So, who was the Sheriff?

So, Who Was the Sheriff?

By A. Bowdoin Van Riper

Isaiah Dunham Pease was Sheriff for the County of Dukes County from 1822 to until his death in 1862. Pease was born in Edgartown on May 5, 1786, the son of master mariner Noah Pease and

Hannah Dunham Pease, and was himself a mariner for a time before he settled on land. One of his brothers was Jeremiah Pease, the diarist, surveyor, and first keeper of the Edgartown Harbor Light. Another brother, Chase Pease, lived at the corner of Main and South Summer Streets in what’s now the (in) famous Yellow House, and lent Isaiah the house next door on South Summer, which Chase also owned, and is now a parking lot. Isaiah married Polly Luce (1785-1837) in 1811, and the couple had seven children. After Polly’s death, Isaiah married Jerusha Pease Coffin Fisher (1794-1867), widow of Levi Fisher, who outlived him by five years. Isaiah Dunham Pease lived on the land now named for him, and used the meadow to graze oxen and the pond to farm ice.