MARTHA'S VINEYARD. 407 



planters, frightened by the Indians, and thinking their sup- 

 ply of food to be insufficient, sailed back to England, thus 

 ingloriously leaving the first settlement ever made by white 

 men in New England. They carried with them, beside 

 some furs, about one hundred tons of sassafras (still abun- 

 dant in that neighl^orhood), regarded at that time as a 

 sovereign specific for a certain disease then prevalent, enough 

 they thought to glut the drug market of London. 



On what is now called ' ' Cuttyhunk " they dug and stoned 

 a cellar, l)uilt a log house and fortified it with stockades. 

 Within a few years the cellar was distinctly traced, but now 

 the inconsiderable town of " Gosnold," with its one hundred 

 and fifteen inhabitants, is the only monument to that brave 

 captain who made the first settlement in New England, and 

 who, five years afterward, when, with the famous Capt. 

 John Smith, endeavoring to found a settlement in Virginia, 

 died of a terrible plague. 



Although the colonial charter of 1692, from William and 

 Mary, conveyed with other territory this island to our fore- 

 fathers by the name of Capawack, with no allusion to any 

 Martha, the colonial government soon after in the same year 

 assumed for it the name of " Martha's Vineyard," which it 

 has ever since borne, though perhaps it might seem that the 

 reasons for calling it by that name rather than " Martin's," 

 are not quite conclusive. 



The antiquarians who decided this depended entirely upon 

 the "relation" of Gabriel Archer, a gentleman who, with 

 John Brenton and others, accompanied Gosnold ; but the 

 subsequent record evidence is much against them. An emi- 

 nent historian says that " it is greatly to be regretted that the 

 history of the discovery should have been so neglected." 



The account of this voyage exists only in ' ' Purchas' Pil- 

 grims," printed in 1625, and consists of three papers. One 

 is a good, stately, but filial letter to his father from Gosnold 

 himself, somewhat descriptive of his voyage, but mentioning 

 no name as given to this island. 



The narrative of John Brenton, who accompanied Gosnold, 

 is interesting and quite particular ; but he gives no name. 



Gabriel Archer, who was also in Gosnold's small vessel, 

 carrying thirty-two persons, twenty of whom intended to 



