The efforts of the MV African American Heritage Trail organization and the Heritage Trail History Project has done much to chronicle the island’s  rich African American tradition.

Two different plaques commemorate locals participation in successful bids for freedom by fugitive slaves.

Flight from Slavery
Two sites on the trail marked with plaques honor brave locals who aided runaway slaves in their quest for freedom. The first plaque, located on tribal grounds in Aquinnah, commemorates a group of Wampanoags who hid a fugitive slave who had escaped from a boat in the harbor. The tribal members risked prosecution in defying the Fugitive Slave Act, and resisted the temptation of bounty money, to conceal the escapee in Gay Head and then took him to Menemsha to board a boat to New Bedford. The anonymous fisherman who stowed him aboard the boat are honored with a second plaque in Menemsha.

The Shearer Cottage in Oak Bluffs is a summer guesthouse that has hosted African Americans prominent in the arts, politics, medicine and many other fields over the years.

From Misery to Prosperity – a Former Slave’s Story
The Shearer Cottage in Oak Bluffs was the first historic site to be dedicated on the Heritage Trail. It was the home of Charles Shearer, a Virginian who was freed from enslavement by the Union Army. He was literally freed, when soldiers found him beaten and chained in a barn owned by the slaveholders who had abandoned him to escape from the oncoming army. He served in the Union Army providing food with the hunting and fishing skills he had learned from Native Americans, and then was sent to school to become a teacher. Shearer eventually moved to Massachusetts with his Native American wife. He worked for many years as head waiter at two of Boston’s premier hotels. In 1903, Shearer and his wife bought a cottage in Oak Bluffs from the Baptist Church and the family eventually turned the property into a guest house for African Americans. Shearer cottage is still a thriving and popular summer guest house for blacks, and  counts among its many distinguished guests - Harry T. Burleigh, singer and arranger of Negro spirituals; actor Paul Robeson; Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Sr. and Jr.; Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller, America’s first African American psychiatrist; Lionel Richie and the Commodores.

Captain Martin’s gravestone in Chappaquiddick was originally the only one facing away from the ocean. It was turned around in recent years.

From Slavery to Freedom – An American Success Story
The subject who initially inspired Heritage Trail co-founder Elaine Weintraub to commence her research into African American history on the island, is a man, who, though one generation removed from slavery became an important and respected figure in the Edgartown whaling community. William A. Martin was the only African American master of a whale ship from Martha’s Vineyard. Although he was raised in poverty, his skills as a seaman allowed him to rise to the highest level in the prosperous whaling industry, where he was regarded as a expert and trustworthy captain. Martin’s roots can be traced directly back to a slave ship from Africa, and the three generations of remarkable women who preceded him, are honored with plaques on the Heritage Trail. Two locations associated with Martin himself are also points on the trail, although neither the site of his former home nor his grave are yet marked with plaques. The house, which is in poor repair, was recently purchased by Dr. Tom Doyle who is anxious to preserve its unique history and plans to restore the property. It is in the process of being listed on the national historical register, and Dr. Doyle is working with the Heritage Trail History Project to make the house a vital part of the Trail open to visitors on certain days each year. 
 

In all there are 18 sites identified on the African American Heritage Trail, including the Oak Bluffs homes of prominent African Americans and the Pulpit Rock, where the man who introduced Methodism to the island first preached to his enthralled followers.

Tours of the Trail are offered during the summer months. There is also a non-profit corporation, the African American Heritage Trail History Project, which is dedicated to the research and dissemination of the history of the African American people of Martha's Vineyard.

For More Information
Log onto www.mvheritagetrail.org  for more information on the project and the Heritage Trail. The story of the creation of the Trail, and the public history work of the Heritage Trail History Project is described in a book by Elaine Cawley Weintraub Lighting the Trail - the African American Heritage of Martha's Vineyard available from all island book stores and from Amazon.com.

A very comprehensive book on African American life and history on the island, African Americans on Martha’s Vineyard by Robert C. Hayden, has recently been revised and updated.