Chilmark is a New England town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 843 at the 2000 census. The fishing village of Menemsha, Massachusetts is located on the northern end of town along its border with the neighboring town of Aquinnah, Massachusetts. In 2005 it was confirmed to have the highest average property value of any city or town in Massachusetts.

History
Chilmark was first settled in 1671 as the southern portion of Tisbury. The town officially incorporated on September 14, 1694, the first town to separate from the two original towns of Tisbury and Edgartown. Chilmark...

Chilmark is a New England town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 843 at the 2000 census. The fishing village of Menemsha, Massachusetts is located on the northern end of town along its border with the neighboring town of Aquinnah, Massachusetts. In 2005 it was confirmed to have the highest average property value of any city or town in Massachusetts.

History
Chilmark was first settled in 1671 as the southern portion of Tisbury. The town officially incorporated on September 14, 1694, the first town to separate from the two original towns of Tisbury and Edgartown. Chilmark was named for the ancestral home of the family of Governor Thomas Mayhew in Tisbury, Wiltshire, Wiltshire, England.

The town was once known for its unusually high percentage of deaf citizens. In 1854, Chilmark had a deaf population of one in every 25 people, while the national average was one deaf person in 5728. (See Martha's Vineyard Sign Language.) Today the town is mostly residential, with a small working harbor along the Vineyard Sound side of the town.

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 100.4 square miles (260.1 km²), of which, 19.1 square miles (49.6 km²) of it is land and 81.3 square miles (210.5 km²) of it (80.94%) is water. Chilmark ranks 192nd of the 351 communities in the Commonwealth in terms of land area. Chilmark is bordered by Vineyard Sound to the northeast, West Tisbury, Massachusetts to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the south and Aquinnah, Massachusetts to the southwest.

The town includes the island of Nomans Land (Massachusetts), which lies southwest of Martha's Vineyard. Because of the island, the town is officially the second most southerly point in Massachusetts (the south shore of Nantucket, Massachusetts is approximately a kilometer south of the southernmost point on Noman's Land). Chilmark has a series of small ponds along the Atlantic side of the town, and it shares Tisbury Great Pond to the east and Menemsha Pond and Squibnocket Pond to the southeast, along the Aquinnah town line. It is between these two ponds, which are 1,100 feet apart at their closest point, that the only road to Aquinnah passes. (There is a beach along the southern side of Squibnecket Pond which also connects the towns; however, the strip of land is frequently washed out.) Chilmark also has the highest point on Martha's Vineyard, at 311-foot tall Peaked Hill.