The sign language originated in Weald, England, where many of the original inhabitants came from: researchers later discovered that some of the early settlers carried a gene which causes deafness. It was combined with French sign language and later with American Sign Language (ASL), though it maintained a number of features that kept it distinct. From the late 1700s to the early twentieth century, virtually everyone on Martha's Vineyard possessed some degree of fluency in the local sign language.
The language was eventually replaced by ASL, and the recurrent deafness finally eliminated as people migrated from the island and new populations moved in.