A Superior Court judge ruled this week that a small parcel of land in Aquinnah is rightfully owned by Vineyard Conservation Society, not by a group of 19 descendants of its original owner.

The decision by the Hon. Janet L. Sanders followed a one-day non-jury trial in Dukes County in a case involving a tangled chain of ownership dating to 1870, when an act of the state legislature divided up common land in the town then known as Gay Head and assigned lots to its 227 residents.

In a 10-page ruling released Monday, Oct. 24, Judge Sanders concluded that ownership of the 5.7-acre landlocked parcel known as Lot 240 followed a clear chain of title, starting with the heirs of the original owner, Louisa E. Devine, through to VCS.

Accepting one of two possible chains of ownership suggested by VCS, she focused in particular on six deeds transferring the land between 1937 and 2021, beginning with one executed by Louisa’s daughter Eliza.

“This Court finds and concludes that the language in each of these deeds is unambiguous and that they each had the effect of passing on the grantor’s interest in Lot 240 to the grantee,” the judge wrote in her ruling.

The case, Vineyard Conservation Society vs. Jaime Lobo Baptiste & Others, began five years ago when VCS asked the court for a judgment declaring its legal ownership of the land.

The square-shaped lot is located just northwest of Moshup Trail and abuts Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal housing to the east, as well as Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank property to the south.