Editors, Vineyard Gazette;
The Land Bank announced in 2025 that it had purchased the Jeffers farmland at 3 Jeffers Lane on Chappaquiddick and would return the land to its historic use as farmland. It’s hard to tell if the Jeffers home is part of the purchase, but based on the map produced by the Land Bank, it appears it is part of the larger parcel of land purchased from the Jeffers estate. The Jeffers family home is a piece of irreplaceable history — owned by the last living Wampanoag tribal member on Chappaquiddick — Gerald (Jerry) Jeffers, known affectionally as the mayor of Chappaquiddick, who died at age 84 in 2017. The Land Bank is silent about what it would do with the Jeffers house. Our dad, David C. Seager III, used to sail his boat to the Back Pond, as we called it, to have dinner in the Jeffers restaurant. This house must be preserved so that the history of the Wampanoag on the island are not wiped from our memory.
Susan E. Seager
Sometimes on Chappaquiddick
This article appears in February 27, 2026.