Martha’s Vineyard, Massachuchets:
a quaint New England paradise
by Sean Fulton | Photography by Charlie Utz / Warbird Flight
 Tucked between the bustle of Cape Cod and the quietly aloof Nantucket Island lies the serene jewel of the New England coast that is Martha’s Vineyard. Known locally as just “the Vineyard,” the little island has become synonymous with good taste, elegance, and a sea-faring history.
 More than just a playground for the powerful and wealthy, the Vineyard is a welcoming island complete with charming villages, pristine beaches and friendly, relaxed living.
And because it can’t be reached by land, the Vineyard is ideally-suited for a romantic weekend or week-long getaway by airplane. Let the rest of the world take the ferry—you can watch them scamper onto dock in Vineyard Haven as you gracefully descend to land for what will be a memorable, romantic getaway vacation.
The Vineyard is quintessential New England coastal living. Images that have become part of our collective American spirit are found here, from the island’s five picturesque lighthouses, to the miles of white, sandy beaches. Even if you’ve never been, you know the quaint, 19th Century architecture of Edgartown and the warmth from a late Summer sunset that you can only find strolling on the beach before dinner.
These are the images of a life worth living, and they are the soul of the Vineyard.
Most activity on the Vineyard revolves around the beach or boating. The water temperature reaches about 65 degrees in mid-June, and doesn’t drop that low again until the first week in October, making for a full and delightful summer swimming season. There are nearly 20 public beaches on the island, and most are open to the public.
There are two public golf courses on the island, including the Farm Neck Golf Club, an 18-hole, 6,709-yard club in Oak Bluffs, and Mink Meadows Golf Club, which features 18 holes spread over 6,217 yards of rolling terrain and ocean views.
If you’re handy with a fishing pole, you can enter the Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass & Bluefish Derby, a 56-year-old contest run by the Chamber of Commerce that provides scholarships to Vine-yard students. The derby runs annually from mid-September through mid-October, and features prizes for both boat and shore fishing.
As you might imagine, much of the Vineyard’s fortunes over the years have been tied to fishing and in ages past, whaling. Edgartown originally grew as a whaling port, but in 1778 during the revolutionary war, the British invaded the Vineyard and burned most of the large fishing and whaling ships that were based their. The economic devastation from that attack lasted until the early 1820s, when the economy revived suitably and a renewed spirit of colonization saw Edgartown grow once again.
Many of the elegant buildings in Edgartown today trace their origins to that prosperous time, and today, the Edgartown historic district sports an eclectic mix of Greek Revival, Federal and Victorian structures. Edgartown is one of the Vineyard’s best-known towns, having gained notoriety as one of the world’s great yachting centers.
The island is believed to have been first settled 10,000 years ago, when humans walked to the island from the mainland, before the melting ice of the receading glaciers turned the Vineyard into an island.
Originally called “Noepe” by Native Americans, the island was named “Martha’s Vineyard” in 1602 after Bartholomew Gosnold of Falmouth, England, was blown off course on his way to Virginia and landed on nearby Cape Cod.
Legend has it that Gosnold at first named a small patch of land now called “Nomans Land” Martha’s Vineyard, after one of his daughters, but later transferred the name to the current Martha’s Vineyard after seeing how much larger and more beautiful it was.
Almost since the beginning, the Vineyard has been known for accommodating a diverse group of people. Thomas Mayhew, whose father later became governor of Massachusetts, settled in Edgardtown in 1641, and insisted that English families moving to the Vineyard purchase their land from the native Americans who were already living there, resulting a strong bond between the English settlers and the natives, helping the fledgling community flourish.
The Vineyard became home to the first American deaf community in 1694, when a deaf carpenter from Cape Cod named Jonathan Lambert moved to the Vineyard with his wife, Elizabeth. Lambert and his wife settled in West Tisbury and had seven children, two of whom were deaf. Researches have discovered that Lambert and several other families who arrived on the Vineyard at roughly the same time descended from an area of Kent in England that had such a high concentration of deaf people that they had developed their own sign language to help them communicate.
During the next 200 years, intermarriage among island residents produced an unusually high concentration of genetically deaf children. In the 1800s, when the incidence rate for deafness in the U.S. population was 1 in 5,700, the incidence of deafness on Martha’s Vineyard was 1 in 55, and in one area of Chilmark the ratio was as high as one in four.
