Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry features more photos from the two federally recognized Wampanoag Tribes. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Here is a look at some of the history of the Wampanoag Tribes of Mashpee and Gay Head (Aquinnah) with some AI enhanced photo features gathered from newspaper clips and archives.

The Wampanoag, the “People of the First Light,” are comprised of two federally recognized tribes: the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe located in Mashpee, Massachusetts; and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) located on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Their people have inhabited this land for 12,000 years.

My first subject is Lyman Brown Madison (1886-1954), born to Charles Brown Madison and Louisa (Jeffers) Madison in Gay Head (now called Aquinnah) on Martha’s Vineyard.

Lyman attended the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania and, according to his records, his motto for a successful and happy life was “Invincible Spirit and Fidelity in all things.”

He is listed as living with his grandmother Eliza Jeffers, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, when not attending school from 1909-1912. Note: Eliza and other families are listed in the 1860 Indian Census of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Mass.

Later, in 1930, Lyman was living with his aunt Cora Francis (Jeffers) Morton, widow of whaling seaman William H. Morton, son of Freeland Morton and Patience (Wing) Morton.

In 1934 Lyman was serving as the Gay Head town clerk. Here is a news clip from the Waterbury Democrat dated 6 March 1934.

This article reports:

Town Clerk Lyman B. Madison, who presided at the meeting, rapped for order with a stone, only gravel ever used in Gay Head. Most of the tribesmen wore their fishermen’s clothing, but Chief Nohono, known to the whites as Harrison L. Vanderhoop, wore a wampum headband holding the single eagle feather of the Wampanoags.

Chief Nohono (1877-1967), aka Harrison L. Vanderhoop, was a fisherman and entrepreneur, and also served as postmaster. He was selected to represent the community at the Bourne Bridge dedication in 1933 and to serve as the first chief of the Howwaswee Council. Beverly Wright, his granddaughter, states:

“He fished for a living. I remember mostly scalloping where they shucked the scallops in a little shack behind my grandparents’ house. When both my grandparents got older, they had a stand at the cliffs where they sold our clay pottery, beaded items and my grandmother’s famous yarn dolls.”

An important source for information about Lyman’s lineage, as well as many of the early tribal families, is “New Bedford Communities of Whaling: People of Wampanoag, African, and Portuguese Island Descent, 1825–1925,” published by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Northeast Region Ethnography Program.

In this report is Lyman’s father, grandfathers, and other relatives on both his paternal and maternal sides. Many of the Madison and allied families were successful whalers.

Here is a newsclip from the Evening Standard listing Lyman’s father, Charles B. Madison, as 2nd mate on the bark Mary Frazier, commanded by Captain Henry G. Dexter, sailing out of Edgartown on 25 October 1876.

And here is a photo of another ancestor in Lyman’s tree: Love Madison (1804-1889), daughter of Samuel Madison and Charlotte (Peters) Madison. She married Lawrence Prince in Edgartown in 1823. The couple left descendants and they are listed along with their children in this deed record. Love died on 31 July 1899 in Edgartown.

And one other important figure in this line is Medicine Man Napoleon Bonapart Madison (1885-1973).

Napoleon was a whaleman, fisherman, entrepreneur, and chief medicine man of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), born to Raymond Frances Madison and Rosetta Ellis (Diamond) Madison. He married, on 17 December 1917, Nanetta Cassaundra Wilhelmina Vanderhoop (1884-1973), daughter of Edward De Vries Vanderhoop and Mary A. C. (Cleggett) Vanderhoop.

I came across these photos from a 1947 Gay Head’s Community Cranberry Harvest. Many of the families from today’s story are featured, along with others from the tribal community.

In these photos we see (top, from left to right): Linus Jeffers; Napoleon B. Madison; little Elmer Vanderhoop; (bottom, left to right): Harrison Vanderhoop; Laura (Vanderhoop) Guanco and her daughter, Beverly (Guanco) Wright; Mrs. Nellie Belain; Leslie Francis; and Mrs. Minnie (Manning) Melanson.

Here is my last photo for today, courtesy of Earl H. Mills Sr.’s book, Talking with the Elders of Mashpee: Memories of Earl H. Mills Sr.

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Note on the header image: Ousamequin, or “Massasoit” (Wampanoag term for “Great Sachem”) and Governor John Carver smoking a ceremonial pipe at Plymouth Colony in 1621. Credit: Sutro Library; Wikimedia Commons.

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