The second largest kettle pond on the island and considered to be one of the deepest Nantucket ponds overall, Gibbs Pond is a favorite island swimming hole. 

Surrounded by open space owned by the Nantucket Conservation Foundation including the Milestone Road cranberry bogs, Gibbs Pond or, John Gibbs Pond, its formal name, and the Milestone Road cranberry bogs is the northwestern end of a waterway known as Phillip’s Run with Tom Nevers Pond at the southeast end of it. 

This pond is named for John Gibbs, a Harvard-educated Native American pastor of the Wampanoag people who, having spoken the name of Nantucket Indian chief Metacomet’s dead father, Massasoit, a Native American blasphemy, hid in the swamp next to Gibbs Pond after uttering the name. White settlers on the island had to pay Metacomet 11 pounds for Gibbs. Metacomet, also known as Phillip who lived on the stream running between Gibbs Pond and Tom Nevers Pond, is believed to have run with his tribesmen along this waterway to their canoes after the English paid the ransom for John Gibbs. Hence the name, Phillip’s Run.

The pond itself is used by the Nantucket Conservation Foundation to flood the cranberry bogs in the fall to float the berries off of their vines so they can be harvested.