Beetlebung—we are a family-run business located solely on Martha’s Vineyard. Starting out, we created Beetlebung Coffee House in the year-round port, Vineyard Haven. We changed a rundown yet centrally-located sandwich shop into an upscale destination. We gave the Coffee House a warm, tavern-like atmosphere and locals and seasonal residents adopted us. In the summer, we serve a surging metropolis. Throughout winter, we’re hunkered down but wide awake, catering to a small, enduring community.
During the winters, we began designing original products, especially lines of apparel and related accessories. Customers passing through for a latte or panini began purchasing our shirts and mugs, which led us to expand. We opened several Beetlebung Dry Goods retail stores around the Island, and launched an online store, beetlebung.com, to connect to the mainland while remaining on Island.
Our brand—Beetlebung—is an old Martha’s Vineyard folk word. It comes from the Island’s past and still exists here only. It is historic, yet people tell us it sounds so funky and expressive—modern—that they think we made it up. We didn’t. We had thought it was rich with charm, and its history is uniquely native, so we adopted it as our own.
Pretty routinely, newcomers passing by our stores sound out our name aloud. “Beetlebung, Beetlebung, Beetlebung!” There is something about it that catches folks. So much so, they say it outloud—then in the distance we’ll hear, “What is a Beetlebung?!”
Beetlebung history is Martha’s Vineyard history. The first settlers came to the Island to farm sheep. They criss-crossed West Tisbury and Chilmark with dry stone walls to enclose fields and raise livestock. But early on, a new industry took hold of them.
Native Wampanoag tribesmen introduced Islanders to “whale fishing.” They taught them how to capture whales, which were plentiful, and boil down their carcasses to yield oil for lighting that burned brighter and longer than candles; and with sperm whale (“Moby Dick”) oil, there was no disagreeable odor.
As demand for oil boomed, Islanders turned to large wooden casks to store and export it, and from a local tree, they harvested hardwood to fabricate basic tools and components. One tool was a “beetle,” a common wooden mallet. This meaning of beetle dates back before Shakespeare (a “beetlehead” was someone who wasn’t very bright). A key component was the “bung,” a wooden stopper, or plug, resembling a cork. The tree from which they harvested the raw wood they dubbed a “Beetlebung.”
"Beetlebung Fantasy" by Peter Simon, October, 2006 Beetlebung Corner, Chilmark, Martha's Vineyard "Every year I keep my eyes peeled to this magical spot in Chilmark. When the bright colors appear, I gravitate towards the best angle for the perfect shot." - Peter Simon www.petersimon.com
Martha’s Vineyard ship captains, officers, and seamen, along with tag-along reprobates and whaling thrill seekers, backed by Island moguls who built a new fleet of whale ships, fueled a worldwide industrial revolution. Islanders beetled (beat) bungs into giant casks to seal and ship them faraway. Thousands of casks per hold. Martha’s Vineyard schooners, casks, beetles, and bungs formed a pipeline to the world. Great captains homes rose in Edgartown. Vineyard oil lit the streets of London.
Then it ended.
Rockefeller and “coal oil” (kerosene). The Civil War, modernity. Locally abundant, cheap, and insuperably potent, newly-discovered fossil fuels—coal and oil—killed whaling.
But the whales gained a reprieve and, almost on cue, Martha’s Vineyard started again. Church groups hosted summer retreats, and insisted on racial tolerance. Artists, intellectuals, and business titans followed. The Island started becoming the low-key cultural phenomenon that it is.