Historic Nantucket, January 1969, Vol. 16 No. 3

Historic Nantucket

Main Street at the First Bend

JANUARY 1969

Published Quarterly by NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION NANTUCKET, MASSACHUSETTS

NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OFFICERS President, Edouard A. Stackpole.

Vice Presidents, Miss Grace Brown Gardner, W. Ripley Nelson, Albert F..

Egan. Jr., Alcon Chadwick, Henry B. Coleman, George W. Jones.

Honorary Vice President, Mrs. William L. Mather.

Treasurer, Roger J. Roche.

Secretary, Mrs. Austin Tyrer.

Councillors, Edouard A. Stackpole, Chairman: Leroy H. True, Herbert I Terry, terms expire 1969; Mrs. James C. Andrews. Richard F. Swain, term! expire 1970: Mrs. Albert F. Egan, Jr., H. Errol Coffin, terms expire 1971; Albert G. Brock, John N. Welch, terms expire 1972.

Executive Committee, W. Ripley Nelson, Chairman; Alcon Chadwick, Henrf B. Coleman, Albert F. Egan, Jr., George W. Jones, Edouard A. Stackpole, ex officio.

Advertising and Publications, W. Ripley Nelson and H. Errol Coffin.

Honorary Curator, Mrs. William L. Mather.

Curator, Miss Dorothy Gardner.

Editor, "Historic Nantucket", A. Morris Crosby; Assistant Editors, Mrs. Margaret Fawcett Barnes, Mrs. R. A. Orleans.

Chairmen of Exhibits, Historical Museum, Mrs. Elizabeth Worth; Whaling Museum, W. Ripley Nelson; Hadwen House - Satler Memorial, Albeit F. Egan, Jr.; Old Mill, Richard F. Swain; Old Jail, Albert G. Brock; 1800 House, Mrs. Herbert Foye; Fire Hose Cart House, Irving T. Bartlett; Oldest House, Mrs. J. Clinton Andrews; Franklin-Folger Seat and Memorial Boulder, Herbert I, Terry.

HISTORIC NANTUCKET Published quarterly and devoted to the preservation of Nantucket's antiquity, its famed heritage and its illustrious vast as a whaling port.

VOLUME 16

January, 1969

No. 3

Nantucket Historical Association Officers

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Green Hand on the Susan, 1841 - 1846 Part III. Hard Old Times in Paradise

By Edgar L. McCormick

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A Steeple Comes Back to an Old Church

14

The 1968 Historical Essay Contest

22

Recent Events

28

Legacies and Bequests

31

Historic Nantucket is published quarterly at Nantucket, Massachusetts, by the Nantucket Historical Association. It is sent to Association Members. Extra copies $.50 each.

Membership Dues are — Annual-Active $3.00 ; Sustaining $10.00 ; Life—one payment $50.00.

Second-class postage paid at Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Copyright, 1969, Nantucket Historical Association.

Communications pertaining to the Publication should be addressed to the Editor, Historic Nantucket, Nantucket Hstorical Association, Nantucket, Massachusetts, 02554.

A little more than a year ago Nantucket experienced one of the longest and severest cold spells on record. Eight inches of solid ice in the inner harbor made good walking for the two venturesome lads in this picture.

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Green Hand on the Susan, 1841-1846 HI Hard Old Times in Paradise

BY EDGAR L. MCCORMICK (Continued from HISTORIC NANTUCKET, October, 1968)

T

HREE days of routine stowing down and scraping and var­ nishing the waist followed the somber Monday when George Joy of the Sandwich Islands was buried at sea. The Susan, cruising westward near the Line, approached the Marquesas Islands. Andrew Meader reported on October 27 "some signs of going into ports," for there was maneuvering "in the Fore Hold among the Harbour Gear." That evening the Susan spoke the Mercury of New Bedford again, now 171/2 months out, with 800 bbls. Captain Russell "went aboard in the Waist Boat and brought back some information from Captain Haskell . . . that an American vessel had been seized upon by the English and by them treated dishonourably, for which the Americans are justly pro­ voked. The affair caused much excitement in the two countries.

And on the strength of Daniel Webster's speech, it [a newspaper which the Mercury had somehow acquired] strongly suspected war."

After this encounter, the ship steered all night to the north­ ward, weaving SSW at daylight at 131 min., 40 degrees W. under full sail. At 2 p.m., after a morning caulking decks, the cry "There she breaches" was a welcome sound to Meader. They lowered four boats and the Larboard boat fastened and saved "a fair-sized bull." The other boats continued the chase without success. "Before lowering," Meader reported, "we set signals for the Mercury (who was about 9 miles to windward). She came •down but didn't lower, it being 5 o'clock by the time we got along­ side."

Before breakfast on October 29, a Saturday, they cut in the whale and started the try-works at half-past one. The Susan, steering by the wind, NE kept the Mercury in sight ahead, "ready for a gam." At 10 a.m. on Sunday, they "cool down and turn up 23 bbls. After dinner clear up decks and the afterguards kill a terrapin for the Cabin." At 4 o'clock they run two miles down to the Mercury, "hoist our colours and their skipper comes aboard in their waist boat when Mr. Pitman with a crew of our own re­ turned with the boat. Finish the gam at 9 o'clock. A fair gam, a lot of good singers, some yarners, and a hard old skipper."

On Monday, after Mr. Pitman's "There she breaches," they ran for it off the lee beam for an hour but "don't see it again so we must call it Finback." On Tuesday there was nothing in sight, but oakum picking and deck caulking used up the time.

Finbacks, blackfish, and porpoises offered some diversion as the oakum making continued during the week. On Friday, November

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HISTORIC NANTUCET

4, they killed "two fine pigs which are served up according to Hoyle for dinner fore and aft."

