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Mary Drake Coles: (1903-1998) Nothing ever stopped Mary Coles; not the polio that crippled her right arm at the age of ten, nor the glaucoma that finally took her sight in the 1950s. This artist grew up in New Jersey, but spent her summers in Edgartown. When polio struck, a friend gave her some oil paints to cheer her up and thus began her art career.
Mary continued to paint even after she lost her sight. When asked how she knew when a painting was done, she said her friends wouldn't lie to her and would let her know when she needed to do more.
Her work is included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Newark Museum, Rutgers College, Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, and the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. An interview with Mary can be found in Linsey Lee’s Vineyard Voices.
Elizabeth “Eliza” Cooke: (1792-1887) Born in Edgartown, Eliza Cooke was the last member of the Cooke family to live in the historic house on the Martha’s Vineyard Museum campus.
Her father, Thomas Cooke, Jr., willed her the entire property when he died, and she continued to live there until her marriage to Jonathan Mayhew (also of Edgartown) in 1816.
Eliza and Jonathan moved to Buffalo, New York shortly afterwards, and the Cooke house changed hands a number of times before it came into the Museum’s possession in 1934. Today, it remains at the corner of School Street and Cooke Street, where museum curators have discovered many fascinating artifacts from the Cooke family in recent archaeological excavations.
Katharine Cornell: (1893-1974) A noted stage actress, writer, and theatrical producer, Katharine was best known for her major Broadway roles in serious dramas, often directed by her husband, Guthrie McClintic.
Primarily regarded as a tragedienne, she was admired for her refined, romantic presence. Her most famous role was as English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in the 1931 Broadway production of The Barretts of Wimpole Street. Other appearances on Broadway included: W. Somerset Maugham's The Letter (1927), Sidney Howard's The Alien Corn (1933), Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1934), Maxwell Anderson's The Wingless Victory (1936), S. N. Behrman's No Time for Comedy (1939), a Tony Award-winning Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra (1947), and a revival of Maugham's The Constant Wife (1951). She also appeared in film and on television.
Katharine loved Martha’s Vineyard and came every summer. She was an integral part of daily life in Tisbury (her beloved cottage, Chip Chop, is still there), and participated in community events such as volunteering at the USO, hospital fundraisers, and the yearly Cavalcade. After she died, the town hall theater in Tisbury was renamed in her honor.
Mary Drouin: (b. 1922) An island-born woman of Portuguese descent, Mary worked for years as a school cook and helped new Portuguese arrivals learn English. She is featured in Linsey Lee’s More Vineyard Voices, where this excerpt comes from:
“Growing up here on the Island, we had fun. We used to go skating at Uncle Seth’s. Someone would take us up in a car on a Sunday or a Saturday. They had it all illuminated and then at one place, in a little building, they used to sell hot dogs and things like that, but they don’t do that anymore.
They used to have fires on the ponds. I used to be afraid to go way out there, because I was afraid that the heat of the fire would melt the ice, so I stayed closer to the edge.
Oh, was it ever cold. My brother got a pair of these- like the Dutch people used to wear, you know? Speed skates! Skate to school with them! We lived in Vineyard Haven on the Edgartown Road. There he goes, up the hill, down the hill. That’s how he’d get to school, with those skates. It was so funny.”
Polly Hill: (1907-2007) After age 50 and after years of raising a family, Mary Louise Butcher “Polly” Hill was “looking for a new challenge. ‘I was doing too many things as they occurred. To what end? Many women resonate to: fifty and then what?’”
The answer came in the form of her family’s summer home in West Tisbury, dubbed Barnard’s Inn Farm. Soon, Polly had her visitors enthusiastically digging in the soil and planting seeds. “I didn’t have the money for a greenhouse, or for the help. But… it was fun,” she said of her now-famous arboretum’s beginnings.
The Polly Hill Arboretum was purchased in 1997 by the David H. Smith Foundation. A successfully negotiated conservation restriction assures that the land will never be developed. An influx of volunteers means that the plants and trees Polly planted from seeds will continue to be cared for so all visitors can appreciate her contributions to the island. An interview with Polly can be found in Linsey Lee’s Vineyard Voices.
Betty Hough: (1894-1965) Although Elizabeth “Betty” Hough was not born on Martha’s Vineyard, she adopted the island as her home and worked tirelessly with her husband, Henry Beetle Hough, to keep it safe from developers and overzealous tourists.
