Historic Sites in Dukes County

History of Dukes County

Dukes County is Martha's Vineyard, the Elizabeth Islands, and tiny Nomans Land. It became a Massachusetts county in 1695, and Edgartown is its county seat. The Wampanoag have lived on the island for thousands of years, and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) still holds land around the clay cliffs at the island's western tip.

Edgartown's white whaling captains' houses recall the island's seafaring 1800s. In Oak Bluffs, a Methodist camp meeting that began in 1835 turned into a village of brightly painted gingerbread cottages. Lighthouses ring the shore, from Edgartown Harbor to Gay Head Light, whose 1856 brick tower was moved back from the eroding cliff in 2015.