Saturday brought another false alarm that took Captain Russell aloft with his glass. Though "we run off for it an hour . . ._ we must set it down as White Oak, and luff up our course again. . . . Towards night the wind moderates a little and it's turn a reef and Mn Topsail and Mn T G Sail.' And the lady flies through the water as though she was bound home." Meader also noted in his entry that Steward "Amos Herring" was off duty and that "Miller" was "acting in his place."

Towards night on Sunday, November 6, they observed a large waterspout a few miles off the lee bow. That night they were under all sail, "running for one of the Marquesas Islands."

On Monday they sighted small land birds and through the night kept a "sharp lookout for land." On Tuesday, the ,8th, they "fin­ ished caulking the quarter deck" and painted the bulwarks inside "all round." At 2 p.m. "the Cook raises land ahead. Spinyarn and Cooper aloft, but the cook sees it first from deck. Run for it and find it to be one of the Marquesas or Washington Islands, called Wahuga [Ua Hukal], and at dark we hove her aback, the Island bearing NW. Steward enters on duty."

At daylight on November 9 they raised the land to leeward and at 9 o'clock were abreast the harbor of Nuku Hiva, "where," Meader wrote, "we saw a French Sloop of War just making sail bound to the Spanish coast; she came to this place to inform the French commandant of the murder of the Governor of Uytahoo. She has on board as prisoners and instigators in the affair one American and two English seamen which they will carry to the coast for trial. In the harbour was lying a French Sloopof-war and a corvette." Captain Russell noted briefly that he went on board of a French frigate . . ., paid my respect to the Commodore and got permit to land." Meader reported that at 5 o'clock "the Captain came aboard bringing with [him] another boat from the shore, both boats being full of Sweet Potatoes, a few Cocoanuts and a few bunches of Bread Fruit. Our folks," Meader continued, "represented this Island to be governed by the French as is all the rest of the Islands of this group, and they have quite a large fort building in this harbour which will keep the Kanakas under pretty good subjection. The inhabitants are Kanakas who are extremely lazy and filthy and in some parts of the Island they make a most delicious meal of a white man's body, providing they could become master of it. They are of a copper colour nat­ urally, but the original skin can scarcely be seen owing to the tat­ tooing and root-staining with which they ornament their body.

Some of them are dyed of all bright colours from the crown of their head to the soles of their feet, and with their eye-lids, gums, and lips tattooed they form a hideous apppearance. Their dress is simply a narrow piece of cotton cloth tied around the loins. This is the rich people's dress while the poorer class seem contented with what nature alone gave them and they go about stark naked as they were born, both sexes alike. Their principal produce is hogs, Bananas, Oranges, Potatoes, Cocoa Nuts and Bread

GREEN HAND ON THE SUSAN

7

Fruit, but they were so lazy that money (in fact money is of no amount to them) nor goods, would not hire them to gather for us anything but the three latter named articles. So being per­ fectly disgusted Captain Russell came aboard, made sail and steered WSW passing through the group. I expect we'll shape our course in the morning for Tahita [sic]. Blackfish in sight all day, close to the ship."

So the caulking and painting continued with nothing in sight on the 10th but porpoises. "Mr. Starbuck strikes one, but the iron draws." On the 12th the Captain and Meader both noted that they had been out eleven months, with 300 bbls. They cleaned and whitewashed the steerage, and the steward, Meader noted, ,was "off duty for good." The housekeeping continued: "they in the forecastle have a regular sett to [sic] at Vite Vashing and scrubbing. Paint the Forrard Cabin and out of the Mn T. Gal­ lant Studding sail rig a Windsail for the purpose of letting air below decks for the Bull Room."

Two days of squally weather put each watch at work saving fresh water from the boats. The Susan's position on November 17 was 13 degrees, 25 min. 20 sec. S and 147 degrees, 16 min. W as she took the trades at daylight, bound to Tahiti. At 11 o'clock a.m. on the 18th Mr. Coleman raised a low island, one of the Chain Islands called Krusinstern. Squally weather interfered with landing there, and on the 19th there was steady rain all day as the Susan steered SE by E. On Sunday afternoon, the 20th, "some of the larboard watch go in swimming alongside in the height of the rain and are fortunate not to be troubled with Sharks, for afterw'd we struck one and had him most up to the taffrail." At sundown they sighted Tahiti.

On the 21st the Stisan steered for the land, and Captain Rus­ sell, according to his green hand, "hearing so favorably of this port . . . concluded to take the Kanaka Jimmy for a Pilot and anchor here, which he did after beating through the passage." At 5 p.m. the Susan was at anchor with the John Adams, Swasey, Nantucket, 150 bbls., 15 mos., and the Timoleon, Baylies, New Bedford, 1850 bbls., 36 mos. The latter having lost her mate the day before, the American flags throughout the harbor were at half-mast.

On Tuesday, the 22nd, the crew got "a raft of 100 bbls. ashore [for water] and by night have it filled and aboard and part of it stowed down. In the forenoon at 10 o'clock, Meader continued, "I with three others of the crew and two boatsteerers went ashore to attend the funeral of the Timoleon's third officer. He was con­ veyed in a boat from the ship to the shore amid the tolling of the ships bells and when landed, the corpse was taken to the American Bethel where a fine sermon was preached by the English Mission­ ary. Then a large procession of foreigners of different nations formed and followed the corpse to the burial place. . . . The offi­ cer's name was Caldwell of Medford, Massachusetts, aged 34 years. Have a plenty of Pine Apples, Bananas, Oranges, Limes, Guavoes, . . . Breadfruit, Cocoanuts for which we paid but a trifle."

