Our eye is drawn immediately to the Vineyard Haven ferry docked at the end of Vineyard Haven's 1/ busy pier on Union Street, dark smoke blowing from its smokestack. A crowd is gathered near the ship. George H. Walker's scarce bird's eye view Vineyard Haven. Dukes County. Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The Popular Seaside Summer Resort. Looking East. captures the excitement of this daily Vineyard Haven scene with its sweeping eastward panoramic view of the busy harbor, the well settled town within Tisbury, and the rolling country side out to Cottage City and the horizon. The day is bright and calm, perhaps noon time as the sun casts shadows from the south. For a mainland audience, Vineyard Haven. Dukes County. Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts captures both the town's maritime pulse and its resort status. The scene may well be historic, as many but not all of the buildings shown were destroyed by a fire in 1883. 2/
The artist Joseph L. Jones, employed by Walker's firm included a key titled "References." to identify Tisbury landmarks: this list is labeled A.-V. and identifies notable residences, the East Chop Light, the Academy, factories, the Windmill, the U.S. Marine Hospital and Association Hall. The artist also drew fine details, such as a horse drawn wagon on Main Street, and occasional pedestrians, each drawing interpreted in shades of grey by the lithographer's stone. Martha's Vineyard's principal port is filled with triple masted ships under sale and smaller craft all the way east to the horizon. This bird's eye view was printed in two editions, each distinguished by the text on its References key, drawn as an open paper scroll attached to the print's sheet with a pin. The first edition only shows text on the front of the scroll, listing locations A. through J. and L. through V. Ours, the next edition, shows the scroll and its small roll has new text on the back of the roll itself: the new text is "K. Grove Hill House." and "2. Association Hall." This latter listing suggests a date of 1893 at the latest.3/
Vineyard Haven. Dukes County. Martha's Vineyard The Popular Seaside Summer Resort was drawn and printed as a fine, decorative lithograph for Massachusetts Cape Cod seaside tourists. Geo. H. Walker & Co. printed for this tourist audience as early as 1884 using a similar pictorial format for his other decorative Cape Cod Bird's Eye View of the Village of Hyannis. Barnstable County, Mass. 1884 published by A.F. Poole. The title block of this 1884 lithograph is highly stylized and of the period. Hyannis was Cape Cod's ferry terminal for steamships to Martha's Vineyard and perhaps by popular understanding was viewed as requiring a paired Martha's Vineyard bird's eye view. The title block of Vineyard Haven. Dukes County. The Popular Summer Resort is stylistically plain and bears a font suggesting an even later 19th c. printing.
Walker's other lithography of Martha's Vineyard is a large scale topographical survey map of Martha's Vineyard in the 1891 Atlas of Massachusetts4/. Together, the 1891 survey map and Walker's decorative Vineyard Haven The Popular Seaside Summer Resort present a finely detailed portrait of the port town within the Town of Tisbury, its seaside way of life frozen in amber. Today, this c.1893 rare bird's eye view of Vineyard Haven is a valuable record of its historic 19th c. way of life, town plan, landmarks and landscape that have irreparably been absorbed into the 21st century American tourism culture.
Notes:
1. Vineyard Haven is one of the largest safe inlets on Martha's Vineyard, part of the town of Tisbury and sizable enough today to be used as the primary name for this port village and community. Prior to 1871, the port and town were called Holmes Hole in American Colonial times and by Native people "Nobnocket".
2. Described in the authoritative Views and Viewmakers of Urban America, John W. Reps, University of Missouri Press, Columbia,1984 as No. 1655 in the Catalog section alphabetized under Tisbury, Massachusetts. Reps assigns the first publication date as [189?] and cites the print's References key listing A-J, L-V. He names only two institutional holdings in his 1984 book, AAS who dates the print as c.1880 and Leventhal Map Center, who dates its example, the Reps version, as "[1893?]".
3.The key in the lower left corner of our print includes "K. Grove Hill House " and "2. Association Hall.", new information on the pinned scroll design. The Reps Catalog No.1655 edition does not include this K. or 2. in its key. According to one history of Vineyard Haven, the Grove Hill House was opened as a hotel circa 1873 and operated for 20 years under that name - thus to 1893. It was one of the few Vineyard Haven buildings not destroyed by the fire of 1883. The artist Joseph L. Jones' depiction of Vineyard Haven in Vineyard Haven. Dukes County. Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The Popular Seaside Summer Resort. Looking East. may itself be historic, as two major fires in the 1870's and 1883 destroyed certain buildings shown in the Reps first edition scene and the next edition. Locating the copyright filing is further required research that to date has eluded this researcher.
4. Atlas Plate No. 11, Illustrated Edition Atlas of Massachusetts, Compiled Under the Direction of O.W.Walker, C.E. , Geo. H. Walker & Co., publisher 1894; and Atlas of Massachusetts, 1891, Geo. H. Walker & Co., Boston.