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Our Aquinnah, MA real estate website provides a wealth of information for home buyers and home sellers. Below, you will find information on the history and culture of the community as well as links to more detailed information such as demographics and schools. You may view a virtual tour, search homes for sale, access information on different types of properties such as condos, farms, foreclosures, and vacation homes. We also offer valuable reference materials for home buyers and home sellers. This website will give you everything you need to buy or sell a home in Aquinnah, MA.
Aquinnah MA Community Profile & History
Aquinnah, Massachusetts formerly known as Gay Head, is a scenic town on the southwestern tip of beautiful Martha's Vineyard, the world-renowned island and vacation spot off of the Atlantic coast of Massachusetts.
Many year-round residents of Aquinnah are descendants of the Wampanoag Indians, who showed the colonial settlers how to kill whales, plant corn and find clay for the early brickyards. Much later, the Aquinnah Indians were in great demand as boat navigators in the whaling fleets. It was the boat navigator who cast the iron into the whale. The Aquinnah were considered the most skillful and courageous boat navigators of that era.
Courageous early residents frequently took to the seas in deadly weather to aid survivors of famous wrecks that took place off the Aquinnah Cliffs. As further testament to their valor, a plaque on the schoolhouse commemorates the fact that Aquinnah sent more men, in proportion to its size, to fight in World War I than did any other town in New England.
The brilliant colors of the mile-long expanse of the Aquinnah Cliffs astonished early explorers and have continued to be a source of intense interest to scientists and visitors alike. Here, layers of sands, gravel, and clay tell a hundred-million-year-old story of a land first covered with forests, then flooded and laid bare, then covered with new growth, time and again. The seas, glaciers, and land itself have contorted these once-level layers into waving bands of color that stream above the sea.
Erosion continues over the centuries, turning the seas red and revealing fossil secrets. From the fossils revealed by nature’s handiwork, we know of the great sharks that swam over what is now Chilmark, of the clams and crabs—so like those of today—that inhabited ancient seas. Pieces of lignite from the Cretaceous period dot the beach, looking like nothing so much as the remnants of recent campfires. Fossil bones of camels and wild horses, as well as those of ancient whales, have been found in the Cliffs.
The Aquinnah Cliffs are a national landmark, yet they are seriously threatened by carelessness. To protect the Cliffs, climbing and the removal of clay are both prohibited by law.
Because of the extremely dangerous rocky ledge offshore, the seas around Aquinnah have always been a place of great peril to the mariner. One of the first revolving lighthouses in the country was erected atop the Cliffs in 1799. It had wooden works that became swollen in damp or cold weather, when the lighthouse keeper and his wife would be obliged to stand all night and turn the light by hand. The current red-brick electronic Gay Head Light now stands in its place.
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