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

The next day they got another raft of 75 bbls. of water on board. The John Adams and the Favourite of London, 1100 bbls., 25 mos., were outside the reef lying off and on. The Susan's crew gammed with the crew of the Timoleon, the first of a dozen meet­ ings. A third raft of water, 50 bbls., was brought aboard on Friday and "at night the Timoleon's crew don't forget the way to our craft."

Meader noted that Saturday, November 26, was "Kanaka Sabbath. All hands off and on but the starboard watch's liberty.

The Ti[Moleon\ allowed to be the biggest ship in port, Susan excepted." On Sunday Meader described the "Ti and Susan — alias finger and thumb." On Monday: "May the Spermies next season be no more afraid of us than the Susan and Timoleon's crews are of each other. Good: Josh, let's have another toast from the wooden-nutmeg-country, gentlemen."

Tuesday was squally. The larboard watch was ashore. "Find Smith in good health," said Meader, "boarding at a native's and actually eating a steak from a plate with a knife and a fork, a cup and saucer by his side, things quite surprising to see in a place where it's fingers before forks."

On the 30th the Henry Clay arrived, "Old Sayer," Nantucket, 2200 bbls., 36 mos. and a boat's crew came aboard for a gam, "but for jolly companions every one give me the old Ti—." Again on the night of December 1, "the Ti artillery found their way aboard and were fools if they didn't go where they are best used."

On the 2nd, Meader reports "the Ti supposed to be the highest ship in the harbour, Susan excepted. So Green says, and so says little Nick."

Sunday, December 4, was squally. "No liberty today," wrote Andrew, referring to going ashore. But he continued, "I, me, myself, dined on board of the Ti. After dinner smoked a good cigar, and felt quite like a gentleman, until I heard the officer of our ship sing out, 'Get in the boat, there, Meader.' Then my fine feelings forsook me and I again thought of the 'galley slave'."

The Emerald of New Bedford arrived on Monday, 33 months out, with 1600 bbls. "A boat's crew gam'd with us. They were good fellows, but forgive me for saying yet," declared Meader, "long live the Ti. A lonesome day this. The Ti sails at 11 o'clock."

The Starboard watch was ashore on the 6th. "Smith in good health, and as usual in fine spirits. The first cold-water man, or one that would refuse a glass of wine that I have associated with since leaving sweet America. Come near getting into the Calaboose for trying to imitate the Kanakas reading their evening service."

Thursday, the 8th, was the last liberty day in port. The Susan had been sending boats ashore for hogs and bringing off rafts of water. "Our three sows furnish us with twenty-three pigs, with twelve hogs we buy making our stock of pork larger.

We are now making ready to leave this port, a description of which is everywhere to be found where there is anything written of the Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The natives are of copper colour, very fair complexion, hair invariably of the finest texture,

GREEN HAND ON THE SUSAN

9

jet black and a plenty of it, which flows in ringlets about their necks and shoulders in the female class. And in the male the hair is nearly all shaven off except a little around the ears, but I remarked that I never saw a single decayed tooth in their head either male or female. This I think is owing to their eating and drinking everything cold, and in fact our crew's teeth which were black almost as tar when we went in there, were soon made white by eating of their fruits such at Pine Apples, Bread fruit, Bananas, etc."

On Friday, December 9, the Susan left Tahiti, steering to­ wards the Line. Meader explained his previous references to Smith as he wrote of their departure. Smith was "a fine young English fellow" who "had obtained his discharge from the Timoleon and was waiting for an opportunity to take passage home by way of Sydney. He seemed fond of a number of our crew and I spent many pleasant hours with him when I was on liberty ashore. I may never have the pleasure of enjoying his social company again but it will surely be long before I forget his name."

At noon came the inevitable "heave ahead" and "at 22 min­ utes past 12 the anchor was at the bow and we half way to the reef with Kanaka Jimmy for a pilot and a good stock of potatoes, wood, water, some green Oranges and a plenty of Bananas. At this port we discharged our steward, Amos Herring, sick, and Jack Taylor, sick with a rupture. And shipping a Kanaka called Jim and a Cape Cod young fellow named Elisha Chadwick."

Steering NNE and tacking SSW in squally, rainy weather, the Susan was 12 months out on Monday the 12th, with only 350 bbls. to show for a year of searching. Squally, rainy weather yielded to light wind and calm by Sunday, December 18. On the 19th Captain Russell noted that land was visible from the mast head "bearing North, distance about 25 miles." The Susan's po­ sition was 16 degrees, 15 min. South and 148 degrees, 36 min.

West. The land, said the Captain, was "apparently a low Island called Matia." Meader added that it proved to be "Marataar," "one of the Chain Islands [The Tuamotu Archipelago]," "not laid down on any chart and but lately discovered."

That evening "while all hands were cooling themselves on the windlass, the presence of the strange island prompted Meader to digress with a story which he first attributed to one of the old tars, but later disowned as "only the foolish production of my brain" and "an unfounded story."

"Once," the old tar is supposed to have told the relaxing crew, "while he belonged to a whaler, he was one of the number of a boat's crew who left the ship to make a landing at an Island group to trade and to get off a few recruits. The officer alone first landed while the men up to their armpits in water held the boat from beaching. After a turbulent consultation among the natives they agreed to furnish the officer with anything he wanted at a trifling price — providing he would let his men carry the goods up the beach. To this he agreed, not once dreaming of hostile intentions of the natives. However, the crew hauled their boat

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

ashore and had proceeded but a short distance with the goods when they were attacked by the natives who advanced on them with their spears and in a few moments four of them lie dead and the fifth being the narrator and speaking good Kanaka, he begged them to spare his life and he would serve them in any way.

