Feature Stories from Best Read Guide Martha's Vineyard

Widow's Walks of Edgartown
STROLLING THE STREETS of Edgartown and admiring the stately white captains' houses, you are bound to notice an occasional railed walkway on a roof connecting the traditional pair of chimneys. If your impulse is to sigh, "Ah, a widow's walk!" and envision whalers' wives pining away up there with telescopes pointed out to sea, awaiting the return of their beloved husbands, you've fallen victim to a romantic myth.

The unromantic fact of the matter is that widow's walks had a very mundane purpose. If, in the middle of the night, you suddenly had a chimney fire and had to pour sand down your chimney to put it out, it would be hard to climb the pitch of a snowy New England roof in your slippers and ankle-length nightshirt, lugging a 15-pound pail of sand. Widow's walks solved this problem; they could be reached from inside the attic simply by climbing a ladder and opening a hatch.

So the next time someone tries to foist upon you a tale of broken-hearted whaling wives whose eyes never left the horizon while their husbands were at sea, take it with a grain of salt.

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