Edgartown, Massachusetts has barely changed since the whalers left and it shows

Edgartown’s streets still smell like history

Edgartown sits on the eastern shore of Martha’s Vineyard, seven miles off Cape Cod, and the place has been turning heads since 1642. Greek Revival mansions line the harbor streets.

A lighthouse from 1828 still marks the harbor entrance. Beaches stretch for miles in either direction.

You can walk most of it in an afternoon, or spend a week and still find something new. The town is small, but what it holds inside those few compact blocks goes surprisingly deep.

Named for a prince who was already dead

The story starts in 1642, when Rev. Thomas Mayhew Jr. led a group of families to settle what they called Great Harbor.

The town was officially incorporated on July 8, 1671, and renamed Edgar Towne after the young son of the future King James II of England.

What the settlers didn’t know was that Edgar had died at age three just weeks before they chose the name. The town kept it anyway.

By the 1800s, Edgartown had become a major whaling port, and between 1835 and 1845, about 110 whaling captains called it home. The money those voyages brought back built the town you walk through today.

The captain’s houses still stand on North Water Street

Walk down North Water Street and you’re looking at one of the finest collections of whaling-era homes in New England.

The captains built in Greek Revival and Federal styles, the architectural language of early 19th-century prosperity, and the results hold up. Some have rooftop platforms called widow’s walks.

The name sounds romantic, but they were built to give residents roof access during chimney fires. These houses have been maintained and restored over the decades and now serve as private homes, inns, and museums.

Six columns and a Gothic clock tower on Main Street

The Old Whaling Church at 89 Main Street went up in 1843, right at the height of the town’s whaling wealth.

Architect Frederick Baylies Jr. designed it, and local shipwrights, the same men who built the whaling vessels in the harbor, did the construction.

Six tall columns anchor the facade, and a Gothic clock tower rises above them. The Vineyard Preservation Trust took ownership in 1980 and turned it into a performing arts center.

Today it hosts concerts, lectures, weddings, and community events, and the acoustics draw praise from everyone who performs there.

The lighthouse keeper used to row out to work

The first lighthouse at Edgartown Harbor went up in 1828, built on offshore pilings at the harbor entrance.

The original keeper, Jeremiah Pease, had to row a boat out to it every day until a wooden walkway went in two years later.

That walkway picked up a local name, the Bridge of Sighs, because loved ones would stand there watching whaling ships disappear on voyages that could last years.

The Great Hurricane of 1938 wrecked the original structure, and in 1939, a cast-iron tower from Ipswich, Massachusetts, arrived by barge to replace it.

The town took official ownership in 2014, and you can walk out to it along a sandy path near the harbor.

Three miles of Atlantic surf at South Beach

South Beach, also called Katama Beach, runs about three miles along Edgartown’s southern shore. The parking is free, the sand is soft and golden, and the Atlantic rolls in with enough force for body surfing.

On a summer afternoon, you’ll find people flying kites, sprawling in the sun, and watching the waves break. Lifeguards work the beach during the summer months.

Just to the west, Norton Point Beach connects the shoreline and allows over-sand vehicle access with a permit, so you can drive right onto the sand if you have the right setup.

Take the On Time ferry over to Chappaquiddick

Chappaquiddick Island, which locals just call Chappy, sits right across the harbor from Edgartown. The on-time ferry makes the crossing all day, carrying pedestrians, bikes, and a few cars at a time.

The ferry got its name in 1948, when a crew led by Captain Samuel B. Norton and boatbuilder Manuel Swartz Roberts finished a replacement vessel right on deadline.

Chappy is quiet and rural, with more than a thousand acres of conservation land open to the public.

Beaches, nature trails, and a couple of the most memorable natural spots on the island are all waiting on the other side of that short crossing.

A Japanese garden built by a World War II veteran

Tucked into the pine woodlands of Chappaquiddick is Mytoi, a 14-acre Japanese-inspired stroll garden that Hugh Jones built between 1958 and 1966.

Jones was a Chappy resident who returned from World War II looking for a place of peace, and he created it himself, inventing the name Mytoi as a playful nod to it being his own personal project.

Hurricane Bob nearly leveled the garden in 1991, but a restoration effort led by landscape designer Julie Moir Messervey and a group of dedicated volunteers brought it back.

The Trustees of Reservations manage it now, and native and exotic plants ring a freshwater pond at its center.

Piping plovers nest at the tip of Chappaquiddick

The Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge covers more than 500 acres of barrier beach, salt marsh, and coastal woodland along Chappaquiddick’s eastern shore.

At the northernmost tip stands the Cape Poge Lighthouse, first built in 1801 to guide ships into Edgartown Harbor.

Piping plovers, oystercatchers, and terns all nest here, and parts of the beach close seasonally to protect them. You can explore on foot or with an over-sand vehicle permit from the Trustees of Reservations.

Give yourself time out here. The landscape shifts from forest to marsh to open beach within a short walk.

Four miles of trails wind through Felix Neck Sanctuary

About three miles outside Edgartown center on the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road, Felix Neck Wildlife Sanctuary protects nearly 200 acres of beach, marsh, meadow, and woodland.

Mass Audubon runs the place, and four miles of flat, well-marked trails take you through all of it, past a turtle pond and along scenic shorelines that shift with the seasons.

A nature center on site holds freshwater and saltwater tanks stocked with local species, and educational programs run throughout the year. The trails work for every age and fitness level, so there’s no reason to skip it.

A farm that started with one cow and a half-acre of corn

Jim and Debbie Athearn founded Morning Glory Farm in 1975 with a single cow and a half-acre of sweet corn.

Fifty years later, the farm covers about 65 acres in Edgartown and runs under the management of their sons, Simon and Daniel.

The farmstand, built in 2010, sells fresh produce alongside scratch-baked breads, pies, soups, salads, and prepared meals made with ingredients grown steps from the kitchen.

The farm marked its 50th anniversary in 2025, and it has been a go-to stop for islanders and visitors the whole time. You can walk the farm lanes and browse the stand any day.

Jaws filmed here 50 years ago, and the sets never left

Steven Spielberg shot his 1975 film Jaws in Edgartown, using it as the fictional town of Amity Island.

He chose Martha’s Vineyard partly because the sandy ocean bottom 12 miles offshore let the crew film open water with no land in sight on the horizon.

Many of the buildings from the film still stand, including the town hall and the Chappy Ferry dock.

In summer 2025, the town marked the film’s 50th anniversary with a 10-day event called Amity Week, organized by the Edgartown Board of Trade. Walk the streets here and you’ll keep recognizing scenes.

That’s not a coincidence.

Getting to Edgartown, Massachusetts

You can reach Martha’s Vineyard by ferry from several points on Cape Cod, or fly in directly to the island’s airport. Once you’re in Edgartown, the town center is compact enough to cover on foot.

Bicycle rentals are easy to find if you want to push beyond downtown or reach the beaches along Katama Road.

The Chappy Ferry runs throughout the day from the harbor, so getting over to Chappaquiddick for Mytoi, Cape Poge, or a quiet afternoon on the trails takes only a few minutes and a short wait in line.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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