So this man and the Officer were all that remained of the crew.

The Susan of Nantucket, 348 tons, Reuben Russell, Master, Aaron Mitchell, owner, as sketched by the Captain himself in the endpapers of the log of the 1841-1846 voyage.

"It was near night when the natives hauled the boat well up, took the dead bodies and the prisoners, and carried them to their tent which was not far distant where the poor survivors were obliged to spend the night in awful distress and suspense, not having tasted anything since their landing. In the morning they described the ship lying off and on, waiting and wondering what had become of the boat. After sunrise the Captain manned three boats and supplied all the men with arms that he could, determined to go ashore and at all events release his boat's crew, for he now concluded that they must be prisoners. He arrived at the shore where a great number of the natives had collected, and through an interpreter he told them to give up the men or he would burn the place and kill them all. All the reply he got was that the men were safe and attending a great feast. While parley­ ing with these fellows he espied a great number of canoes coming round a point of the Island, and as they at this time by far out­ numbered his party, so he prudently retreated to his ship. While

GREEN HAND ON THE SUSAN

11

going off he saw the natives on shore dancing and swinging round on sticks the heads of four white men. The Captain lay'd off and on three more days, and as the two men made no appearance, he thought they must have shared the same fate of the four. So he made sail and left the place.

"In the morning the prisoners were forcibly seated around the roasting bodies of their unfortunate shipmates and ordered to eat as the others did while with brute fierceness the cannibals were tearing with their teeth and hands the flesh from the bodies. The prisoners, horror-struck and heart-sick, refused to eat of their feast. No sooner had the natives finished their meal, then [sic] the white men were taken to a tree and there lashed together, each one's back against the tree. The women and children were then permitted to torment them by throwing sticks, sand and stones . . . and pricking them with sharp pointed sticks, the same time showing them pieces of the bodies and telling them to eat.

After a while they were left alone as they thought to finish their existence under the burning sun . . . but at night they were re­ leased and brought to the tent of a more peaceful chief, fed breadfruit and water and given to understand that at present they belonged to him. As it proved they never had any other master but lived together near a year when the officer through grief and hard living terminated his sad afflictions. ". . . at the expiration of three years and a half a chance favoured [the survivor] and he improved it. An American Manof-War had been lying off and on all day apparently surveying the Island. . . . And all day too he had been watching it, determined to attempt an escape. He plainly saw that it was an armed vessel and for that reason they would have no reason to land. So at night while they were asleep he crept softly to the beach, stole a boat or canoe, and paddled for the ship, the lights of which could be plainly seen from the shore. Once more free from a place rendered so horrible in his mind, he hardly knew how to rejoice enough, but his fears were excited on nearing the vessel to receive an order to lie by till daylight, but on informing the Commander that he was a seaman, an American, and the sole survivor of a boat's crew, he was taken on board and treated very kindly. Upon hearing the whole story the commander was extremely exasperated with the natives and resolved to next day burn everything on the island, life excepted. So true enough, the next day he sailed within a gun shot of the beach, ordered the officer to fire upon the huts from the ship at a given signal from him on shore. He then took 300 men all armed to their teeth and landed in his boats and in four hours shoved off from the shore, feeling quite revenged, having burnt all the huts, grain, and whatever would burn, killing only 6 natives who made some resistance. The shipwrecked [sic] was not long aboard at sea when he had a chance in a whaler which he accepted and he has been shifting from one ship to another until here we find him." It was in May 1845, that Andrew Meader wrote after this long passage in his journal: "An unfounded story."

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

Back to reality on November 20, Meader identified the island ten miles distant as "Miateer (as some spell it) one of the Ber­ muda group. Lower two boats and Mr. Pitman goes ashore to trade. At noon he comes off with poor success. After dinner the Skipper goes and he loads the two boats with Cocoanuts and Swee» Potatoes."

Captain Russell's ability as a trader was further demon­ strated the next day when he bargained for one boat-load of wood, two of "Cocoa nuts" and two of sweet potatoes. Meader supplied the details: "The trade was Fish hooks, cotton cloth, needles, soap & knives. Most of our crew traded and got mats, pearl fish hooks, fish lines, pillows, etc. The natives of this Island are and live much like those of Otahiti, except they wear less clothes here for dress. Here they always go with their heads uncovered and a great part of their body the same way. Their principal occupation is fishing, fish being the only hearty food they eat, there being no meat of any kind growing on the Island.

Although some few of them do exert themselves enough to plant a few potatoes, which by the by grow up and come to maturity without further care. The whole number of inhabitants probably amounts to 300, not being a white man amongst them, a case uncommon, for there is scarcely an Island in this Ocean where there is not a white man."

The Susan, under full sail and steering NNE, on December 22 approached "Kruisenstern, one of the Chain Islands, a low, unhabited [sic] island, covered with a plenty of Arrow Root, Cocoanuts, and wood and a plenty of fish in its lagoons which can be caught with the hand alone. After dinner, it bearing South 4 miles off, the Capt. and Mate take their two boats and go ashore.

They load one with Cocoanuts, the other with first-rate wood, and coming off they stop in deep water to fish but are unsuccessful.

They get a number of curious shells ashore ... of small kinds.

They get enough of fish to raise a chowder in the evening for the steerage."

Stormy weather on Christmas eve yielded to moderate breezes on Christmas Day, a holiday which the Quaker Captain made no note of in his log. Meader's brief comment was scarcely joyous: "Some of the boatsteerers partially celebrate the anniversary of the birth of our Saviour by having a roast chicken dinner without saying grace before or after the precious meal."

