This Was Then: Boundaries

The drowned bound, and other Oak Bluffs obelisks.

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Before 1870, Martha’s Vineyard was divided into just three towns: Tisbury (named after a village in Wiltshire), Chilmark (an adjacent village in Wiltshire), and Edgartown (named after the Duke of York’s deceased toddler). 

But the borders between them were, early on, a little vague. So the selectmen of Edgartown and Tisbury got together in 1809 to agree upon the lines, and while they warned that “the Parties have not before them the Latest surveys,” they went ahead and formally defined their borders on such things as “a heap of stones Lying twenty-one Rods to the westward of the House that lately Belonged to Christopher Luce de[cease]d” and “a heep of stones … four feet from the Eastward of a Remarkable Ant heap.(See 7.) Subsequent town leaders refined these legally binding boundaries in 1830 and again in 1862, removing references to ant heaps, but not to stones.

Between 1870 and 1892, the Island spawned three new towns, with four new boundaries to sort out. The town of Cottage City (probably named by Fitchburg’s Mayor Blood) took over many of the old Tisbury-Edgartown bounds. It stretched from Tashmoo Springs (1, near modern Tashmoo Overlook) south to what’s now called the “Four Town Bound,” 2, in the State Forest, located 300 feet east of Farm Path, a now-forgotten but once important road between Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury. From there, a new line was established due east through the scrubby interior to an ancient landmark known as “Miobers Bridge,” 3, near modern Major’s Cove.

Miober was a 17th century Wampanoag man, who, according to a 1682 deed, ”useth to live at the wading place, at Sanchakantacket.” A surprising number of 17th century records refer to “Miober’s Bridge” or “Myober’s Bridge” — a causeway or structure that must have crossed the brook or marsh near the springs feeding Major’s Cove. Miobers Bridge is said to have originally marked a boundary between two Wampanoag sachemships before the English arrived, and it remained a key legal landmark for centuries to come.

Elizabeth Lord wrote in her 1925 biography of savvy Edgartown politician Major Peter Norton (1718–91) — the “Major” of Major’s Cove — “There was quite a controversy about the town line at one time, and it became necessary to locate exactly ‘Miober’s Bridge’; commissioners were sent from Boston to visit the place and determine if possible the position of that noted bound. Mr. Norton gave his opinion in regard to the ancient landmark and then invited the committee to dinner. After having partaken of a bountiful repast consisting of roast turkey and all the fixings, the commissioners voted unanimously that Miober’s Bridge was exactly where Squire Norton said it was.” Nothing remains of Miobers Bridge today except some curious topography and a country path across the marsh, maintained by neighbors and frequented by geese.

From Miober’s Bridge, the Oak Bluffs–Edgartown border continues through Major’s Cove and into Sengekontacket. If you ask an old Edgartownian, the body of water abutting State Beach is not called “Sengekontacket,” but rather “Anthiers Pond” — a corruption of “Aunt Thiah’s Pond” or “Aunt Bethiah’s Pond,” the name of an early settler (reportedly Bethiah Mayhew) who lived upon its shores.

Next, the town line swings through Sarson’s Island, 4. Managed today by Felix Neck, this shapeshifting isle was named after 17th century owner Richard Sarson, who sat on the bench of Governor Mayhew as his assistant and recorder. Sarson was also licensed to retail liquor. Historian Charles Banks notes, “This is a curious instance of the homely life of the Vineyard at that time, when a justice of the King’s bench could be seen pouring out a gill of rum for a thirsty yeoman who perchance had sat in his court a few hours before as plaintiff or defendant.”

The state’s 1907 boundary atlas recorded that “a rough granite monument,” 2.1 feet tall, then stood on the southwesterly end of Sarson’s Island near its high-water line, cut with an “E” on one side and a “CC” on the other. But the island shifts, and the stone is believed to be underwater today.

From Sarson’s, the line cuts through “Farm Gut” — the popular opening spanned by what was originally known as “Three-Mile Bridge,” later as “Anthier’s Bridge,” and today as “Big Bridge,” “Second Bridge,” “Jaws Bridge,” and other names, your choice of which is certain to spark arguments on social media between Island factions.

Returning now, 3½ miles away to its northwestern end, the original boundary line between Edgartown and Tisbury actually began on “Long Beach,” 5 — that stretch of barrier beach between Eastville and Vineyard Haven now topped by Beach Road. But the navigable opening which is today spanned by the Vineyard Haven–Oak Bluffs drawbridge didn’t exist until the Great Gale of 1815 blasted a hole through the previously continuous beach. The storm created a convenient dividing point — then known as “the Canal” — when town leaders sat down to refine the town borders in 1830. 

From there, the border cuts through the center of the Lagoon, stopping at another ancient landmark known as “the Stepping Stones,” 6, at the head of the Lagoon. Details about the actual stepping stones are lacking, but C.G. Hine wrote in 1908, “The famous ‘Stepping Stones’ are here, though under water, a bound mark before and since the English portioned the land among them.” Originally believed to be the site of a Wampanoag settlement known as “Weahtaqua” (“place of the boundary spring”), the springs of the Lagoon are said to have marked one end of a well-used footpath leading to Tashmoo Springs, forming another important pre-Contact boundary line. (The familiar Lagoon causeway nearby came much later — it was built in 1857 by the Lagoon Pond Co. for a perch and herring fishery.)

In 1782, this ancient line between Tashmoo Springs and the springs of the Lagoon was used to demarcate another kind of bound — a line north of which residents declared their refusal to pay taxes to the town of Tisbury (whose seat of power then rested in what we now call “West Tisbury”). It was a schism that would eventually divide Tisbury from West Tisbury.

A boundary stone was installed at the bottom of the ravine atop the Stepping Stones at the head of the Lagoon as early as 1861, evidently replaced by a new stone shortly after the establishment of the town of Cottage City: a cut granite marker six feet tall, 300 feet upstream from where the town pumping station lies today, marked “T” and “E-CC.”

In 1888, the springs at the Stepping Stones were purchased by the Beech Grove Mineral Spring Co., a local enterprise that bottled and sold spring water and carbonated soft drinks. In 1890, the company transformed into the Cottage City Water Co., building the waterworks we know today, and soon laying water mains all the way to downtown Oak Bluffs.

These companies also built two small concrete reservoirs about this time. The first, just upstream from the Stepping Stones boundary stone, is known as the “Beech Grove Reservoir,” probably built by the bottling company in 1888 or so. The second, known as the “Town Bound Reservoir,” was probably built shortly afterward, encompassing the town bound together with its stone marker. The six-foot-tall boundary stone is today immersed in six feet of water in the middle of the old reservoir.

The Beech Grove company welcomed the public to visit its grounds. “We invite any one wishing a pleasant drive to use our grand old grove of Beech trees for a picnic ground,” they advertised in 1889, together with their sarsaparilla and cream soda. Former Vineyard Conservation Society executive director Brendan O’Neill surmises, “Those concrete-lined pond features resemble the Victorian wading pools at the Boston Public Gardens — one guess is that it was in part intended as a public strolling park.” The Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank owns much of the surrounding area today. While the “grand old grove” and double reservoirs are now under the stewardship of the Oak Bluffs Water District, they are overlooked by the adjacent Weahtaqua Springs Preserve, where the public is invited to ramble, and picnicking is definitely allowed. No ant heaps are evident, remarkable or otherwise.

Chris Baer teaches photography and graphics at Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School. His book, “Martha’s Vineyard Tales,” containing many “This Was Then” columns, was published in 2018.