Talk:Martha's Vineyard

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Martha's Vineyard is part of WikiProject Massachusetts, an effort to create, expand, and improve Massachusetts-related articles to a feature-quality standard.

Contents 1 Lester 2 Dyke/Dike 3 Map error 4 Secession 5 Genetic basis of deafness 6 Rhode Island 7 Typo. Please correct. 8 Martha's Vineyard African American Heritage Trail 9 Original name 10 Thomas Hart Benton. 11 Towns

[edit] Lester

Hi. I had a great aunt tell me a tale some years ago about my ancestors the DeBettencourts who were among the first europeans to inhabit the island. The family name is DeBett. If anyone has any information regarding this, please share.

Derek

from where in europe?

when did they settle?

any full names?

[edit] Dyke/Dike

google for 'dike bridge vineyard conservation society' I'll take the first few links here as authority. Blair P. Houghton 23:39, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but lots of good references for Dyke Bridge, too, including this [1] from the MV Times and this [2] from the MV Gazette. It appears that either spelling is accepted (I've never been there, myself). How about if we put in both? - DavidWBrooks 02:56, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's Dike (except to New Yorkers who are steeped in the Dutch habit of spellings like they were on cell phones in the 17th century, hence Bronx and Dollar). The conservation society is going to be conserving things like that, though, and I'm going with their word. If they'd been preponderantly "Dyke", that's what I'd accept. Okay, as long as Dike remains the major case; there's plenty of people who do misspell it. Blair P. Houghton 05:06, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As a frequent visitor to the island, I've never seen it spelled "Dike" - it's always "Dyke". I'll double check that next week and make changes if so.

Great, but do us all a favor and create an account before you do. When an anonymous IP changes something that has been the topic of debate, there is a tendency to assume that the change is spurious and to revert it; rightly or wrongly, people will look more seriously at a change (and look for reasons why it was done) if it's done by somebody with an account. - DavidWBrooks 17:40, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lifetime resident of the island its dike Samnesral

[edit] Map error

The map on this page is wrong, as it lists the town of Chilmark as 'Chilwick'. Does any one have another map, or can whoever created the first one fix it? - Thanks

I contacted the author of the map, User:NormanEinstein, earlier this week. He is in the process of fixing it. Mike Dillon 21:59, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Secession

In 1977, Martha's Vineyard tried to secede from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (it also tried to secede from the United States and become an independent nation) along with the island of Nantucket.

Is there any references for this information? I tried looking it up, but didn't find any. Thanks. --Ragib 01:40, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The Vineyard Gazette seems to have some articles. Try a Google search for "site:mvgazette.com secession" (without the quotes). I didn't dig in, but there are 63 results. From the snippets Google provides, they seem to refer to secession from Massachusetts, not the United States. Mike Dillon 01:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

After a closer look, it looks like there may only be one thing [3]. The rest are about "secession" from the Martha's Vineyard Commission. If you add "1977" to the Google search, you get 19 hits, so you might want to look at them all, I may have missed something. Mike Dillon 01:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Try this page. It has a whole compilation of articles about MV sucession:

http://www.mvgazette.com/commentary/gazette_chronicle/?document=19770300_statehood

—Jared 21:31, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genetic basis of deafness

Hi, Martha's vineyard is often considered as a case-study for the adverse effects of a small closed gene pool, since the deafness of the population resulted from an effective (although ultimately innocent enough) inbreeding resulting in `genetic drift'. I therefore propose the following slight modification to the first paragraph,

...The islands closed gene-pool resulted in it being home to one of the earliest known deaf communities, and consequently a special dialect of sign language, Martha's Vineyard Sign Language, developed on the island. The island is now primarily known as a summer colony.

any objections?