The Susan's course to the NE brought her off the Marquesas Islands on Tuesday, December 27. Meader noted that there was "great destruction among the Cocoa Nuts . . . nearly every man lays into them after the decks are cleared, and we have got to liking them so well that one is not satisfied until he has carried off the better part of three or four. They are good now, especially those got at the last Island of Kruisenstern, which are full of milk and the meat tender, but what troubles us most is that our Bananas are going too fast. Yet when they are gone we can say 'we had a plenty and them that were good too'."

Rugged weather followed. On the 29th, Jack Russell spotted

G REEN H AND ON THE S USAN

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whales, but the three boats lowered saw nothing. "At 5 o'clock see them again and . . . the waist boat fastens . . thinking to get a good ride by him, but he dies like a hero, that is, with but a little flurry. They aboard the ship say there were other whales around us but they were invisible to our eyes and we were the nearest to them. Get the critter alongside & double reef the top­ sail before dark."

They started the try-works the next afternoon, with a "good look-out aloft as we all expect to see whales around in these parts, and if 'twas not so rugged we certainly should." But the Susan was in for a long stretch of such weather and the "hard old times" synonymous with whalelessness.

Twenty-four hours later they finished boiling, but not with­ out a New Year's Eve casualty. "Have a fine chicken stew made from my rooster which I bought of Matha [sic] Otahiti. It would have been better but while the pots were hot he was trying his skill flying with cut wings and fell short of his aim, going into one of the pots of boiling oil, and when I found him, which was with some scraping and skimming, he was about half-cooked inwards, feathers and all. This stew don't begin with some that's stewing in Sweet America about this time, but it's no use to think hard for I couldn't go if I was invited."

On January 1, 1843, "the words 'I wish you a happy new year' sounded with the calling of the watch at midnight and as ours was the watch below, so superstition tells us that we shall be more favored by Dame Fortune this year than last. God grant it," implored Meader, as the Susan cruised just south of the Line in what seemed an endless search. The crew made "sinnett and spun-yarn stuff" as the ship steered NE. "Kill a hog for fore and aft," reported Andrew, on Saturday, January 7. "Great talk about the Bow Boat and that Nantucket fellow named Meader.

Cause, Bow Boat has got no whale since leaving port and Meader pays no rent for the Main Hatches."

But others were in worse trouble. Captain Russell noted on January 9: "Punished Henry Halsey for insulting second mate."

Amid plenty of white caps the Susan continued, and as the weather moderated and birds appeared, Meader reported hope­ fully, "We think we are amongst whales and must soon see them."

But his glint of optimism gave way to gloom on January 10: "I'm tired and sick of this business and hope I am learning a lesson which will teach me never again to enlist my services in a whaler . . . for they that are in and belong to her, myself among the rest, have brought themselves to that pitch that it is necessary that some minister should cry out for them, 'God help them. God help them. For they know not what they do'."

And the next day, the cry, "There's white water," yielded nothing but porpoises for the Susan, 13 months out, 350 barrels.

End of Part III (To Be Continued)

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A Steeple Comes Back to an Old Church IN 1849 THE STEEPLE of Nantucket's North Church on Beacon Hill — home of the First Congregational Society — was taken down as a precautionary measure. Although the church building was only fifteen years old, the steeple had been so battered by storms that it had become loosened and was in danger of falling.

All that was left of the once soaring structure was the squat, square tower topped at the corners by small, unlovely minarets, each a sort of evangelical finial. So the tower of the church re­ mained until in time people grew used to it and accepted it as everlasting — at least as enduring as the church itself.

Not so, however, did young Rev. Fred D. Bennett. Called nearly a century later to the pastorate of the First Congregational Society, he had a dream — that some day, somehow, a steeple could be restored to its rightful place on the tower. The dream faded when he joined the U.S. Navy as Chaplain during World War II. But it did not die.

And when, retired from that service, he was recalled to the old North Church in 1963, his dream came true. Considerable work was to be done on the church building and Mr. Bennett suggested that now was a good time to put up a new steeple. The idea caught on. Enough money was raised, non-members as well as members of the church contributing, and the operation began.

Scaffolding was erected around the tower and the work of building the square base of the whole steeple went forward.

Then, at 5:45 on the afternoon of September 5, 1968, following the pealing of the church bell announcing the impending event, a helicopter picked up the six-sided spire, prebuilt at the yard of the builder about a mile away, and swiftly bearing it over houses and trees neatly settled it in its appointed place and flew away. Many people watched and many cameras clicked, but there was no cheering, no applause. There was, in truth, an air of mystery about the affair, almost as though a miracle were being wrought high above them in the sky, and the people watched silently, reverently, and then quietly went their ways.

HISTORIC NANTUCKET presents in the following pages a brief picture-story of this historic event.

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The 1968 Historical Essay Contest THE ASSOCIATION'S Historical Essay Contest last year was made an accredited part of the curriculum at the High School and as an experiment was allocated to the "Social Studies Depart­ ment," in which a particular subject or field of study was assigned to one class. In this way the judges received a pretty good crosssection of the whole school. The thirty-nine essays offered for consideration were on the whole better than in the past, so much so that the judges decided to give two honorable mentions instead of the usual one. The winners: First Prize (a framed certificate) to Karen Kalman '70, for her paper entitled, "The William J. Landry," (published in last October's HISTORIC NANTUCKET) ; First Honorable mention to Susan Fernald, '71, and Second Honorable mention to Deborah DuBock, '69, for their papers en­ titled respectively, "Nantucket Lightship Handbags and Baskets," and "The Formation of Nantucket Island." Each winner was also awarded the usual complimentary annual membership in the Nantucket Historical Association. Miss Fernald's essay follows.

