Finding Martha's Vineyard

by Jill Nelson

  By the late 1700s a number of black families lived in the community of Eastville on Martha’s Vineyard, the area of Oak Bluffs between Sunset Lake (across from the Oak Bluffs harbor) and Farm Pond (at the beginning of the road from Oak Bluffs to Edgartown). At that time, the total population of Eastville consisted of 180 people. By 1880, the Eastville community had been incorporated into the newly established Cottage City, with a population of 672 residents. It is unknown how many of them were black.

  In the early to mid-I800s, the black American presence on the island was represented by indentured servants, skilled workers, laborers, and at least one whaling captain, William A. Martin, the son of Nancy Michael’s daughter, Rebecca.

  The number of slaves on Martha’s Vineyard was always small. It is impossible to be exact, since blacks were often lumped into one category, without distinction between slave and free, and it is also likely that both were undercounted. It appears that the connection between free blacks, slaves, and the Wampanoag community was strong and that some whites as well resisted slavery.

  I like to think that the expansiveness and sense of freedom that attracts African Americans to the Vineyard today existed in the past as well, one of the reasons I am so intrigued by the following story that appeared in the Vineyard Gazette of September 1854. It chronicles how Vineyard residents of Tisbury and Gay Head assisted a fugitive slave, Randall Burton, who stowed away on a freight ship, The Franklin, out of Charleston, South Carolina. Once discovered, the captain was determined to abide by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that demanded the return of escaped slaves whether they were in a slave or free state when apprehended. When The Franklin docked at Holmes Hole, now the town of Vineyard Haven, the fugitive stole a small boat and es-caped to the Vineyard. Burton traveled to Gay Head, and hid in a swamp for several days, where he was helped in eluding the sheriff by members of the Wampanoag community. With the assistance of two women from Holmes Hole and an extra dress and bonnet, Randall Burton was finally put on a boat in Menemsha that took him to abolitionists in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It is not clear if he went on to Canada, remained in New Bedford, or traveled elsewhere.

  In 1921 under the title “The True Story of a Fugitive Slave: Or the Story a Gay Head Grandmother Told,” the Vineyard Gazette published the following story of the escape of Randall Burton, a.k.a. Edgar Jones, in 1854, some of which is excerpted below. It was written by Netta Vanderhoop of Gay Head when she was fifteen years old:

  At eleven o’clock that night the slave stole quietly out of the cabin, softly and quickly lowered a boat and silently rowed away. He landed at East Chop, near Vineyard Haven harbor, and drew the boat high on the beach. For three days he hid in the woods and cornfields, living on raw corn. At the end of the second day he went to see if the boat was still safe, because he did not want the captain to lose it. He asked three men for work, but they all said they had help enough, and in reply to his further queries for employment one of the men told him to go to Gay Head and the people there might give him work. So he came up the island and stayed for nearly a week at Mr. Moses Bassett’s, working for his food and lodging. No one knew he was a slave, for the poor fellow, not knowing he was among friends, kept his secret to himself as the sailors had told him to do.

  Early one morning, just as the postmaster of Gay Head, Mr. William Vanderhoop, was finishing his breakfast, the sheriff rode up and asked him if he would help him catch a man who had run away from a ship, adding that he would pay him ten dollars for his trouble. Mr. Vanderhoop was preparing to go to Vineyard Haven with a load of cranberries for market and did not propose to put off his trip for ten dollars. But Mrs. Vanderhoop had overheard the conversation. She suspected that something was wrong, for it did not seem quite probable that the sheriff was offering so much as that to catch a common sailor. Just as the sheriff was leaving she carelessly inquired where the vessel was from. He evasively replied, “From the South,” stating no particular place. Mrs. Vanderhoop’s suspicions were increased rather than allayed, but she said nothing, and the sheriff and her husband departed, their destinations lying somewhat in the same direction.

  In the meantime, in another part of Gay Head, Mr. Bassett, his brother and the stranger were just about to sit down to breakfast, when the latter, who was none other than the slave Edgar Jones, suddenly jumped as if shot and sprang out of the door opposite the window from which he had been looking, disappearing in the thick swamp back of the house. Mr. Bassett looked out to see what was the matter and was surprised to see the sheriff.

