Join MVM research librarian Bow Van Riper at 5 pm at the Chilmark library on Oct. 3 for a survey of the Vineyard’s most photographed, yet least understood waterfront. The event is sponsored by the Chilmark library and the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.
Chilmarkers have always gone to seas: first from the beaches of Lobsterville, Squibnocket, and Nomans Land, and later (after the 1902 dredging of a channel and basin) from the fishing port of Menemsha. Its modest size (and, as the ’38 hurricane showed, precarious location) cloak a rich history that reflects Chilmark’s endless ingenuity in making a living from the sea.
Bow Van Riper, who describes himself as a “third-generation wash-ashore,” became a summer resident of the Vineyard before he could walk. He moved to the Island full time in 2011, after 20-plus years as a history professor, and is now research librarian at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum and editor of the MVM Quarterly. He lives on the Vineyard Haven waterfront, in a house built sometime between the retreat of the glaciers and the Civil War. The Martha’s Vineyard Museum inspires all people to discover, explore, and strengthen their connections to this Island and its diverse heritage, and has extensive holdings of three-dimensional objects, archival documents, historic books and photographs, paintings, and museum exhibits.