Miss DuBock's will appear in our April issue.

Nantucket Lightship Handbags and Baskets

BY SUSAN FERNALD

Early Lightship Baskets THE LIGHTSHIP, or Friendship Basket, was an original handi­ craft of Nantucket. Before 1950 or so it wasn't made anywhere else. Since then there have been many cheap imitations, but the best ones are still made here. The name is a good one because most of the first baskets, between 1854 and 1890, were made on the lightship by its crew.

It has been said the art originated on the South Shoal light­ ship. But more probable is the idea that the officers and crew from Nantucket Island, where the basket had been made for a long while, brought the art to the ship.

The first basket-makers were coopers, not Indians as many people are led to believe. Much evidence supports this idea. The baskets, like casks and barrels, have board "bottoms." The verti­ cal splints are called "staves" and the circular top binding, "hoops," as these parts of barrels are called.

The cooper was probably the most important worker during the whaling era on the Island. As soon as a whaleship came in, the oil from the whale had to be put in barrels, where it remained

NANTUCKET LIGHTSHIP BASKETS

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until it was sold and used. Most of the people's food was stored in barrels, both in the store and in the home. These whale-oil barrels were travelling all over the world. As early as 1720 Nathaniel Starbuck was shipping oil to London.

Coopering seemed to be a prominent job for many of our first families. Some families who were employed as such were the Rays, the Smiths, the Russells, the Coffins, the Gardners, the Aliens and the Clarks.

In 1790 the chief business was the whale fishery and the demand was so great for barrels and casks, that many of the whalers themselves had to don frocks and trousers to cart and cooper their own oil.

During the winter when the demand for barrels was slow the coopers drew up their chairs by the pot-bellied stove, took out their pipes and proceeded to make baskets for pleasure rather than for profit. They ranged in size from very small up to about the size of a peck. Some were placed inside one another according to size and were called "nests." This arrangement made quite an inviting appearance. Also "work-baskets" for the ladies were made, which were quite wide and were six to eight inches high, with a woven cover that hinged at the side.

The only ship that the baskets were made on was the South Shoal Lightship. This ship was put in many different stations, such as the Cross Rip in 1828, the Pollock Rip in 1,849, the Shovel­ ful in 1852, the Handkerchief Shoal in 1858, the Great Round Shoal in 1890 and a second ship was put in Pollock Rip Slue in 1902.

James Wood, Sr., says that he was on the South Shoal boat from August 1866 to July 1867 and that most of the men aboard were making baskets and clothespins. Some time after he left, scrimshawing was stopped by the authorities and basket making was terminated then. Superintendent Eaton of the Lighthouse Service thought that the stopping of basket-making wasn't so much due to the objection of the government as it was to the change of personnel on the vessel. When the Nantucket basket men ended duty on the ship, they took their tools with them and in many cases they made baskets ashore for many years. James H. Gibbs states that he was aboard the ship in 1894 under Captain David Ray for about four months, and that no baskets were made during that time. In November of 1866 Captain Charles B. Ray completed his two-hundredth rattan (lightship) basket, one hun­ dred and forty of which had already sold at that time. He was the grandfather of Mitchell Ray, who, in the third generation, pur­ sued this calling in his Island shop.

The manufacturing of baskets was usually done without hurry. They were made one at a time for home or office use.

Later they were made in larger numbers and sold mostly by men who had retired from the ship and worked in their homes or shops on the Island.

The following description is from the Heirlooms Exhibition catalogue of the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, 1935: "Earliest

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

baskets were not very regular in shape, but in' due course forms or 'blocks' came into general use and were usually cut from old spars, the baskets being fashioned on the block, bottom up." It also said that this type of basket consisted of a bottom board with a deep grooved edge where the staves are thrust. In some of the earlier examples the bottom was made of two boards nailed together.

The bottom wood was pine. Later, sycamore from old plug to­ bacco boxes, the black walnut, mahogany and other woods were used in place of pine. At first they were manufactured by hand and later by lathe. There was a lathe aboard the South Shoal Ship.

The staves were mostly ash, then white oak and hickory and later usually only white oak. They were split from cord wood, much of it from Mattapoisett and elsewhere on the continent. In olden times the old wood ties from bales of hay were much used. Some of the old baskets used rattan staves.

The weaving strands that encircled the basket were of rattan as well as the lacing which held hoops at the top of the sides.

Two wooden hoops of a half-round shape with flat sides opposing encircled and enclosed the tops of the staves. In larger baskets each stave was apt to be nailed at the top and to the board at the bottom.

Two "ears" to hold the handle were set in the top of the sides.

They were often made of the same wood as the staves. Brass "ears," easier to handle and smaller, were introduced sixty-five to seventy years ago. The handles were of straight green wood bent, tied and stood to set, not steamed. Occasionally two small wood bow handles with ears attached were used, especially on elliptical baskets.

Nails and tacks were first copper or iron and later brass.

A knife and drawer-shave were the chief tools used.

These baskets were strong and durable and withstood wetness and the sun. The wood was left in natural color and in later years varnished. They were used for everything from carrying potatoes to holding knitting. Some have lasted for well over one hundred years and are still in good condition.

Modern Handbags and Their Maker An American tourist was walking through a busy shopping center when she spied a lady with a Nantucket Lightship Hand­ bag, much like her own. She was speechless for a moment, then, for the lack of anything better to say, yelled out, "Nantucket!"

The passerby stopped short and this was the start of a fine friendship. The two ladies were far across the ocean in Port Said, yet they both carried Jose Reyes' Nantucket Lightship Hand­ bags.

These handbags are a symbol of our old whaling town. They have been made here and only here for close to two centuries.