-rainbowpants 23:43, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the intro is the proper place for that material. That's fairly specific information and deserves to be properly sourced. The deaf community isn't mentioned in the body of the article, so if this is as significant as you say, perhaps it should have a paragraph in the History section or its own section if the material is sufficient. --NormanEinstein 13:53, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, but it should be included in the article as fact. See Groce, Nora Ellen. "Everyone Here Spoke Sign Language : Hereditary Deafness on Martha's Vineyard" Amazon link, and Lane, Harland, Richard C. Pillard and Mary French. "Origins of the American Deaf-World: Assimilating and Differentiating Societies and Their Relation to Genetic Patterning." Sign Language Studies 1.1 (2000) 17-44 (accessed through Project Muse).

From the latter, "In her work on the Vineyard Deaf population, Groce identified 72 Deaf individuals, of whom 63 could trace their ancestry to James Skiffe, 32 to Samuel Tilton, and 9 to Jonathan Lambert (Groce 1985). Most of the Deaf people on the island had all three of these colonists in their pedigrees. Remarkably, Groce found that all three families were linked before they arrived on the Vineyard. In 1634 a minister named Lothrop and some 200 members of his congregation and their servants, all from parishes in an area in the English county of Kent known as the Weald, arrived in Boston harbor. They made their way to Scituate, where half the population was from the Weald, and then to Barnstable on Cape Cod. In 1670 several of these families moved to the Vineyard when James Skiffe, who was from Kent, sold land in Tisbury. In the ensuing decades, more of these families—Tiltons, Lamberts, and others—moved across Vineyard Sound, settling in the Chilmark area (Banks 1966). Because of the very early appearance of Deaf people on the island and because not all the known Deaf Vineyarders can be traced to a common Vineyard ancestor, Groce concludes that the island’s Deaf heritage, and thus Mary Smith’s, originated in the Weald and arrived on the island with the colonizing families." (Lane, Pillard and French 23-26).--Marysunshine 03:18, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I've added the material and citations.--Marysunshine 04:09, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rhode Island

I removed the following paragraph (added by an anon) from the article:

Although Martha's Vineyard is located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, when asked in which state they live, many residents will say Rhode Island. The residents of the Vineyad would prefer to become part of Rhode Island rather than remain in Massachusetts.

If this is true and anyone has evidence for it, go ahead and add it back in. AJD 14:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

          I have lived on Martha's Vineyard my whole life, and not omce has anyone ever said that we were or would like to be part of Rhode Island User:Mved

[edit] Typo. Please correct.

The C in Commonwealth of Massachusetts should be capitalized.

This seems to have been done; feel free to make spelling corrections and other changes directly to the article. -- Beland 06:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Martha's Vineyard African American Heritage Trail

I am doing a project on William A. Martin's House, but cannot find any pictures of it. I live on Martha's Vineyard, but I can't go down to chappy to take some pictures. If anyone could find some, then please tell me.

[edit] Original name

Bartholomew Gosnold indicates that Martha's Vineyard was the original name, but this article says it was Martin's Vineyard. Reliable sources are needed. -- Beland 06:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thomas Hart Benton.

It would be nice to see some addition of material on Chilmark about Thomas Hart Bentons time spent there in the 1920s. I am a frequent reader of Wiki, but do not know how to edit yet or anything. I am currently reading a good book he wrote in his old age and he discusses Chilmark and the artistic activity happening in MV at that time. Maybe it will be my first edit? If anyone else has any knowlege of this very important aspect of Chilmark history, (and knows how to edit) please take this torch and run with it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.39.254.235 (talk) 02:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Hi,

 I did not know where to ask my question, since this is my first time in editing & signing in & I'm new to Wiki, so since this is the closest to my question subject, I chose to ask it here:
 What does the commment about John Belushi have to do with this article of Martha's Vineyard?  Is Chilmark a part of Martha's Vineyard?  It does not state so in any part of the article that I have read so far.  Lotus7 02:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)Lotus7

[edit] Towns

2 Things: 1) West chop is part of Tisbury. It is not its own town. 2) What does the "athens" of Martha's Vineyard mean?