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Naushon Island Naushon Island has been a Forbes family retreat for some time, where the opium trader John Murray Forbes and his family summered for more than a century. Sen. John Forbes Kerry and his first cousin Brice Lalonde summered there, and at another Forbes family estate in France, at Saint-Brieuc when he was growing up. The family owns the island through the J.M. Forbes Naushon Island Trust. Naushon island is several miles long, just off (SW of) Cape Cod in the Elizabeth Islands, and NW of Martha's Vineyard. The island is owned by the family and they pay little...

The most popular and very believable account is that the island was named by the British explorer Bartholomew Gosnold, after his infant daughter -- Martha... He would take short sails to "the big island" (Martha's Vineyard) for the purpose of gathering sassafras root, to be hauled back to England for medicinal use. Gosnold was only on Cuttyhunk about six weeks because of a small skirmish with the Wampanoags... the British wisely withdrew from the Islands before winter. Before leaving, however, it's believed that Gosnold named the big island after his infant daughter, Martha... Another, not as popular version of the...