Only recently have other places acquired the art, but they will never be as skilled as Jose Reyes.

The handbags still follow the same pattern and form as the original baskets. The late Mitchell Ray gave some of his forms

NANTUCKET LIGHTSHIP BASKETS

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to Mr. Reyes. These were first made by the lightship keepers to relieve their long, lonely watches at sea.

The smallest of the handbags are used at tea-parties and the larger ones are used for pocketbooks and handbags. Some of the very large baskets have no top and are used for shopping and marketing.

Mr. Reyes has received many orders from all over the world: Africa, France, Canada, the Philippines, to name a few.

He doesn't spend a cent on paid or written adverising. All his publicity is word of mouth by satisfied customers.

Many people use the term "basket" and "handbag" as synonomous terms, but the basket is larger and has no top, while the handbag has a cover. Of course, the uses differ also.

Mr. Reyes' shop is just one room in which he plies his trade.

It appears to be quite disorderly. Split bamboo covers the walls and great bunches of split cane, used for his baskets, are hanging on wall pegs, over the backs of chairs and strewn across his work­ bench. Wood shavings from the wooden cover plaques and white oak handles cover the floor. The tub of water in which Mr. Reyes soaks his handles to make them pliable is also on the floor, in the midst of all his work tools.

In a display case he keeps handbags and baskets that are finished and waiting for their owners. Other baskets hang from the ceiling and the walls. The purpose of displaying the finished handicrafts is to give other prospective customers ideas for their own baskets and to see what the finished product looks like.

The basket-maker sits in a corner on a cushion-covered stool by the window and performs the ancient art of weaving. There is little space for customers in his shop, but they love the informal­ ity of the place and are awed by his deft fingers weaving the strands of cane.

Many year-round residents are proud owners of Jose's hand­ bags and they are his most faithful customers.

Mr. Reyes began to weave when he was but a small child in his village in the Philippines. His father, like most other parents in the village, taught his children to use their hands as tools and to shape their work with care and pride. The use of one's hands and fingers from a young age keeps the muscles flexible even to old age.

When he went in search of raw material for his weaving, there was always the danger of ever poisonous snakes lurking in the dense jungle undergrowth. There was also the danger of falling into the swiftly moving white water as the raft shot through the treacherous rapids.

The Reyes came to Nantucket for a vacation and fell in love with it. They liked the Island folk and their friendly charm.

When they first settled here there was a hard time to make ends meet. His early training in weaving provided the means of earning a living. He supplemented this meager income with painting jobs and such.

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

Mr. Reyes made his first Nantucket Lightship handbags in the summer of 1948. He placed them on a' stand in front of his house and they were an immediate success. Orders for them came in so fast that he had to cancel further cane-seating and painting jobs.

Some of the handbag covers are adorned with etched scenes on ivory. The pictures are often waterfront scenes. Other plaques are made out of Honduras mahogany, Brazilian rosewood, and ebony. On the wooden covers are various ornaments such as gulls, whales, and whaling implements, or something special which the buyer requests. The cover fasteners, handle attachments, and hasps are often made of ivory. These ornaments are carved by local ivory carvers.

Mr. Reyes can turn out a small basket in a day, but that "day" is often from seven in the morning until past midnight.

The cane for the weaving is imported from Java or Malaya.

The covers are made from either Honduras mahogany or Brazilian rosewood. Some very special covers are made from ebony or ivory. The ebony comes from Africa and India. The whale's teeth are imported from Norway and the ivory comes from Africa.

With a twinkle in his eyes, Jose says, "And the maker of the Friendship Baskets is imported from the Philippine Islands."

(Editor's Note: There are now several people on Nantucket making Lightship Bags and Baskets. It has become almost an Island industry.)

Front of the "Coffin School," now the Vocational School. By the terms of the trust set up in the will of Rear Admiral William Mayhew Folger, this building is to be the architec­ tural model for the new museum building of the Nantucket Historical Association.

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Recent Events IT HAS NOW BECOME an established custom to open the Whaling Museum and the Hadwen House-Satler Memorial for the two long holiday week-ends of Memorial Day and Thanksgiving Day. Accordingly, these two heated exhibits again proved from Thanksgiving Thursday through the following Sunday to be a successful holiday attraction to many off-island visitors (they seem to be coming more and more out-of-season) and to residents as well. The Whaling Museum recorded 139 paid admissions; Hadwen House-Satler Memorial 45. The geographical distribution of our visitors was not as large as in previous years, those from the Eastern states predominating, but some there were from as far away as California. As we went to press, announcement was made that these two exhibits would be again open to visitors at Christmas-time on the afternoon of December 26th and on suc­ ceeding afternoons, through the 31st, from two to five o'clock.

Meanwhile, banking arrangements having been completed, the administration of the Foulger Fund moved forward. Neces­ sary preliminary paper work, both architectural and construction, was started and at last Admiral Folger's plans for a new Museum Building began to take shape. The work of cataloguing the hun­ dreds of different items in the different exhibits moved ahead and is still continuing. This is a difficult and laborious task, es­ pecially since many individual records have disappeared, and Miss Gardner, our Curator, and her assistants deserve great credit. In other respects, too, the affairs of the Association seem to be moving smoothly and there is no reason to doubt that it will have come through the sleepy Nantucket winter in good shape for the coming summer season. *

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CORRECTION: Inadvertently we gave the Coast Guard the towboat Nauset pictured on the front cover of HISTORIC NAN­ TUCKET for last October. She belongs to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was engaged in some special work in the Harbor.

Apologies to both Services. *

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We have received from Mr. R. Loren Graham of Swampscott, Massachusetts, some very interesting material relating to the old steamship line vessels Sankaty, Uncatena, and New Bedford.

