Historic Nantucket, Fall 2018, Vol. 68, No.3

THE ORIGINS OF THE RAINBOW FLEET 16 MEDICINE ABOARD THE WHALERS 21 THOMAS NICKERSON LOGBOOK RETURNS TO NANTUCKET 26

THE NHA IS HONORED TO BE THE 2019 LOAN EXHIBITOR

BOARD OF TRUSTEES Kelly Williams, PRESIDENT Victoria McManus, VICE PRESIDENT David D. Worth Jr., VICE PRESIDENT

SEE YOU IN NYC!

William J. Boardman, TREASURER AND FRIENDS OF THE NHA VP Michael Cozort, CLERK Sarah Alger Patricia Anathan Josette Blackmore Susan Blount Anne Marie Bratton Chip Carver Olivia Charney Wylie Collins Amanda Cross Cam Gammill Graham Goldsmith Wendy Hudson Carl Jelleme William Little Carla McDonald Kennedy Richardson

SAVE THE DATE

Settee, ca. 1943

JANUARY 18–27, 2019

Bequest of Hannah D. Monaghan NHA Collections 1997.101.1

Carla McDonald Kennedy Richardson Marla Sanford Janet Sherlund, TRUSTEE EMERITA

A BENEFIT FOR

Daisy Soros

EAST SIDE HOUSE SETTLEMENT

Carter Stewart Phoebe Tudor

PARK AVENUE ARMORY, NYC

thewintershow.org

PR I NT E D I N T H E U SA O N R E CY C L E D PA PE R , U S I N G V EG E TAB L E-B AS E D I N K

Finn Wentworth Jay Wilson, FRIENDS OF THE NHA PRESIDENT Alisa Wood James Russell, GOSNELL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

ON THE COVER Rainbow over the Old Mill, taken on October 15 around 7 a.m.

PHOTO BY ROBERT “ROB” MCNEIL III, P.E. MPA

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET (ISSN 0439-2248) is published by the Nantucket Historical Association, 15 Broad Street, Nantucket, Massachusetts. Periodical postage paid at Nantucket, MA, and additional entry offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket, P.O. Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554–1016; (508) 228–1894; fax: (508) 228–5618, info@nha.org. For information visit nha.org. ©2018 by the Nantucket Historical Association. a l l p h o t o s b y n h a s ta f f u n l e s s o t h e r w i s e n o t e d .

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / FALL 2018

AS WE PREPARE FOR THANKSGIVING, it’s worth reflecting on the depth of experiences offered at the NHA this year. The Old Mill has ground its last bag of corn for the season. It ran with frequency this summer, to the delight of many. It’s remarkable to think that it first started to turn in 1746. Trustee Carl Jelleme, Director of Facilities Ed Rudd, and a volunteer crew of island landscapers upgraded the site. Now Worcester Polytechnic Institute students are designing “simple machine” interactives for use by children there next year.

At the Oldest House, Garden and Landscape Manager, Kathrina Marques is preparing the colonial garden beds for winter. Next year she plans to sow a Native garden as well.

Working with Plimoth Plantation and others, we will explore early Wampanoag life and culture, all on the grounds of the 1686 Jethro Coffin House.

On Main Street, arguably one of the most beautiful streets in the country, the Hadwen House and Garden welcomed 8,000 visitors. We look forward to this December’s inaugural Decorated House Tour of the Hadwen House, Thomas Macy House and Greater Light. The contemporary sculpture exhibition in the formal garden was well received, and we thank the six artists who participated. Inside, investing in a new climate control system was a smart decision. The home was comfortable to visit during the hot summer days, plus the artifacts were well cared for. Soon the 1st floor exhibitions will echo the historic home, its furnishings, and related decorative arts, plus tell the story of architecture on the island in a joint exhibit with Nantucket Preservation Trust.

