408 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



settle as planters, was the only one of these who made any 

 record. Archer's "relation" is a very interesting paper. 

 He says Gosnold named the small island " Marthae's Vine- 

 yard ; " and again mentions the name with the same spell- 

 ing. When Archer wrote this, whether at the time or from 

 memory afterwards, does not appear. His "relation" is 

 certainly incorrect in some particulars as a careful study of 

 the voyage will show. In coming by Cape Cod, which still 

 bears the name given it by Gosnold, he says they steered 

 west. If they had done so there would have been a speedy 

 ending of that voyage. He should have said south. He is 

 also confused in his statements of the islands, and of the 

 navigation after leaving Cape Cod ; and he may be incorrect 

 in the writing of this name. 



In 1603, the next year after Gosnold's return, Capt. 

 Martin Pring or Prynne, spelled differently by difierent 

 writers, made a voyage to the same places discovered by 

 Gosnold, but makes no mention of the name of Marthae's 

 Vineyard. Nor from 1602 down to the landing of the 

 Pilgrims, and long after, although some voyage was made to 

 that or some place near, as often as every other year, was 

 there any use of that name by any one as known. 



Nearly forty years — long enough for the inaccuracy of 

 forgetfulness to have obliterated any certain recollection of 

 the name, — had passed, when Mr. John Forrett, agent for the 

 Earl of Stirling (who claimed, under a grant from the " Ply- 

 mouth Company," given at the order of Charles the First, 

 all the islands on the coast from Maine to the Hudson River) , 

 in 1641 conveyed, with Mr. Frederick Vines, agent for Sir 

 Ferdinand Gorges, " to Thomas Mayhew and his son Tkomas 

 Mayhew, Jr., of Watertown, the right to plant on Martha's 

 Vineyard and the Elizal^eth Isles, the same at he had pre- 

 viously granted of the Island of Nantucket." 



In 1644, and once in 1659, Mr. Thomas Mayhew writes as 

 from Martha's Vineyard, but in all other cases from " Mar- 

 tin's" Vineyard. In 1643 the settlement was established at 

 Edgartown by a detachment of colonists with their young 

 minister from Watertown, which was a colonial hive for 

 swarming. In 1644 was one of the early acts of the " Com- 

 missioners of the United Colonies of New England," that 



