The History Of Martha's Vineyard: How We Got To Where We Are

Since glaciers from the last Ice Age pushed a mound into what we now call Vineyard Sound, and left it stranded, Martha's Vineyard has seen its share of changes. Even seventy-five years ago, who could have predicted that a former native American homeland and onetime whaling hub would be the wealthy, glamorous Vineyard of today, host to Presidential entourages and movie stars? Arthur Railton might have predicted it. He was fifteen in 1930, and already spending summers there. Now, on the wise side of ninety, he has just completed a ten-year project: writing the definitive history of the place he calls "my favorite on the planet." Few could be more qualified for the task. Since his retirement from a journalistic career in the late 1970s, he has edited the quarterly journal of the Martha's Vineyard Historical Society, the Duke's County Intelligencer.