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Long Island's Original East End
Long Island's Original East End,
and its connection to New England
(Courtesy of an E-correspondent)
This is the story of the Island of Martha's Vineyard and the 300+year old tradition that followed Martha's Island through three name changes, two states, and a typographical error in a legislative bill.
On November 1, 1683, when the first General Assembly of Freeholders established the first 12 counties of New York and created the office of Sheriff in each county,Martha's Vineyard was known as Martin's Vineyard and was in Dukes County in New York. The other original counties were Albany, Cornwall, Dutchess, Kings, New York, Orange, Queens, Richmond, Suffolk, Ulster and Westchester.
The effect of these laws was to combine the separate jurisdiction of the Vineyard and the Island of Nantucket and to add another office or two to the civil list, which was promptly filled by Matthew Mayhew, of Martin's Vineyard, who seemed to feel that nothing was too small for his attention from chief magistrate down to register of deeds. Prior to this, Nantucket had been conducting its own affairs under a local autonomy subject to a certain suzerainty of the Mayhew proprietary government.
Martin's Vineyard becomes Mathew's Vineyard at or before a meeting of Dukes County officials meeting at Nantucket on September 21, 1686, to discuss the establishment and timing of when the Court would meet on each of the main islands of the county.
On October 7, 1691, by the Charter of William and Mary, Dukes as well as Cornwall County leave New York and become counties in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. However, with the passage to Massachusetts, the good people of Nantucket, after several tries, were finally successful in their attempt to separate from the grip of the Mayhews on what is now (and forevermore) Martha's Vineyard. On May 28, 1695, the General Court (Assembly) of Massachusetts allowed Nantucket to secede from Dukes County, but the enacting legislation permanently changed the name of Dukes to "Dukes County" by inadvertently putting the word "County" after Dukes in the bill.
Cornwall County became part of Maine when Maine seceded from Massachusetts in 1820. Cornwall County included Pemaquid and its dependencies, comprising what is now a considerable part of the coast of Maine.
Rock Hall
This is an old pre-revolutionary (ca. 1767) Georgian house, at 199 Broadway (south side) in Lawrence, immediately east of the Lawrence Middle School (the former High School) and about a half mile west of the Queens border (Far Rockaway), that has been fully restored and furnished. I used {1947-51) to sit at the western edge of the stock pond alongside the barn (all of which are now gone), with a friend during high school lunch hours, singing {sic} folk songs. All that's left is the house itself, shown here looking south on 04 Nov 00; a southerly extension of Lawrence Middle School is to the west (right) and expensive ticky-tacky to the east (left), taking up the farmlands that formerly surrounded the house:
Rock Hall was built by (very) wealthy Antiguan plantation (and slave) owner Josiah Martin, who had been frightened off that island by slave insurrections. He was an Engish gentleman and an ardent Royalist and so suffered here, as well, as did his son, Dr. Samuel Martin (RCPS, Edinburgh), who inherited the house and its 600 acre farm after his father's death at 79 in 1778. The house languished and most of its furnishings were sold off; finally Thomas G. Hewlett, a friend of the Martins, bought the house and 125 acres in 1824 to prevent its further decay and his family and descendants, who added a service wing ca. 1881, lived there until 1948. Rather than let the house go commercially, the Hewletts gave the house and the small remaining parcel of land to the Town of Hempstead as a museum and the Town has maintained it as such ever since and has recently refurbished it with the assistance of SPLIA (the 
times since the counter was installed.
(05 Jan 06)
(10 Jan 06)
(26 Aug 2007 pictures by and © 2007 S. Berliner, III - All Rights Reserved)
