Bøger i Martha's Vineyard Museum serien

Nancy Luce, a poor woman in ill health who lived alone and loved her chickens, spent her entire life (1814-1890) on Martha's Vineyard. She also wrote her own unique brand of poetry, which she self-published and sold to the summer trade. Walter Magnes Teller published this appreciation of Luce's life and poetry in 1984, with the help of the Dukes County Historical Society (today the Martha's Vineyard Museum). Said the New York Times, of the work in 1986, "Reading the book makes one wonder how many Nancy Luces and their male counterparts have existed - sensitive people doomed by invalidism and lack of both financial and emotional support, but determined to leave behind some record, some expression, no matter how meager."

This 2017 second edition of African Americans on Martha's Vineyard includes four articles. Three of the articles appeared in the first edition of the book, published in 1997. Reprinted from the Dukes County Intelligencer, they are: Adelaide Cromwell on "The History of Oak Bluffs As a Popular Resort for Blacks" (1984); Jacqueline Holland on "The African-American Presence on Martha's Vineyard" (1991); and Richard Miller on "Two Vineyard 'Men of Color' Who Fought in the Civil War" (1994). A fourth article appears in this new edition: R. Andrew Pierce on "Sharper Michael, Born a Slave, First Islander Killed in the Revolution" (2005).