  “A dollar to each of you if you will help me catch that man,” cried the officer. They followed him but they did not catch him. Mrs. Vanderhoop had been thinking all morning. “I wonder if that poor fellow the sheriff is after is a slave,” she said to herself as she kept glancing out the door. Suddenly she heard shouts, and hurrying to the door she saw a man coming over the hill, running as fast as he could. He was desperately endeavoring to escape several pursuers. Snatching up a shawl, she ran swiftly toward the place where she saw the men, for now she was sure that it was a slave they pursued.

  The men had outrun the sheriff and when Mrs. Vanderhoop reached the spot where they were that official was nowhere in sight. She told the young men that the man they were chasing was probably a slave, and begged them not to help catch him. They gladly yielded to her wishes and were very indignant with the sheriff for using a pretext in his attempt to make them slave-catchers.

  The first Methodists on Martha’s Vineyard were probably John Saunders and his wife, Priscilla, both former slaves and lay preachers from Virginia who came to the island in 1787. Saunders was apparently a zealous and convincing orator, who preached to the island’s native and black populations at Farm Neck, off what is now County Road in Oak Bluffs, not far from the golf course. It is believed that Saunders exhorted the faithful from a large rock at the end of Pulpit Rock Way, one of the stops on the African-American Heritage Trail created by island residents Carrie Camillo Tankard and Elaine Weintraub in 1997.

  From its inception, Methodism attracted significant numbers of African Americans, perhaps because of the antislavery stance articulated by its founder, John Wesley, even though Methodist churches tolerated slavery in slave states. Perhaps more persuasive was the Methodist tradition of sending evangelical preachers out to preach the gospel to the people where they were, in simple words and with great emotion. Itinerant Methodist preachers found followers in towns, crossroads, and fields, where they reached out to and appealed to slaves and free blacks alike.

  Organized religious revival meetings, led first by Saunders in fields, then Jeremiah Pease, a white citizen of Edgartown who converted in the I820s, and established the Wesleyan Grove Camp Meeting in 1835, and later the Baptist Tabernacle in the Highlands, were central to bringing early visitors, black and white, to Martha’s Vineyard. The tremendous growth and popularity of the Methodist camp meetings were responsible in large part for the creation of the town of Cottage City, which later became Oak Bluffs. It’s ironic to hear people today complain about excessive tourism in Oak Bluffs, since it was in fact created as a summer resort by land speculators in

  African Americans in front of cottage in campgrounds, circa late 1800s

  I867. These early developers saw that those who came to the island for religious reasons also enjoyed more secular charms—clean ocean, pristine beaches, rolling hills and bluffs, ponds, and cool breezes—and that there was money to be made.

  People of African descent were welcome at Wesleyan Grove as participants and occasionally as preachers, although black permanent residents were scarce. Visitors likely carried word back to their home communities of the stirring religious revival, beauty of the island, and relatively warm welcome.

  An article in the Martha’s Vineyard Herald (now defunct) dated July 13, 1889, tells the story of Martha James, a black woman who rented a cottage in the campground and when she arrived was refused admission:

  Mr. Matthews, as Selectman, said and did nothing, but a
s a private citizen quite naturally objected to having a colored lodging house next door to him. Mr. Eldridge did the liberal thing with the rentor in furnishing her with board until he secured her another house in which she is comfortably settled and more satisfied with than the one on the camp ground. Letters were received from lawyer Barney, of New Bedford, reminding them as Republicans of their offence against the 15th amendment [presumably the 14th is meant], but the whole affair has been unnecessarily exaggerated and the Campmeeting authorities misrepresented ...

  Two years ago a similar case came up on a petition remonstrating against leases to colored people in certain localities, and the Board passed the following.

  “Resolved: That we as directors of the Campmeeting Association in response to petitioners would say that we judge it improper and illegal to make distinction among our tenants on the ground of color.”

