Tisbury, Massachusetts
A Short History of Tisbury
From the Wampanoag lands called Takemmy, to a 1671 charter paid for in barrels of codfish, to the harbor at Holmes Hole that grew into the island’s busy front door at Vineyard Haven.
Takemmy
Long before any English settler arrived, Martha’s Vineyard was Wampanoag land, and the town seal still carries the word Takemmy, the name the Wampanoag used for the island. Their presence is not a footnote to Tisbury’s story. It is the ground the story is built on, and the town keeps that name on its own seal to this day.
Six Barrels of Codfish
On July 8, 1671, Francis Lovelace, the Governor General of New York, chartered the settlement of Tisbury, then part of the Duke of York’s dominion over the Vineyard and the nearby islands. The charter set an annual quitrent, a token payment that acknowledged the Duke’s authority: six barrels of marketable codfish, to be delivered each year at the bridge in New York. That is why a codfish sits on the town seal. The town took its name from Tisbury in Wiltshire, England, the home town of the island’s governor, Thomas Mayhew. Around 1673 the Vineyard’s settlers, unhappy with Mayhew’s rule, petitioned New York for a change, and not long after the island was attached to Massachusetts.
Holmes Hole Becomes Vineyard Haven
The harbor village at the heart of town was long called Holmes Hole, earlier written Homes Hole, and it thrived on the water. By 1850 it was a working port with marine railways that could haul large vessels out for repair, a sail-loft, ship-chandleries, and two boat-yards on Lagoon Pond. As the whaling and coasting trades gave way to summer traffic, the village was renamed Vineyard Haven, the name most residents use for the town today even though the legal name is still Tisbury.
The Town That Became Two
Old Tisbury was larger than the town you live in, because what is now West Tisbury was once part of it. In 1892 an act of the state legislature divided the old town into two, and the villages of Tisbury and West Tisbury became separate towns. It is worth sitting with: the border between the two towns exists because the legislature acted on a local request, and the down-island half kept the harbor and the ferry.
The Island’s Front Door
Vineyard Haven is where most people first set foot on Martha’s Vineyard. Tisbury holds the island’s main Steamship Authority ferry docks, with year-round service to Woods Hole on Cape Cod and seasonal runs to New Bedford and Nantucket. Nearly everything and everyone that reaches the island by boat comes through this one town’s harbor, which is why so much of the Vineyard’s public life, from freight to storm response, runs through decisions made here.
Sources: Town of Tisbury, About the Town (tisburyma.gov); Tisbury, Massachusetts, and the U.S. Census Bureau gazetteer.