Betty met Henry at the Columbia University School of Journalism, where they both earned bachelor degrees in literature. In 1920, just one year after Betty graduated, Henry proposed and they moved to the Vineyard. Henry’s father gave them a very well appointed wedding gift indeed: control of the Vineyard Gazette.
For the next forty years, Henry would write and Betty would edit what became one of the most widely known publications in the nation. Evan J. Albright, in a critique of Phyllis Méras’ book Country Editor: Henry Beetle Hough and the Vineyard Gazette, says “Hough left the day-to-day operation of the paper to Betty while he focused on writing books.” Although she was a largely behind the scenes presence, the Gazette would not be the paper it is today without Betty’s guidance.
Laura Jernegan: (1862-1947) Laura was born in Edgartown, like many children of this period, while her father was at sea. She remained at home until the age of six, when her father convinced his family to accompany him on his next whaling expedition.
Aboard the whale-ship Roman, Laura continued her lessons and practiced penmanship in a journal. This remarkable piece of writing can be found in the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, and a biography of Laura is on display in the Museum’s Cooke House.
After Laura returned to Edgartown in 1871, she never went to sea again, although later in life she became interested in collecting and classifying sea mosses that she found along the beach. She lived in Edgartown until her death in 1947.
Lois Mailou Jones: (1905-1998) Lois had an impressive education and a definite gift as an artist. However, because she was African-American, Lois’ work at first failed to garner attention in the United States. Happily, she applied for and received a grant to study abroad in Paris. There, the French inspired her to continue her passion and express herself through painting. She was soon an international sensation, though not everyone who purchased her paintings knew her race.
As she established herself more firmly in the art world, Lois moved back to the United States and continued to enjoy her fame, later teaching at several universities before retiring in 1977. Because she visited Martha’s Vineyard every summer with her family as a child, she made the island one of her adult homes. Many of her paintings incorporate island themes and specific places.
In 1980, Lois was honored by President Jimmy Carter at the White House for outstanding achievements in the arts. Her paintings grace the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of American Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, National Portrait Gallery, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the National Palace in Haiti, the National Museum of Afro-American Artists, and a loaned collection at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum. An interview with Lois can be found in Linsey Lee’s Vineyard Voices.
Virginia Manchester Luce: (1807- 1892) Virginia was born in Holmes Hole (Vineyard Haven), where she met and married Richard Luce in 1826. They continued to live in Vineyard Haven, on William Street, although Richard was frequently away on whaling voyages.
There is currently a display of portraits at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, of which the Luces are a part. Paintings like the two of Virginia and Richard were called “family ornaments” at the time, and signified one’s high position in society.
The paintings, it is interesting to note, were done by an island man named Frederick Mayhew. He was self-taught, and as a result his portraits have a folk art quality about them.
Lillian Norton: (1857-1914) “Rightly or wrongly, the average New Englander has been considered pragmatic, determined, hard-working. These qualities helped carry Lillian Bayard Norton from rural Farmington in Maine to success as Lillian Nordica in the major opera houses of the world.”
So starts the introduction to an article written about Madame Nordica. Lillian’s great-grandfather was a Norton from the Vineyard who migrated to Maine looking for work, and her grandfather, “Camp Meeting John” Allen was a famous revivalist from Maine. These ties may explain why the famous operatic soprano chose to make Martha’s Vineyard one of her many homes.
Although she sang Brunnhilde and Isolde, Lillian was a down-to-earth woman who once said, after wearing her diamonds to a “poor” theater, “Why should workmen not be dressed for, as well as royalty?” She gave many concerts for free or for a reduced fee, and sang on Martha’s Vineyard on more than one occasion.
The Martha’s Vineyard Museum has a collection of Madame Nordica’s programs, photos, and recordings of her concerts in the Gale Huntington Library.
Mary E. Pease: (1867-1893) Little is known about Mary E. Pease, who died when she was only twenty-six, but her family has undoubtedly altered island history.
The first Pease on Martha’s Vineyard, according to legend, was John Pease in 1632. “A vessel bound from England to South Virginia, fell in with the south shoal of Nantucket, came up through the Vineyard sound and anchored off Cape Poge…four men, with their families [one of whom was John Pease], requested to be put on shore, preferring rather to take their chance with the natives.”
Another story has it that two Pease brothers came to the island in April of 1634. However the first Peases truly arrived, there can be no doubt that the family thrived, becoming one of the most influential forces on the island as it moved from small port to huge whaling community.