The intellectually rich exhibition titled Rights and Race burrowed deeply into stories revolving around abolitionism, equal rights, and civil rights. We’ll stay with this theme and install it on the 2nd floor in new air-conditioned galleries, and introduce an exhibition on Herman Melville to honor the 200th anniversary of his birth. Assisting in this effort are students from Boston University College of Fine Arts.

The Thomas Macy House at 99 Main Street opened its doors for walking tours, which were appreciated by all who participated. The Research Library on Fair Street experienced a five-fold increase in attendance over last year. Likely it was the draw of Susan Boardman’s exhibit combined

with the good work of Amelia Holmes, Associate Director of The Research Library, in opening the space more frequently to the public. Check out the NHA’s website under “research” to see just how much new information has been posted.

Click on “Ask Libby” to get your answer. It’s very impressive.

At the main campus, we have three surprises for you in 2019. A new Children’s Park will open as soon as the weather warms. Gosnell Hall will receive a facelift as we redesign this central exhibit, and much of the Peter Foulger Museum building will be repurposed to house a brand new fine arts exhibition hall. Many of you have recommended this usage to us and now your dreams will come true.

The NHA’s appearance in The Winter Show, co-chaired

by Lucinda Ballard with Arie L. Kopelman as chairman emeritus, will coincide with the 125th anniversary of the Association’s founding. We are grateful to be invited to participate in this unique opportunity which will introduce the NHA’s superlative collection to a national audience. Looking ahead to the summer, we are delighted to announce that the NHA and The Antiques Council will collaborate. Our major summer fundraiser, Nantucket by Design, will align with the Nantucket Summer Antiques Show in August 2019, with its opening night preview party benefitting the NHA. Reflecting back to this year’s NBD, privately hosted dinners at the Hadwen House, Greater Light and Oldest House were unique experiences. You should consider hosting your special occasion in one of these treasured locations.

With 78,000 square feet under roof, the NHA campus is expansive. It is also expensive! We thank you for supporting the mission and, thereby ensuring that all that resides under these roofs is protected. We wish you a happy Thanksgiving and look forward to seeing you at this year’s twin anniversary celebrations of Festival of Wreaths and Trees.

Kelly Williams, President

James Russell, Gosnell Executive Director

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1894 FOUNDERS SOCIETY hrough this prominent giving circle, the Board of Trustees recognizes the cumulative giving by individual donors to assist with the NHA’s annual operating needs. 1894 Founders Society members contribute towards the annual fund, membership, and fundraising events, as well as for exhibitions, educational programs, and other special initiatives. Their generous support allows this venerable institution to further its mission.

For more information about the 1894 Founders Society, email us at 1894founders@nha.org or call (508) 228–1894.

Supporters June 2017–June 2018

$50,000 and above President’s Circle Anonymous Leslie Forbes & David Worth $25,000 to $49,999 Margaret Ritchie Battle Maureen & Edward Bousa Anne DeLaney & Chip Carver Kelly Williams & Andrew Forsyth Helen & Will Little Bonnie & Peter McCausland Franci Neely Laura & Bob Reynolds Susan & L. Dennis Shapiro Janet & Rick Sherlund Harriet & Warren Stephens Phoebe & Bobby Tudor Kim & Finn Wentworth $10,000 to $24,999 Mary Randolph Ballinger Susan Blount & Richard Bard Carol & Harold Baxter Pamela & Max Berry Susan & Bill Boardman Anne Marie & Doug Bratton Jenny & Wylie Collins Mary & Marvin Davidson Deborah & Bruce Duncan Annabelle & Gregory Fowlkes Nan & Chuck Geschke Barbara & Amos Hostetter Carl Jelleme Ann & Charles Johnson †

