM

The Last Voyage of

Captain William Martin

Signature of Capt. William A. Martin, from a letter written to Samuel Osborn Jr, owner of the
Eunice H. Adams, in 1890. Martha’s Vineyard Museum, RU 335 (Osborn Family Papers), Box 1, Folder 7.

MVMUSEUM.ORG