Lucy P. Smith: (1842- c. 1933) Born in Edgartown on February 4th, 1842, Lucy Smith (née Vincent) was considered to be “a person of an independent nature,” much like her parents.
She met her husband, George A. Smith, on the 19th of June, and was engaged to him just two days later. Soon after they married, George departed to work as mate on a whaling ship. However, after her husband became captain of his own bark, Nautilus, Lucy and their three-year-old son, Freddie, sailed with him for over five years.
During her time aboard Nautilus, Lucy rounded Cape Horn, visited South America, Hawaii, and the Cook Islands among many other destinations. She also kept a journal of her life aboard a whaling bark, now included in the Museum’s archives, which is reproduced here in part.
“My adventures afloat, or Leaves from my Log Book.
On the 6th of October 1869 on board of Bark Nautilus sailed from New Bedford at nine o’clock… About four o’clock we ran into a school of Finback whales my husband called me to come on deck and see them. It was quite rough but I did not mind it, but when I went below into the cabin I smelt the bilge. That made me sick… My husband carried me on deck wrapped in a blanket to a little room fitted for me where I got fresh air and after a few days airing I am all right.”
Beulah Ocooch Salisbury Vanderhoop: (1816- ?) Captain Charles Vanderhoop, Jr. (1921- 2001) remembers the stories told to him of his daring great-great grandmother, Beulah:
“My great-great grandfather William Adrian Vanderhoop was born in Suriname, Dutch Guiana. He was the first Vanderhoop to come here, and he married Beulah Ocooch Salisbury. He built the old Vanderhoop homestead—it was the post office and a store awhile back.
Their house was a link on the Underground Railway. My great-great grandmother, Beulah Vanderhoop, would help escaped slaves find their way free. She’d hide them in the barn—there was a false cellar underneath the barn floor.
My grandmother told of who she worked with in Vineyard Haven-of course that’s where the big sailing ships come in, Holmes Hole-and how they got them up here. Then they usually could get them out on the boats going back and forth to New Bedford carrying fish. I think it was a total of eight slaves that she saved.”
The entire interview can be found in Linsey Lee’s More Vineyard Voices.
Amelia Watson: (1856-1934) Amelia Montague Watson was an illustrator and artist who specialized in watercolor landscapes. Though she was born in Connecticut, her family owned a summer home in East Chop and she grew up enjoying the picturesque views there.
Her best-known published work is in the 1896 edition of Thoreau’s Cape Cod. She also taught drawing and painting at The Martha’s Vineyard Summer Institute from 1878 to 1902 and served for a time as head of the Art Department for the Institute.
Although she was a prolific painter, few of her original works can be found in collections today. The largest collection of her work, (32 watercolors and five pencil sketches), is held by the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
Dorothy West: (1907–1998) Dorothy was born in Boston on June 2, 1907, to Isaac Christopher West, an emancipated slave who later became a successful businessman, and Rachel Pease Benson, one of 22 children. Dorothy reportedly wrote her first story at the age of seven.
She moved to New York in the 1920s to take part in what later became known as the Harlem Renaissance. There, she met other influential writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen. She also founded the magazine Challenge in 1934 with only $40, and later New Challenge in 1937. Both magazines were extremely influential within the African American community and with broader audiences.
She moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1934, where she produced her first novel, The Living is Easy, in 1948. Another collection, The Richer, The Poorer, was published by Doubleday in 1997. Dorothy’s short stories have also been widely anthologized.
In addition to novels, Dorothy also wrote the Oak Bluffs column in the Vineyard Gazette. She is featured in Linsey Lee’s Vineyard Voices.
Emma Mayhew Whiting: (1876- 1947) Emma spent her entire life on her beloved Martha’s Vineyard, where her curiosity and compassion helped found the Dukes County Historical Society, known today as the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
She began research on the wives of whaling captains in the 1930s. By her death in 1947, she had completed sufficient research for a book and had written several drafts of chapters. In 1952, Henry Beetle Hough continued her efforts and brought the book to publication under the title Whaling Wives. She authored several other pieces, including a book of poetry published posthumously by her husband.
Emma, as mentioned above, was a charter member of the Dukes County Historical Society, and also served as librarian and genealogist here for many years. Other community organizations she was involved in include the Agricultural Society, the annual Ag. Fair, and the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital. Mr. Hough once described her as “the most distinguished woman the Vineyard has produced.”
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