76 DAYS IN THE OPEN 



1605, Bartholomew Gosnold sailed from England 

 for " Northern Virginia " and chanced upon No 

 Man's Land, he gave it the name of Martha's Vine- 

 yard, and that, for some unknown reason, this 

 name was transferred to the neighbouring island. 



Still another tradition alleges that the first settler 

 on the island had a loved daughter to whom he gave 

 a tract of land where vines grew luxuriantly; and 

 so not only her tract, but the whole island came to 

 be known as Martha's Vineyard. Neither theory 

 costs anything; they are probably about equally 

 true you can take your choice. 



At the extreme eastern end of Martha's Vine- 

 yard is the quaint, restful village of Edgartown. 

 Turn your face towards the sun-rise and you look 

 across a narrow bay to Chappaquiddick Island, 

 lying like a giant earthwork to protect the village 

 from the assaults of the ocean. Wouldn't you like 

 to ramble about a bit? We'll start in at this 

 ravine south of the town, for it was here that the 

 first settler made his home. Considering that he 

 built his log cabin in 1630, only ten years after the 

 landing of the Pilgrims, it is not strange that 

 nothing remains to mark the place of his abode 

 but this grass-grown depression in the hill-side. 



Going south along the main street we come to 

 the old Mayhew house, built in 1698, and looking 

 as if it proposed to stand for a few centuries longer. 

 Tradition has it that during the Revolutionary 

 War a cannon-ball passed through its walls, going 



