My First Visit to Nantucket

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The Ocean House, now the Jared Coffin House, in 1910 From the NHA collection.

My First Visit to Nantucket By

David M. Ogden

Shortly before Easter 1948, and during my junior year at Yale, I realized I had one last summer before graduating and beginning a career to find a lucrative job that could also be carefree and fun.

In an effort to find such a position, I asked a number of classmates how they had spent past summers. One told me he had made a lot of money and had a wonderful time working as a bartender in the Tap Room at the Ocean House on Nantucket Island, which I had never heard of. He suggested I write to Mr. Eben Hutchinson and ask for that position. This I did, outlining my experiences in the Army Air Corps and any other information I could think of, which might induce a favorable reply. Eben answered promptly, explaining that all positions in the bar had been filled but that he still needed a bellboy. If I would like to fill that position, the job was mine. I accepted.

After final exams, I boarded the train in New Haven and rode

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Historic Nantucket

directly to Woods Hole where, after a short walk across the dock, I boarded the boat for Nantucket. It was not crowded; but there was a snack bar, and I spent the last quarter in my pocket to buy a beer and ponder my future. As we neared Nantucket on that rainy night, I realized I had no idea how to find the Ocean House and hoped a taxi would be on hand at arrival. I was therefore delighted when, as I walked down the gangplank, I heard a chorus of voices from the limousine operators calling, "Wauwinet House," "Old Sconset Inn," "Harbor House," "Sea Cliff Inn," "Ocean House."

The fellow representing the Ocean House was Wyn, who, I soon found, was a student at Amherst College. When I told him I was the new bellboy, he was stunned and dismayed. He said that there would now be three bellboys and that only one was really needed. We drove the three blocks up Broad Street in the Ocean House station wagon to the hotel where he introduced me to Mrs. Hutchinson, the manager and owner. She promptly told me she did not need another bellboy, but I told her I had spent my last quarter and was hungry. She gave me dinner and said I could spend the night at the hotel and go look for a job in the morning. The next day, I spoke to Eben who immediately rehired me.

The Ocean House was a grand old brick building with a huge porch across its entire front. Inside there was a reception area, a formal parlor, a large dining room, and a kitchen, all on the first floor. Behind the hotel was a two-story dormitory where the girls had their rooms and a common bath on the second floor, while the boys had their rooms and another bath on the first floor. A stairway came down the side of the building from the second floor.

Wyn showed me to my room and then introduced me to Dick, the second bellboy, who was a student at Tufts. It was Dick who suggested we discuss over a beer at Cy's Green Coffeepot how we were going to work together and possibly make some money for all three of us.

The problem, it seemed, was that the majority of the hotel guests were participating in the New Haven Railroad Tours. Their excursion ticket covered all the resort areas in New England and included all expenses, even tips. They would arrive, therefore, with a lot of luggage and the satisfaction of knowing that the bellboys would work hard on their behalf for no additional compensation.

The good news, Wyn and Dick told me, was the high quality of the employees, not only at our hotel but all over the island. All were

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The Ocean House, now the Jared Coffin House, today From the NHA collection

college students who frequently got together for parties on the beach where open fires were permitted. The summer employees, they told me, had a lot more fun than the paying guests! We left Cy's with the understanding that we would split up the work load and see, over the next few days, just how serious our financial problem was going to be.

Luncheon for the staff at the Ocean House in those early summer days of 1948 consisted of peanut butter and jelly on sal tine crackers, served with a glass of cold milk. While I knew this was wholesome and tasty fare, it was not my idea of a satisfactory meal so, after the second day of the same, I began to express my doubts and dissatisfactions about the whole arrangement. On the third day, however, two things happened which completely changed everything.