  This has been and is the position of the Association. They of course object to certain businesses in certain localities. Whether by white or colored people, but their position is plainly indicated by the fact that not less than twenty-five lots are leased to colored people on their premises.

  From the early years of Wesleyan Grove there was concern about the increasingly nonsecular pastimes of the hundreds and later thousands who attended the camp meeting. This discussion accelerated in the 1860s, as the tents of the early Camp Meeting Grounds were rapidly replaced by the tiny, ornate gingerbread cottages, whose architecture, suggests the architectural historian Ellen Weiss, herself a summer resident of the island in West Tisbury, combines design elements of the early tents, church architecture, and cottages. Wesleyan Grove, now called the Campground, remains a distinct community within the town of Oak Bluffs. An afternoon spent walking through the winding paths of this architecturally amazing community (cars and bicycles are not allowed) and looking at the ornate woodwork of the cottages is absolutely magical; it’s a fascinating place to visit on the Vineyard.

  Each August this community hosts Illumination Night, when the cottages in the

  community are festooned with colorful lights and Chinese lanterns, the doors thrown open, and thousands walk along the winding, narrow paths of the campground to view this magical, miniature city of lights. This celebration began in 1869, likely as much for commercial as spiritual reasons, and originally included a procession led by a band from Sea View Avenue to Ocean Park and through the streets of town. Houses throughout town were decorated with lights, as were stores and boats in the harbor. The evening included thousands of flickering lanterns, fireworks, enormous crowds, and much revelry.

  Vineyard Gazette article on Illumination Night, 1877

  By 1865, the Martha’s Vineyard Camp-Meeting Association began considering the purchase of additional land, a large plot that encompassed the bluffs overlooking Nantucket Sound to the south. But in 1866, four Vineyard whaling captains and two off-islanders beat them to the punch, buying seventy-five acres and immediately dividing them into one thousand lots for sale. The Methodists responded by building a seven-foot-high fence around their camp meeting ground, separating themselves from secular neighbors.

  Mimicking the circular design of the campgrounds, the new resort of Oak Bluffs began to take shape. The idea of these early developers was to design a resort community that could attract affluent vacationers and be easily marketed. Robert Morris Copeland, a landscape architect, was hired to design this new community, drawing his first plan in 1866 and a second design in 1867. “This second plan incorporated several features of the first but also set out a dominating new motif,” writes Ellen Weiss in her wonderful book, City in the Woods: The Life and Design of an American Camp Meeting on Martha’s Vineyard. She explains:

  It (the plan) sacrificed hundreds of salable lots in the area near the bluffs to make a 7-acre park, rendering the community open to space, sky, and the seas, perhaps at considerable loss in intimate neighborhoods around tiny parks, on the campground model. The new Ocean Park was the developer’s idea, not the landscape architect’s. Twenty years later, while giving testimony in a court case

  Early design for Oak Bluffs

  Methodist Tabernacle, Oak Bluffs

  over park ownership, they provided their reasons. The land in that area dipped in the center, creating drainage problems for cottages. “Breathing space” and fire breaks were wanted. A large park would help avoid conflict with the camp meeting and would give the development “magnitude.” And it would attract city dwellers and a better class of resident to its edges.

  Cottage City was designed to complement the architecture of Wesleyan Grove, although on a much larger, lavish, and expensive scale. The streets radiating out from Ocean Park are curved, and the town is dotted with small and large parks. In spite of accommodations made to the Methodists, the developers clearly intended the new town to be a place of relaxation and recreation, not religious contemplation. A wharf was built on Nantucket Sound to accommodate the arrival of summer visitors, and a gazebo was constructed in the center of Ocean Park in 1880 for musical entertainment. A wooden walkway alongside the beach hosted a railroad that ran all the way to Katama and a glass refreshment stand and a shaded space where visitors could watch swimmers.

  By 1868 a community known as the Vineyard Highlands, designed by the Vineyard Grove Company, took shape in the highlands overlooking Oak Bluffs harbor. At the center was a circular park and cottages were arranged around it. Within a few years the circle was regularly leased to Baptists so that they could hold their own outdoor religious meetings in the summer. In 1877 a wooden tabernacle that held 2,500 people was built in a grove of trees there.

