[15] European settlement began with the purchase of Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands by Thomas Mayhew of Watertown, Massachusetts, from two New England settlers.

[citation needed]Following the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter in 1684, William Coddington Jr., who was governor of Rhode Island at the time, attempted to seize Martha's Vineyard through a group of militia as "reparations for former damages of past leaders made by the settlers,"[20] most likely referring to the Puritan actions on Rhode Island leaders Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson, as well as annex threats made by Massachusetts.

"The ship Joel Hiacoomes was sailing on, as he was returning to Boston from a trip home shortly before the graduation ceremonies, was found wrecked on the shores of Nantucket Island.

[citation needed] The island was the last refuge of the heath hen, an extinct subspecies of the greater prairie chicken, which was a once common game bird throughout the Northeastern United States.

[36] Martha's Vineyard was used by the Army, Navy and Air Force from 1941 through 1945 for training missions that ranged from landings on beaches to climbing cliffs and bombing practice.

[38] The island received international notoriety after the "Chappaquiddick incident" of July 18, 1969, in which Mary Jo Kopechne was killed in a car driven off the Dike Bridge by U.S.

The Coast Guard allowed a detachment of four seamen from the Soviet ship to board the cutter and "drag the kicking, screaming Kudirka back to their vessel."

[40][41] In 1974, Steven Spielberg filmed the movie Jaws on Martha's Vineyard, most notably in the fishing village of Menemsha and the town of Chilmark.

[43] On March 5, 1982, John Belushi died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles, California, and was buried four days later in Abel's Hill Cemetery in Chilmark.

[48] In the summer of 2000, an outbreak of tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, resulted in one death and piqued the interest of the CDC, which wanted to test the island as a potential investigative ground for aerosolized Francisella tularensis.

[citation needed] In the television show The X-Files, Fox Mulder's parents live on the island,[50] and it was also the setting for Robert Harris' 2007 novel The Ghost.

The corporation was founded in 1998 by Martha's Vineyard NAACP vice president Carrie Camillo Tankard and teacher Elaine Cawley Weintraub.

[59] The island's deaf heritage cannot be traced to one common ancestor and is thought to have originated in the Weald, a region that overlaps the borders of the English counties of Kent and Sussex, prior to immigration.

[60] Deaf Vineyarders generally earned an average or above-average income (proved by tax records) and they participated in church affairs with passion.

[65] The last deaf person born into the island's sign-language tradition, Katie West, died in 1952, but a few elderly residents were able to recall MVSL as recently as the 1980s when research into the language began.

The Martha's Vineyard Public Charter School, located in West Tisbury, provides grades K–12 and serves the entire island; it also welcomes off-island students.

During the whaling era, wealthy Boston sea captains and merchant traders often created estates on Martha's Vineyard with their trading profits.

Late authors Shel Silverstein and William Styron also lived on the Vineyard, as did writer, journalist and teacher John Hersey, poet and novelist Dorothy West and artist Thomas Hart Benton.

The Academy Award-winning Patricia Neal owned a home on South Water St in Edgartown, and James Cagney, Lillian Hellman (who is buried in Abel's Hill Cemetery near the site of Belushi's grave), and Katharine Cornell all found the Vineyard an exciting, rewarding place to live.

[citation needed] In addition, the famous Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt was a fifty-year summer resident of the Vineyard until his death in 1995.

[99] Other well-known celebrities who live on or have regularly visited the island: Harlem Renaissance artist Lois Mailou Jones; former president Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; former U.S. President Barack Obama;[100][101] comedian and talk show host David Letterman; Bill Murray; Tony Shalhoub; Quincy Jones; Ted Danson and wife Mary Steenburgen; Larry David; the Farrelly brothers; Meg Ryan; and Chelsea Handler.

Other regularly appearing celebrities include film writer/director Spike Lee, attorney Alan Dershowitz, comedians Dan Aykroyd and James Belushi, politico Vernon Jordan, television news reporter Diane Sawyer, fashion designer Kenneth Cole, former Ambassador and President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art William H. Luers, and Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

[102] In August 2014, both President Obama and Hillary Clinton planned to have overlapping visits to the island, where the presence of security details that create traffic challenges is becoming an annual affair.

Concentrated primarily in and around the town of Oak Bluffs, and the East Chop area, these families have historically represented the black elite from Boston, Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Today, affluent families from around the country have taken to the Vineyard, and the community is known as a popular summer destination for judges, physicians, business executives, surgeons, attorneys, writers, politicians, and professors.

The historic presence of African-American residents in Oak Bluffs resulted in its Town Beach being pejoratively called "The Inkwell", a nickname which was reappropriated as an emblem of pride.

[citation needed] The Run&Shoot Filmworks Martha's Vineyard African-American Film Festival, held every second week in August, highlights the works of independent and established filmmakers from across the globe.

[108] Concerns over munitions that may be buried on Martha's Vineyard, most from World War II,[109] have led to an 8.1 million dollar project to remove and rebuild part of a privately owned barrier beach off the Tisbury Great Pond.

[citation needed] Typically home to artists, musicians, and other creative types, the Island has many residents who manage by working several jobs in the summer and taking some time off in the winter.

[citation needed] Many high-profile residents, movie stars, politicians, writers, and artists contribute to fundraisers and benefits that raise awareness of the fragile ecosystem of the Vineyard and support community organizations and services.