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Article: If you go to Martha's Vineyard
- Article from:
- Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
- Article date:
- July 27, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2003 Deseret News (Salt Lake City). Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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The name: English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold encountered the
island in 1602 and named it for his baby daughter and for the wild
grapevines he saw growing everywhere.
Directions: Martha's Vineyard is about 7 miles south of Cape Cod.
Local terms for the east and west halves of the island seem
counterintuitive to a Midwesterner: "Up island" is the west, "down
island" is the east. This has to do with longitude, which gets higher
as you go westward. "Up island" is more rural.
Most offbeat fact: In the late 1700s and most of the 1800s,
Martha's Vineyard had its own style of sign language, which the
hearing also learned. A recessive gene among islanders had led to a