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Harvey Jones Mary Ann & Paul Judy Jean Doyen de Montaillou & Michael Kovner Miriam & Sonny† Mandell Victoria McManus & John McDermott Carla & Jack McDonald Diane & Britt Newhouse Mary & Al Novissimo Ella Prichard Susan & Kennedy Richardson Margaret & John Ruttenberg Molly & Patrick Ryan Wendy & Eric Schmidt Helen & Chuck Schwab Kathleen & Robert Stansky Merrielou & Ed Symes Jason Tilroe Stephanie & Jay Wilson $5,000 to $9,999 Susan Akers Patricia & Tom Anathan Laurel & Clifford Asness Marlene Benson Lesley Blanchard Diana Brown Laura & Bill Buck Donald Burns Martha Cox Amanda Cross John DeCiccio Elizabeth Miller & James Dinan Ana & Michael Ericksen Ola & Randall Fojtasek

deceased

HISTORIC NANTUCKET / SPRING 2018

Julie & Cam Gammill Shelley & Graham Goldsmith Barbara & Ed Hajim Kim & Alan Hartman Julia & John Hilton Wendy Hubbell Cynthia & Evan Jones Jill & Stephen Karp Coco & Arie Kopelman Hampton Lynch Ashley & Jeffrey McDermott Sarah & Jeff Newton Carter & Chris Norton Shira & Brad Paul Liz & Jeff Peek Ann & Chris Quick Maria & George Roach Danielle Rollins Linda Saligman Kathryn & John Salmanowitz Denise & Andrew Saul Thekla & Don Shackelford Mary & Don Shockey Daisy Soros Maria & Bill Spears Melinda & Paul Sullivan Theresa & Michael Taylor Garrett Thornburg Louise Turner Liz & Geoff Verney Karen & Chris Watkins Alisa & Alastair Wood

$3,000 to $4,999 Nancy & Doug Abbey Janet & Sam Bailey Dinah & Barry Barksdale Edith Bouriez Marianna & Chris Brewster Christy Brown Olivia & Felix Charney Prudence & William Crozier Lucy & Nat Day Catherine & Michael Farello Kathy & H. Crowell Freeman Karyn Frist Robert Greenhill Sabine & Richard Griffin Kaaren & Charles Hale Cassandra Henderson Linda & George Kelly Kathleen & Ken Kies Sharon & Frank Lorenzo Helen Lynch Sarah Alger & Bruce Malenfant Courtney & Greg McKechnie Ronay & Richard Menschel Ann & Craig Muhlhauser Kathy & Angelo Orciuoli Kathryn & Roger Penske Bonnie Sacerdote Marla & Terry Sanford Joanna & Steven Sarracino Lorraine Snell Kate Lubin & Glendon Sutton Ann & Peter Taylor Alison & Charles Townsend

MEMBERSHIP STORIES

SHARE YOUR NHA STORY Do you have a memorable tale to tell?

Contact Lexi Norton at lnorton@nha.org

A 28-YEAR NHA MEMBER AND WELL-KNOWN ISLANDER SHARES HIS STORY

By Allen B. Reinhard

I FIRST ARRIVED ON NANTUCKET as a teenager in 1961 with my best friend from high school, Paul, and his mother, who had visited the year before. We were here for the month of August just prior to our senior year. Paul’s mother was a librarian at the Oberlin College art museum and secured each of us a pass to the NHA properties so we could learn about Nantucket’s history. We visited each of the properties, and Paul and I made several trips to the Whaling Museum and our other favorite sites. During those twenty-two summers on the island, I made a point of revisiting the NHA properties to further my knowledge of Nantucket’s history.

In 1990, when I moved permanently to Nantucket, I became a member of the NHA, and I continue to visit the Whaling Museum regularly and to participate in the expanded programs.

I enjoy the lectures and other special functions and continue to visit the properties on a regular basis. My knowledge of Nantucket’s history, geology, plant, and animal life continues to grow, from a foundation of what I’ve learned in my years of participation in NHA programs. For the past twenty-eight years, I have put my knowledge to use as ranger for the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and in positions I still hold and those I have held in town government and on various nonprofit boards. I consider my involvement with the NHA to be the cornerstone of my participation in the life of this wonderful community we share on Nantucket.

