Vineyard Museum

"Fun with the Family"

The Vineyard Museum is a campus of five buildings: the Cooke House, the Carriage Shed, the Pease House, the Foster Maritime Gallery, and the Fresnel Lens Tower. Everything on display relates to the history of Martha’s Vineyard.
The Cooke House is a colonial home built in 1765 with eleven rooms of exhibits relating to the life and history of Martha’s Vineyard and its residents. In the attached Tool Shed, various tools and equipment are on display.
The Carriage Shed displays seagoing vessels and land vehicles, including a boat used during whaling days, pieces of shipwreck found off the coast, a hearse, a nineteenth-century fire engine, and a wagon.
The Pease House is a nineteenth-century home with five gallery spaces: a permanent exhibit, a Native American exhibit, and an ever-changing exhibit done by local students. Two exhibits currently on display are oral histories of island residents and artwork from whaler’s logbooks. A museum shop is located in this building.
The Foster Maritime Gallery is a research library that has maritime exhibits. The Fresnel Lens Tower, with the original Fresnel lens from the Gay Head Lighthouse, is the last structure on the campus. The lens, a series of more than 1,000 prisms, was replaced by an electric light. The lens is lighted up for a few hours every evening.