Массачусетс алғашқы қоныс салушысы және Мартас Виньярд аймағының негізін қалаушысы Томас Мейхью

the early Puritan settler in Massachusetts
Governor Thomas Mayhew, the Elder (April 1, 1593 – March 25, 1682) established the first European settlement on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and adjacent islands in 1642. He is one of the editors of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book published in the Thirteen Colonies. His assistant Peter Foulger was the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin.

In 1641, while engaged in business ventures in the vicinity of Boston, Mayhew succeeded in acquiring the rights to the islands that now constitute Dukes County and Nantucket County: Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands. He bought the County for 40 pounds and two beaver skin hats from William Alexander, the 2nd Earl of Stirling. To resolve a conflicting ownership claim, he also paid off Sir Ferdinando Gorges, thereby acquiring a clear title. Mayhew established himself as governor of Martha's Vineyard in 1642 and sent his son, Thomas the Younger, with about forty families to settle there. He himself followed four years later. Together he and the younger Thomas established Martha's Vineyard's first settlement and called it Great Harbor, now Edgartown.

Mayhew and his fellow settlers found a large and economically stable native population of about 3,000 living in permanent villages, led by four sachems (chiefs). Relations between the first settlers and their Wampanoag neighbors were peaceful and courteous. Under the leadership of his son, a minister, they instituted a policy of respect and fair dealing with the Wampanoag natives that was unequaled anywhere. One of the first of Mayhew's orders was that no land was to be taken from the native islanders, the Wampanoags, without their consent or without fair payment. From this time forward, the colonial settlers and Wampanoag lived without the bloodshed that marked the history of European colonies elsewhere in the New World. From the beginning, Mayhew had worked to preserve the original political institutions of the native population. Religion and government were distinct matters, he told the chiefs. When one of your subjects becomes a Christian, he is still under your jurisdiction. Wampanoag land was guarded against further encroachment by white settlers. So successful were these policies that during the bloody battles of King Philip's War, in 1675 1676, the Vineyard's native population never stirred, although they outnumbered the settlers on the island by twenty to one.

By 1660 there were about 85 white people living peaceably among the natives, earning their living by farming and fishing. The Mayhew family, which from that time forth became an integral part of island history, wanted to share its religion with the natives, but the Wampanoags were not too interested, having their own spiritual faith. However, once it was clear that, though Mayhew was the governor, the sachems remained in charge of their people, some became curious about the white man's God. When a native named Hiacoomes expressed an interest, Mayhew invited him into his home and instructed him in English and Christianity. There is a stained glass window in the baptismal font in the National Cathedral in Washington D. C. depicting Rev. Thomas Mayhew Jr. baptizing a native. Change was in the air though, for the world outside this small island was unsettled. There were more visitors from off island and some stayed, challenging the Mayhew government, while Baptists and Methodists arrived to make converts from the established Congregational Church.

Through a maze of conflicting land grants, changing political allegiances, and settler unrest, Mayhew, who styled himself "Governour Mayhew", began to rule his island with an iron hand. The most serious threat to his control came in 1665 when Martha's Vineyard was included in the lands placed under the king's brother, the Duke of York. After much delay, a settlement, worked out in 1671, confirmed the Mayhew patent and named Mayhew "Governour and Chiefe Magistrate" for life. At the same time, a patent was issued erecting the Manor of Tisbury in the southwestern part of the island. The Governor and his grandson Matthew were made "joint Lords of the Manor of Tisbury", and the inhabitants became manorial tenants subject to the feudal jurisdiction of the Mayhews. This full fledged feudal manor appears to have been the only such institution actually established in New England. The attempt of the Mayhews to create a hereditary aristocracy on the Vineyard met with increasing opposition as more and more colonists arrived. When the Dutch temporarily recaptured New York in 1673, open rebellion broke out and this lasted until the colonial government regained control over New York and restored the authority of the Mayhews on the island. The old patriarch died in 1682, at the age of eight nine. Nine years later the political rule of his family ended when Martha's Vineyard was annexed by Massachusetts after the Glorious Revolution in England, but the manorial land tenure remained. Although some of the Mayhews clung to the "pleasant fiction" of their manorial rights almost until the American Revolution and received token quit rents as late as 1732, feudalism on Martha's Vineyard died the same slow, lingering but certain death it did elsewhere in the colonies.