Exploring the Island’s Past and Present: A Day at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum

If you’re planning a trip to Martha’s Vineyard and you have yet to explore the new Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Vineyard Haven you must add it to your itinerary now. This beloved facility sits in a storied building, perched above the Lagoon in Vineyard Haven, having recently completed a massive $31 million restoration project. The Museum offers sweeping water views, an impressive collection of Island history, a cafe featuring local treats and a world class schedule of arts and culture programs. Whether you go for the views, the exhibits, the building itself or the food, just make sure you go!

Location, Location, Location
The Museum is situated overlooking Lagoon Pond and Vineyard Sound in Tisbury, or Vineyard Haven. The campus is a ten minute walk from the Steamship Authority’s Vineyard Haven terminal and an eight minute walk from Five Corners. 
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The building itself is of historical significance and is a striking property that can’t be missed. A lighthouse once existed on the front terrace and, in 1895, the Coast Guard ordered the construction of a 29-room Marine Hospital on the property later adding onto it in 1938. Before the Museum purchased the property in 2011, the site was owned by the St. Pierre family who operated the St. Pierre School of Sport, a camp that many Island kids visited every summer. Today the Museum features a permanent exhibit “On This Site” which details the life of the building before it became the Museum, where you can listen to oral histories from some of the patients and nurses who spent time there as well as some of the memories of the campers who called this campus home during their childhood summers.

Challenge of the Sea at the MV Museum

Exhibits
In addition to “On This Site” the Museum offers several other permanent exhibits that highlight fascinating Island history and the impressive collections the Museum has acquired. The Martha’s Vineyard Museum preserves and exhibits fine art, furniture, photographs, textiles, manuscripts, and everyday objects that Vineyarders have made and used.
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• The Jewelbox Exhibit spotlights one thing – one story or one object. it gives visitors the opportunity to have a quiet, intimate moment with something from the MVM collection – an object that has a compelling story to tell, but perhaps hasn’t yet found its way into larger Museum exhibits. New acquisitions are often featured in this exhibit.
• One Island, Many Stories offers an introduction to Island history arranged thematically. Visitors learn about the diverse history of Martha’s Vineyard through the persepctives of fishing, farming, changing, voyaging, creating, escaping, and belonging. An interactive map is located at the center of the exhibit. All around, the sights and sounds are of the Vineyard; from an array of seagoing vessels and fishing gear suspended overhead, to segments of the stone walls that still serve as fences. Logbooks, scrimshaw, photographs, and travel trunks are among the objects representing the diversity of cultures and people who moved to the Island and made this place home. 
• Flashes of Brilliance This exhibit chronicles the history of lighthouses on the Island diving into the details of the Gay Head Light in Aquinnah. In the midst of this space, and spanning two floors like a suspended jewel, is the magnificent first-order Fresnel Lens, which was first installed in the Gay Head Light from 1854 to 1952. Around the lens, the exhibit explores the geology of the region and the resultant landscape of its coastal edges, the changing land, and navigation with the aid of lighthouses.
• The Challenge of the Sea This exhibit explores the stories associated with shipping and navigation, lifesaving, and weather in Vineyard and Nantucket Sounds, which served as the second-busiest waterways in the world in the 19th century. On display are sextants, chronometers, celestial bodies, and charts, as well as artifacts from local shipwrecks such as the steamer City of Columbus, which suffered shipwreck in 1883. From its location in the lower level of the Linnemann Pavilion, this exhibit also demonstrates the optical qualities of the 1854 Fresnel Lens with its 1,000-plus hand-cut crystal prisms and explains the mechanics of the Lens’ operation.
• Hands on History This special place is “kid-scale,” with exhibits that touch on the same topics as the rest of the exhibition yet are designed to engage and delight young learners. A climb-in boat, a sea captain’s cabin, a fishing shack – these are some of the iconic experiences that help kids to learn through discovery. Each facet of Hands-on History is designed to complement one or more features of the larger exhibits providing “Do Touch!” learning experiences. 
• History Highlights This gallery presents a brief animated program that introduces the Island’s timeline, from prehistory to present day. It is meant to provide context to visitors and an overview of Island history before they explore the other permanent and rotating galleries in the Museum. The featured video is updated frequently with new historical events, so be sure to check back for added content on subsequent visits.
• Doherty Hall Located behind the main building, Doherty Hall is home to some of the larger objects in the Museum’s collection. Located inside are a number of whaling and fishing vessels, the original hearse from the town of Edgartown, the Mayhew peddler’s cart used for deliveries at Alley’s General Store, a Hawaiian canoe, surfboards, an Erford Burt kayak, the headlamp for the Island’s locomotive, the Active, and much more. 

The museum also offers a regular rotation of current exhibits as well as online exhibits including oral histories from Martha’s Vineyard veterans and fishermen over the years and the remarkable journal of a young girl’s life on a whaling ship in the 1800s among other things. 

Doherty Hall at the MV Museum

Programs and Events
In addition to visiting the Museum to tour it’s space and galleries you also have the opportunity to attend special events, classes, exhibit openings and more. Be sure to get on the Museum’s email list to receive updates on what’s happening. Upcoming winter events include:
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• January 31 @ 6:00 pm - 8:30 pm: An evening exploring Brazilian food with chef Zandro Souza and educator, journalist, and interpreter Juliana Germani.
• February 4 @ 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm: “The Arctic Voyages of Captain Robert Bartlett” by Matthew Stackpole
• February 4 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm: “Martha’s Vineyard History” Class with Bow Van Riper
• February 11 @ 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm: Exhibit Opening: “Emma Chambers Maitland”
• February 14 @ 6:30 pm - 9:00 pm: Valentine’s Day Dinner
• February 18 @ 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm: “Martha’s Vineyard History” Class with Bow Van Riper

The Museum Cafe
The cafe is as diverse as the Museum itself, offering a variety of delicious food brought from eateries across the Island. Visitors can access the cafe without paying for entry to the museum, and can enjoy a snack or lunch, while gazing out across Vineyard Haven Harbor and Lagoon. Once inside, visitors to the cafe can’t miss the incredible Fresnel lens hanging above, which was once part of the Gay Head Lighthouse. This spectacular artifact features over 1000 individual glass panes, and is one of only 39 first-order Fresnels remaining in the U.S. 

Things to Know When Visiting

• Thanks to the generosity of Cronig’s Market and Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank, admission is free for all individuals on Tuesday evenings from 4-7PM in the off-season, and 5-8PM in the summer. As a result parking is limited on Tuesday evenings. 
• Admission is $18 for adults, $15 for seniors, $5 for kids 6-17, and children under 6 are free. Memberships are available as well as applicable discounts. 

Group rates are applicable for parties of 10 or more, and private tours can be arranged with advance notice.
Photos: Courtesy MV Museum