Town meetings and church services were both spoken and signed, and throughout this period, conversations among deaf and hearing people alike were usually conducted in sign. In fact, if a hearing person didn’t know sign language, another hearing person would have to translate for them so they could understand what was happening.
Today, Chilmark is a small, rural community of only 650 people that is best known for the fresh seafood you can purchase in the village of Menemsha. Menemsha is also home to the Beach Plum Inn & Restaurant, an 11-room establishment overlooking the sea. The lore is that several schooners were destroyed in the harbor during a storm in 1898, and the wood that was salvaged from those ships was used to build the inn.
West Tisbury is also a rural community, known locally for its community of writers and artists and for the agricultural fair that is held there in August.
In 1835, on the eastern side of the island near Oak Bluffs, a group of 300 Methodists set up nine tents in a semi-circle surrounding a small, wooden stand made from old boards and driftwood. They held what these days would be called a revival or spiritual meeting on the campground, and continued to return each year, forming the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association.
Over the years, the tents were replaced with small, boarded cottages and the wooden stand was imrpoved upon several times before being replaced by a steel tabernacle in 1879. These cottages were later strengthened and eventually turned into tiny Victorian cottages, many of which have stayed in families for two or three generations.
Today the Tabernacle is a cultural center for Oak Bluffs, celebrating an ecumenical church service during July and August, with cultural events and concerts scheduled there throughout the summer. It serves as home of the All-Island Art Show in August, and is the focal-point for the “Grand Illumination,” a Wednesday night in August in which the cottages are adorned with Japanese and Chinese paper lanterns and members of the community participate in a “Community Sing.” The event was originally started more than 100 years ago as a celebration to welcome the Governor of Massachusetts to Oak Bluffs.
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Want to know more about this memorable getaway, visit our Concierge at www.aviatorsguide.com/
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Visitors can stay in one of five apartments in the Tabernacle House on the Campgrounds, with each apartment having its own kitchenette and bath. Rates range from $500 to $1,600 per week through Ocean Park Realty (508) 693-3037.
Of course, with all this history and so much to see, you might wonder what makes the Vineyard a romantic getaway. For that, you really need to go there and experience the casual elegance of the place. The friendly people, the casual, soft-spoken lifestyle. It’s a place that lends itself to rebuilding the spirit, rekindling the romance or just relaxing.
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The Best of Martha’s Vineyard
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 Best Season: The high season for Martha’s Vineyard is July and August, when most hotels require a three-night minimum and lodging rates go through the roof. Locals know that the best time for a romantic getaway on the island is in September and early October, after school starts but before the weather turns cold.
Best Tip: Although much has been made of the vineyard “fog,” locals say it’s really more of a haze caused by moist air moving in-land. It usually crops up after dark and burns off by 9 or 10 a.m. But it is entirely predictable, so check with flight service, which has a well-earned reputation for reliably forecasting this phenomenon, and you shouldn’t have any problems.
 Best Landing: Most transient traffic heads for Marthas Vineyard (MVY), the main airport on the Island with paved runways and small airline and jet traffic. But a grass-field on the eastern side of the island, Katama (1B2), may be the best bet for light airplanes. Katama has three turf runways, ranging in length from 2,600 feet to 4,000 feet in length, and a parking area that is adjacent to the beach. Fuel available is 100LL, and there are overnight tie-downs. This airport is also within walking distance of town, while MVY requires a bus, car or bicycle to get to where the action is. Both airports have good restaurants on the field. Katama is preferred for day trips because of its proximity to sand and surf. Maps needed: New York VFR Sectional or Boston VFR Terminal Area Chart.
Best Way To Get Around: Car rentals run $60 to $80 per day. There is an excellent bus system that picks up at MVY every 20 minutes or so and travels to all points on the island. Bus fare is about $1 per trip, or you can buy a day pass for $5 or a week pass for $15. Bicycles and mopeds, which will probably give you the most intense island experience, can also be rented in advance. Bicycles run around $20 per day, or $75 per week during peak season. By the way, the busses have bike racks on them.
Best Planning Resources: Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce,
www.mvy.com, www.marthas- vineyard.com, www.vineyard.net., and Vineyard Style magazine, www.vineyard
style.com. The Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, www.mvderby.com and travel.boston.com/
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