The first occurred as I was eating my peanut butter and jelly on a saltine cracker. I glanced out the kitchen window and saw, descending the dormitory stairs, a girl whom I had never noticed before. I knew nothing about her, of course, but I said to myself, "There is the girl I am going to marry." Her name was Betty, and she was not enthralled with me because she was pinned to a boy

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from Amherst and felt I should not be objecting so strenuously to peanut butter, jelly, saltines and milk.

The second event was really a decision Wyn, Dick and I made. We decided to charge fifty cents per person for transporting the hotel guests to or from the boat. It was the only way we could make money at all. Well, this idea went into effect that afternoon and although there were some moans and groans, everyone paid. Our pockets began to jingle once again.

Our duties were primarily to keep the chairs on the porch properly aligned, to drive the guests to and from the dock or airport, to clean and vacuum the parlor thoroughly every day and to take the trash and garbage out to the dump whenever necessary. One of us was always up for the early shift. After getting those who were departing on the early boat safely aboard, we would hurry back to the hotel where we were on constant alert to dash somewhere to borrow or buy bread, bacon or whatever staple was in short supply in the kitchen that morning. I know we owed my friend at the Cliff House much more coffee than we repaid.

One day late in July, everyone was excited because, for the first time that summer, the chef was serving fresh lobster salad for luncheon. When I returned from a trip to the dump about 12:30,1 encountered an uproar because the chef could not find the lobster. It turned out that the "fresh" lobster was a ten-pound can, and it was missing. The chef asked if by any chance it could have fallen off the counter into the trash which I had just taken to the dump. A rush round-trip saved luncheon for all because I found the can. In 1948, an open fire was burning daily at the dump and, when I got there, flames were licking the label. But I saved the can without burning my fingers too badly. I am sure the guests wondered what had caused the delay, but I am positive that they never guessed the truth about the "fresh" lobster salad.

Then, as now, there was a lot to do on Nantucket. Swimming, sailing, tennis and golf were active favorites. Everyone also enjoyed the Downy Flake, Cy's, the Dreamland Theatre and a dance hall on Main Street where the orchestra always seemed to be playing "Bye Bye, Blackbird." A delightful summer was rapidly passing. I gave Betty my fraternity pin over a beer at the Mad Hatter.

In the middle of August, we had our last crisis. The three bellboys were called sternly into the parlor by Mrs. Hutchinson to meet the president of the New Haven Railroad. He had told her that we were

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charging guests fifty cents for the ride from the boat. This had been brought to his attention in letters of complaint from people on his tour. Could her three wonderful bellboys possibly have done such an awful thing?

I assured her that it was true because that was the only way we could subsist without tips from the railroad tourists and other guests. The president fortunately had a good sense of humor and laughed, but he also asked us to stop our practice immediately. We agreed we would but told Mrs. Hutchinson that to do so meant we had to be put on salary. She agreed, so all ended well. Most of the staff left the Ocean House shortly after Labor Day.

I certainly had the fun I was looking for that summer. Charging for the short ride to the hotel was not enough to make the summer financially profitable, but in a much more important way it was extremely valuable because I had met Betty. We were engaged that Christmas Eve and married in July 1950. The long engagement enabled her to graduate from college.

We returned to Nantucket in 1952 to stay with Betty's parents who had rented a cottage on Fair Street. We saw Eben and his mother. She was so happy for us that we both were delighted we had gone to see her. It was our last sight of the Ocean House because when we next returned to the island, it had become the Jared Coffin House, with a different management style and a gourmet dining room!

I am now retired, and Betty and I live on the island year-round. We look forward to having our three children and their children come to visit. They have as much fun here as we did way back in that memorable year of 1948.

David and Betty Ogden live in a delightful post and beam house on Meadow View Drive. They are serving as cochairmen of the August 1989 Antiques Show for the Historical Association. David presented the above story at a Rotary Club luncheon and agreed to contribute it to the series of contemporary personal narratives about Nantucket experiences which is being published in Historic Nantucket. Readers are cordially invited to submit legible remembrances of an interesting nature, serious or humorous, with or without photographs, for possible future publication.