Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her series on the Wampanoag Tribe, focusing on Napoleon Bonapart Madison, chief medicine man of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.

Napoleon Bonapart Madison (1885-1973) was a whaleman, fisherman, entrepreneur, and chief medicine man of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

He was born on 2 February 1885 in Aquinnah, Dukes, Massachusetts, to Raymond Frances and Rosetta Ellis (Diamond) Madison. He married on 17 December 1917 Nanetta Cassaundra Wilhelmina Vanderhoop (1884-1973), daughter of Edward De Vries and Mary A. C. (Cleggett) Vanderhoop.

Napoleon attended the Carlisle Indian School, and his file can be viewed here.

I found some newsclips searching Historical Newspaper Archives from the 1950s, when the white man’s magic (electricity) came to Gay Head. Napoleon was center stage in these stories. He dressed in full regalia despite his assimilation into the modern era, reminding all he was a descendant of the Wampanoag people – who are part of an unbroken cultural tradition reaching thousands of years into the past.

This photo caption reads:

Indian village joins the miracle age: Chief Medicine Man Napoleon Madison is dressed for the occasion.

This article reads:

GAY HEAD, Feb. 15 (AP) – The 88 residents of this little Indian village on Martha’s Vineyard moved yesterday from the era of kerosene lamp to the miracle age of electricity.

The village was the last community in Massachusetts to get electricity and the residents celebrated by having a party at Town Hall.

Those who didn’t stay long at the party went back to television sets purchased months ago in anticipation of “electricity day.”

The power line runs from Chilmark on 13 miles of wire strung on 121 poles brought from the mainland.

The Women’s Aquinnah Club – named after the Indian term of the village – led the campaign for electrification. After more than 40 potential customers were promised by the women, the Cape and Vineyard Electric Co. started work last Fall.

This tiny village is reputedly the first spot in New England to be visited by Norsemen, in the year 1006.

Just a few years later Napoleon appears in his regalia again to celebrate the coming of the telephone. Alongside him is Donald Malonson, chief of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head. Malonson was kin to Napoleon through the Vanderhoop line. Malonson also has a Mayflower line which I will cover in a future article. Below is a photo of the two with the telephone company.

In this photo we see: Theola Hammett (sitting second from the left), with other representatives of the telephone company, demonstrating the dial system to Gay Head selectman Edmund Cooper (sitting far right), 1955. Wearing headdresses are Wampanoag leaders Donald Malonson (far left) and Napoleon Madison (far right) of Gay Head.

Here is a newsclip covering the first dial system on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

This article reports:

GAY HEAD (AP) – Donald Melanson and Napoleon Madison Wednesday dressed up in clothes like those of their ancestors who once communicated by smoke signal.

…And Edmund Cooper, another descendant of the Wampanoag Indians who once were the only inhabitants of this picturesque island, is scheduled to make the first call over the new automatic system today.

This article also covers some early history of Martha’s Vineyard, including explorer Captain Bartholomew Gosnold (1571-1607), who landed on the site in 1602 and named the island Martha’s Vineyard in honor of his oldest child, Martha. I have linked Gosnold’s stories at the end of this article.

One of Gosnold’s crew members, Gabriel Archer, had this to say about the Wampanoags, as cited in Milton A. Travers’ book, The Wampanoag Indian Tribute Tribes of Martha’s Vineyard: The Story of the Capowacks of Nope, the Takemmy-Wampanoags, the Nunpaug-Wampanoags, the Aquinnah-Wampanoags of Catachukutcho (Gay Head tribe), [and] the Chappaquiddick-Wampanoags:

“These people, as they are exceptionally courteous, gentle of disposition and well-conditioned, excel all other people of America, of stature much higher than we; a complexion of color much like dark olive. Their eyebrows and hair black, which they wear long tied behind in a knot whereupon they prick feathers of fowl, in fashion of a crownette, some of them are black thin bearded. They make beards of hair of beasts; and one of them offered a beard of their making for that of one of our sailors, for his that grew on his face, which because it was red color they judged it to be none of their own. They were quick-eyed and steadfast in their looks, fearless of other harms, as intending none themselves.”

Photos from the Archives

Napoleon is in a group photo with other Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head members, including some family relations. The photo appeared in Milton A. Travers’ book, sourced from the Vineyard Gazette.

In this photo we see: (back row, left to right) Rachel Jeffers (Mrs. Lorenzo D.); Alberta Jeffers; Mrs. Amos Smalley; Napoleon B. Madison; Lorenzo Jeffers; Leonard Vanderhoop; Helen Vanderhoop; (seated, left to right) Ronnie Francis; William Kestenbaum; Maysel Vanderhoop (later Mrs. Curtis).

Below is another photo courtesy of Milton A. Travers, of Napoleon Madison’s wife Nanetta Cassaundra Wilhelmina (Vanderhoop) Madison, at the Gay Head Museum admiring two pewter communion cups used by many generations of Gay Headers. The exhibit pieces were placed on loan via Travers.

Stay tuned for more on the Madison-Vanderhoop family.

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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.

Related Articles:

• Gosnold’s 1602 Adventure in the New World
• Gosnold’s 1602 Adventure in the New World (part 2)
• Gosnold’s Adventure in the New World (Part 3)
• Bartholomew Gosnold: New World Adventurer
• Gosnold and Bacon. The ancestry of Bartholomew Gosnold. A collection
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 9)
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 10)
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 11)
• Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who, Part 35 (part 12)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 1)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 2)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 3)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 4)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 5)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 6)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 7)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 8)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 9)
• Mayflower Descendants & the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 10)
• Mayflower Descendants & Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe (part 11)
• Richard Bourne: Missionary to Plymouth Colony Indians
• Thomas Tupper: Missionary to Plymouth Colony Indians
• Remembering Mashpee Wampanoag Chief Red Jacket
• Remembering Chief Yellow Feather