Main content

Blackwater Pond Reservation

Dog Policy

Size

106.5 acres

Description

The land bank is drawn to the headwaters of the island’s various brooks for many reasons, which include preservation of stream water quality. The trickle of water exiting the Homestead Pond here eventually — two miles away — enters the Vineyard Sound at the Lamberts Cove Beach; before it leaves the reservation it passes through the Blackwater Pond, Southern Duarte’s Pond and Northern Duarte’s Pond. The Blackwater Pond itself is an island rarity: not a single house is perched astride it. Here is peace.

Universal Access

Bench facing the pond
Wheelchair-accessible pond viewing platform
  • Difficulty rating: Moderate
  • Trail: Trail surface is grass along pond-edge
  • Points of Interest: Pond-edge benches, fishing pier, and causeway boardwalk with pond views
  • Benches: 2

Access

Start at the Tisbury - West Tisbury town line on the Lamberts Cove Road and proceed 0.5 miles into West Tisbury; turn left at the land bank logo sign.

Historical Highlights

  • Blackwater Brook is an important landmark that was used by the Wampanoags to define the line between the two sachemships of Takemmy to the west and Nunnepaug to the east; the line started at the spring that creates the brook and ran, respectively, to the Vineyard Sound and to the middle of the Watcha Pond
  • the lower ponds here were once cranberry bogs; Vineyard cranberries were harvested and shipped to New York by the barrelful where they fetched $11 per barrel during 1860, $35 per barrel in 1940, and $5 per barrel in 1965

Trail / Property Map