Martha's Vineyard of Rhode Island and Massachusetts takes about four and a half hours (270 minutes). In the era before modern highways and jet planes, travelers took New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad trains from New York City or Boston to Woods Hole or Hyannis, at which point they would embark on ferries to the island. Commuter airline Cape Air offers frequent service to the island via the Martha's Vineyard Airport (MVY). It provides year-round service to and from Boston, Hyannis, New Bedford, Providence, and Nantucket, and seasonal service to White Plains, New York. Additional air service is provided to New
Martha's Vineyard on the island, and it was also the setting for Robert Harris' 2007 novel "The Ghost". Martha's Vineyard was known as an "everyone signed" community for several hundred years, and many Deaf people view Martha's Vineyard as a utopia. A high rate of hereditary deafness was documented on Martha's Vineyard for almost two centuries. The island's deaf heritage cannot be traced to one common ancestor and is thought to have originated in the Weald, a region that overlaps the borders of the English counties of Kent and Sussex, prior to immigration. Researcher Nora Groce estimates that by the late 19th