The items comprise five 8x10 photographs of SS. Neiv Bedford at various stages of her career. One of these pictures shows her converted into a warship after she was taken over by the Navy in World War II. The change in her appearance is hard to believe.

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RECENT EVENTS

According to a note on the back of the photograph she was said to have sunk the German submarine which had torpedoed the large overnight coastal steamers Boston, Neiv York, and Yorktown. The rest of the material consists of the reproduction of two articles appealing in the New Bedford Sunday StandardTimes, one dealing with the burning of the SS. Sankaty in New Bedford Harbor on June 30, 1924 and her subsequent salvage and restoration for use as a ferry in Nova Scotia. The other re­ production deals with the sale of the old Vncat"na to the Nantasket Beach Steamboat Company of Boston K 1929 when that company lost five of their six steamers in a fire (her name changed to Pemberton) and her final demolition for junk. The photographs were made by Mr. Graham, including those pub­ lished with the articles in the New Bedford Sunday StandardTimes. Mr. Graham is the Regional Vice-President for New Eng­ land of the Steamship Historical Society of America, Inc. A mem­ ber of the Nantucket Historical Association he has given several lectures here. We greatly appreciate Mr. Graham's valuable gift. $

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Whales still being excellent newspaper copy the Boston Herald-Traveler carries a dispatch from Seattle relating that a twelve-foot, 2000-pound female killer-whale, drooped in a sling and kept constantly wet was sent by air to a new home in Hoiland. Dr. W. H. Dudokvanheel, director of the dolfinarium in Hardewyk, Holland, bought the whale for $16,000. The whale had been caught accidentally in a fisherman's net. $

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On the evening of Friday the thirteenth of last December (how apt!) CBS presented its Project 20 special, "Down to the Sea in Ships." Generally we view with a rather jaundiced eye even a highly touted TV show. But this dramatic and historical hour-long presentation of man's trials, conquests, and defeats on the vast element that spawned him, and still shapes his des­ tiny, deserves any superlative one can find in or out of Webster.

Narrated by actor Burgess Meredith, with lovely "mood" music and with quotations from the Old Testament, Herman Melville, and Joseph Conrad, the film showed a stirring variety of episodes ranging from little trawlers battling storm waves off the New England coast; the two intrepid Britishers who rowed a dory from Cape Cod to England in 90 days; the replica of Mayfloiver on her 20th Century voyage of cumbersome maneuvering along the course of her 17th Century original; the wreck of the freighter Flying Enterprise, with the crew on one of the rescue vessels shown caps in hand watching as the doomed freighter sank, stern high as though in a last gesture of farewell, to her oceangrave. On the pleasanter side were scenes of the rapidly growing world of pleasure-boating; a magnificent demonstration by Coast

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

Guard recruits swarming aloft in the rigging of their trainingship on the command, "All hands to sail stations!" And so on. But what was most thrilling to us was the segment dealing with "Rounding the Horn." To most people the phrase "Rounding the Horn" simply means the passage of a vessel from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, or vice versa, at the southern tip of South America. But to us here on Nantucket, and to all others in his­ toric or actual contact with the sea, "Rounding the Horn," has a special^ meaning, vividly brought home by that segment of the film. We were on a ship fighting mountainous seas (said at times to be 100 feet high) coming in over the bow, cascading across the waist, rearing monstrously on all sides, as she struggled against the ever-conflicting winds and tides of the two oceans in that dreary, storm- and fog-bound desolation. Rounding the "Horn" has been called a nightmarish experience for mariners. It was almost that, too, for the viewer of this remarkable film. Presented in full color, it was repeated on Channel 10, Dec. 29th.

Would it surprise you to learn that wild onions contributed in part to the decline of the Whaling Industry on Nantucket?

Well, they did! According to April 1968 "Travel" magazine, a popular past-time in California is "panning" for gold along the sandy stretches of the San Gabriel River, in the San Gabriel Mountains, less than an hour's drive from Los Angeles. It was in this region in 1842 that Francisco Lopez, pulling up some wild onions, found specks of gold clinging to the roots, and so fathered the mighty gold rush that reached its tentacles even into Nan­ tucket. Scores of the Island's young men were lured to this new El­ dorado. Even some whaleships were so stripped of their crews that they were left marooned in distant ports. For the modern prospectors who want to make sure of success, there are two commercial places which supply pans and ground up gold ore.

Which reminds us of one of the "Gam" stories: Old Captain Baxter of Sconset used to drive people out on the moors to look for Indian artifacts. As his customers walked along, the Captain would slyly drop arrow heads (which he had accumulated) in strategic spots to be excitedly "discovered" by his customers.

His trips were very popular!

Legacies and Bequests Membership in our Association proves that you are interested in its program for the preservation of Nantucket's famed heritage and its illustrious past, which so profoundly affected the development of our country. You can perpetuate that interest by giving to the Association a legacy under your will, which will help to insure the Association's carrying on. Counsel advises that legacies to the Nantucket Historical Association are allowable deductions under the Federal Estate Tax iaw.

Legacies will be used for general or specific purposes as directed bv the donor. A sample form may read as follows: "I give, devise, and bequeath to the Nantucket Historical Association, a corporation duly or­ ganized under the laws of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and located in the Town of Nantucket, in said Commonwealth, the sum °f Dollars."

Legacies may be made also in real estate, bonds, stocks, books, paint­ ings, or any objects having historical value, in which event a brief descrip­ tion of the same should be inserted instead of a sum of money.

Please send all communications to the Secretary, Box 1016, Nantucket, Massachusetts 02554. Office, Fair Street Museum.