Here we go again

January 7, 2026

Right after New Year’s I got word that my next book, Historic Storms of Martha’s Vineyard, will be published in April. It proved a challenge to compress four centuries of big bad storms into a single manuscript.

A story I knew nothing about was the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635. It blew across the Vineyard, but we have no written documentation of the event from the Island. However, two prominent colonial leaders witnessed the storm, William Bradford from Plymouth Colony and John Winthrop from the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Boston). From their reports we can imagine the ferocity endured by the Wampanoag people living on the Vineyard.

Intriguing personal experiences of locals during Hurricane Bob were shared. Bob tore across the Island in 1991, followed by the No Name Storm which created a lot of havoc around Halloween. Lots of vivid memories emerged from that dramatic duo.

Liz Durkee wrote the epilogue, detailing how to prepare for the next big storm.

Below is a copy of the cover of the new book. Once again I’m looking forward to offering talks across the Island, as well as promoting the book on my website, tomdresser.com. I’ll have more details as we approach publication

Thanks in advance for your interest and support,

Tom Dresser

PS: We gather at Five Corners tomorrow (Thursday) at 12:30 to protest the attack on Venezuela.