Chilmark History

New Podcast Tells Love Story Under Fascism

Pack One Bag, the new podcast by seasonal Chilmark resident David Modigliani, documents his family's escape from fascist Italy and their arrival in wartime America.

Celebrating 325 Years of Chilmark History

Three-hundred and twenty five years ago the town of Chilmark established itself as the first to separate from the two original Martha’s Vineyard towns of Tisbury and Edgartown.

Revolutionary War-Era Chilmark House Faces Demolition

A historic house thought to have been a British headquarters during Grey’s Raid in 1778 may soon be torn down.

Listening to the Heartbeat of an Old Chilmark House

One of the more interesting houses up-Island is 231 State Road in Chilmark. It is an unusual house for Chilmark: a Queen Anne style Victorian, painted yellow, with a turret.

I don’t know of any other such houses in Chilmark, whose charm lies in its serene and lovely rolling hills, hidden houses and beaches. It is a very common type of house elsewhere in the United States, the reflection of the prosperity of the late 19th century. Prosperity that had passed Chilmark by and which it was not to achieve until well past the midpoint of the 20th century.

Staying True to What Remains at Lucy Vincent Beach

Last Sunday afternoon, under wintery skies, there was yet another pilgrimage to Lucy Vincent Beach. For many it was a solemn moment as they stood and looked without saying a word.

Pam Bunker, chairman of the Chilmark beach committee, was there taking stock of how nature had once again changed the landscape of the beach.

“The whole eastern seaboard, from Plum Island all the way down the coast, is eroding . . . . It is a melancholy feeling,” she said.

These Walls Can Talk, Chilmark Home Reveals Ancient Drawings

Every once in a while, a trap door opens and another world of knowledge and experience disappears forever. Or almost. We’ve all seen it happen with the passing of a friend — particularly those friends who have been so curious about their surroundings that they unearthed wonders and made their patch of ground seem as exotic as any place on earth. The Vineyard just lost such a man, Preston Gray Harris, who many of us knew as P.G.

barn house stone wall south road

Register Weighs History of Barn Where Poets, Painters Played

The historic 17th century Barn House in Chilmark, famously home to an avant-garde communal colony of Vineyard artists, writers and intellectuals, is being considered by the Massachusetts Historical Commission for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.

Call It Quaint If You Must, But Menemsha Remains a Fishing Village

Menemsha fishermen rise with the sun. On a cool, clear morning this week, the lobstermen came down one by one to take their boats to sea.
 
Pat Jenkinson came down to his lobster boat Solitude. Herbert Hancock’s boat Billie H. began with a roar of its diesel engine.
 

Expert Traces Vineyard Story of Deaf and Their Community

Chilmark fishermen Christopher Murphy approached medical anthropologist Nora Groce after her delivery of the last Nathan Mayhew Seminars lecture of the summer Thursday night, and recalled a remnant of sign language use by old-timers he used to work for.
 
The news came as pleasant confirmation to Miss Groce, who has spent the better part of the last six years tracing the origins of a community of deaf people who lived pretty much like - and in harmony with - the hearing populace of the Vineyard from its earliest settlement through the 19th century.

New Coast Guard Station Arrives

The Island’s new Coast Guard station, en route from Cuttyhunk, came through Quick’s Hole, from Buzzards Bay at 1 o’clock yesterday, and proceeded across the Sound without mishap.
 

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