Martha's Vineyard which was once a deaf community has now became a
resort spot for people to "get away" from their daily lives and enjoy the ocean,
houses and beautiful surroundings. The year round population is about fifteen-
thousand. During the summer months the population swells to almost one-
hundred thousand and about twenty-five thousand each every day. In 1835 a
man named John Wesley, a preacher, held camp meetings outside.
This camp meeting was only one of one-hundred different revivals that
were in an outdoor setting at the time. These meetings were held because the
population of people who were mostly puritans were losing faith in God and the
meaning of faith itself. The camp meetings became yearly events that caused
the population of Martha's Vineyard to rapidly increase. So it is thought today
that the new industry on Martha's Vineyard was "God sent".
The revivals became less spiritual and more recreational. The beautiful
Victorian style houses that now cover the grounds of Martha's Vineyard were
once tents that housed people for the revivals. This city where all of the revivals
took place was Cottage City, and is now known as Oak Bluffs. It is now a historic
site for visitors to come and visit.
But that is only part of what Martha's Vineyard was once like.
Martha's Vineyard was once known as a deaf utopia. The gene of deafness
traces back to the early settlers who carried the gene over to the island.
Jonathan Lambert was the first known deaf person and that was in the year of
1694. There was a census that was taken in the nineteenth century that
measured the extent of deafness. There were two families in 1817 with deaf
children, that was a total of seven deaf. A few years later in 1827 there was a total
of eleven deaf. By the year of 1880 the town of Chilmark had nineteen deaf in...