This is an ongoing project to uncover the unique history of Chilmark, a small town on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. Inspired by Oliver Sacks’s "Seeing Voices" and the deaf history of Chilmark, I decided to go there to find the footprints of this mid-nineteenth century community. Because there were a large number of hearing-impaired people in Chilmark, there was a need to find a way to communicate with each other and with the hearing public. They invented their own version of sign language. They signed during church services, town hall meetings and other social occasions. As people on the island moved to the mainland, this singular community began to recede and the last deaf person in Chilmark died in 1952.