  Wesleyan Grove’s iron tabernacle was completed in 1879, replacing the temporary canvas shelters of the past. Designed by John W. Hoyt, the tabernacle is an amazing and beautiful structure that over one hundred years later still stands in the Camp Meeting Ground, often used in the summer for concerts and readings as well as religious services.

  By 1880, the communities of Oak Bluffs, Wesleyan Grove, and the Vineyard Highlands separated themselves from Edgartown and incorporated as Cottage City. The area was renamed Oak Bluffs in 1907.

  In 1901, the Reverend Oscar E. Denniston, a Baptist and native of Jamaica, West Indies, came to Martha’s Vineyard at the invitation of Reverend Madison Edwards, pastor at Seaman’s Bethel Church in Vineyard Haven. Denniston assisted Edwards in his ministry. Denniston, along with his wife and five children, immediately involved himself in the religious and secular life of the island, working with Susan Bradley at the Oakland Mission Hall on Masonic Avenue in Oak Bluffs, to assist immigrants from Portugal, the Azores, and Cape Verde Islands prepare for the literacy tests required for citizenship. The Mission Hall also attracted the increasing number of African Americans who came to the island as servants to white families with summer homes, and as the years passed, as homeowners and small-business entrepreneurs. In 1907, after the death of Susan Bradley, the church was renamed the Bradley Memorial Church.

  Reverend Denniston preached to this growing black population in the chapel in the Mission Hall and he and his family also lived in the Mission. Evidence of the expanding size of the congregation is the fact that in the 1920s the church purchased a former vaudeville theater on Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs, Noepe Hall, and named it Bradley Memorial Baptist Church. This space was used during the summer months when the number of black worshipers expanded along with the summer population. In

  winter, the congregation moved back to its original site on Masonic Avenue in Oak Bluffs. Reverend Denniston preached on Martha’s Vineyard until his death in 1942. By the first decades of the twentieth century, there was a small but established black population on the island, many of them business owners. They operated guest houses (ironically, several of these guest houses owned by blacks did not accept black guests!), dining halls, a gas station on New York Avenue, a barbershop, a laundry, hauling services, a shoe shine stand, and other small businesses. In 1920, George W. Frye bought a building on Circuit Avenue and op
ened a shoe shine and cobbler shop, possibly the first African American to have a business on Circuit Avenue, Oak Bluffs’ main street. After his death, Frye’s son George C. Frye and his two brothers ran the business until 1968. I can remember walking along Circuit Avenue as a child and speaking to Mr. Frye, working at his cobbler’s bench, as I passed by. I had been introduced to him by my parents, and at the time all I knew was that he was someone significant, although it was not until some years later that I came to understand why. Nearly one hundred years after George W Frye opened his shop on Circuit Avenue, there are only three businesses on Oak Bluffs’ main street owned and operated by people of African descent: Cousen Rose Gallery, owned by Zita Cousens; C’est La Vie, a jewelry and gift shop owned by Roger Schilling; and the Oak Bluffs Inn, owned by Erik and Rhonda Albert. Erik’s father R. Sid Albert has owned the building at 40 Circuit Avenue for over thirty years.

  Like the white families many came to the island to work for or provide services to, black visitors to the island were seduced by its physical beauty and spiritual freedom and by the early 1900s combined work and pleasure during their time on the island. Then as now, many African Americans saw the Vineyard as a safe, relaxing respite from summer in the city for themselves and their children, and some started small businesses on the island to supplement their income during the summer. Others came first as worshipers to the Methodist Tabernacle in the Camp Meeting Grounds or to the Baptist Tabernacle built in the Highlands section of Oak Bluffs.

  Charles Shearer was born a slave on a plantation in Appomattox, Virginia, in 1854. At the end of the Civil War he enrolled in Virginia’s Hampton University, where he received a degree and remained for twelve years as a teacher. While there, he met a student named Henrietta, a Blackfoot Indian. They married and the Shearers moved north