Above, Alan today, and below in 1960s

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DIGITAL INITIATIVES GOAL: DIGITIZE 100% OF THE COLLECTION The NHA’s Research Library holds unique materials that draw hundreds of researchers into the library’s sky-lit reading room every year. Visitors range from academic scholars to those who simply want to see a whaling logbook in person.

Technical services projects, such as archival description, cataloging, and digitization, are focused on increased accessibility and long-term stewardship of collections. Staff take an iterative approach to these processes, which has led us to develop an inhouse digitization program, select new collections catalog software, and develop new volunteer-based research projects.

Bookeye 4 Z2 planetary scanner

The NHA is significantly advancing its digitization hardware, software, and capacity thanks to a leadership gift from Connie and Tom Cigarran, in addition to individual grants and gifts for specific projects and programs.

The new scanner will advance the cataloging and digitization of the collection

FIRST PHASE OF WHALING LOGBOOK PROJECT COMPLETE In August, the Research Library wrapped up the first phase in its multi-year project to digitize its whaling logbooks and journals collection. Funded by a $40,000 Nantucket Community Preservation Committee grant, forty-one logbooks in fragile condition were digitized by the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass., and the digital files are now available to the public, at no charge, through the Research Library’s online manuscripts catalog.

This first round of logbooks was selected for imaging due to their fragile condition. Offering researchers digital surrogates helps to preserve the original items by reducing handling and potential damage. Diverse audiences will benefit from having digital access to these unique research materials, from scholars around the world to children in Nantucket’s classrooms and members of the general public pursuing individual areas of interest.

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SEEKING LOGBOOKS & JOURNALS Do you have logbooks or journals documenting whaling voyages on Nantucket vessels? Please consider lending them to the NHA for digitization.

Providing scholars with digital surrogates helps drive research into Nantucket’s history and its role in the whaling industry. If you have logbooks or journals to loan, or any questions about this project, please send an email to Amelia Holmes, Associate Director of the Research Library, at aholmes@nha.org.

COLLECTIONS CATALOG MIGRATION UNDERWAY

By Thanksgiving, it will be easier than ever to locate and access collections. The NHA is in the process of launching a new catalog that will improve cataloging, searching, and browsing hundreds of thousands of records. The current collections catalog, which has been in use for nearly twenty years, is long in need of a complete upgrade.

The new software, Eloquent, adheres to national descriptive standards and has a unified search, allowing users to conduct a single search and get results across our varied collections. It also allows staff to attach multiple images to a catalog record as well as other media formats such as PDFs and audiovisual files. As a result, catalog records will provide stronger access to remote researchers who are unable to visit the NHA in person.

MARINERS LOST AT SEA PROJECT This summer, interns and volunteers at the Research Library took on a project of compiling the names of Nantucketers who drowned at sea. Although the list can never be comprehensive, as early records are lost, the goal is to provide an accounting of those who took to the sea for their livelihood and lost their lives in the process. Each intern was assigned a decade, and they combed through the Nantucket Atheneum’s online library of digitized newspapers looking for mentions of drownings. This work was continued by Louisa Affleck and library intern Abbie Minard, a Princeton University student, whose internship was supported by a gift from Stephanie and Jay Wilson. They also worked in conjunction with volunteers Joanne Polster and Owen Henahan to develop a list of 706 persons, identified thus far, who died by shipwreck or at sea from 1722 through 1821. A list of names will be placed in the Quaker Meeting House.

NHA Collections 1992.0303.002

DIGITAL INITIATIVE VOLUNTEERS Digital projects are rarely completed independently. We rely on collaborations to achieve our goals of stewardship and increased access to collections. If you are interested in volunteering at the Research Library, please email Amelia Holmes, Associate Director of the Research Library, at aholmes@nha.org.

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Jo Brian Royster, Vicky Goss, and Gayle Michael at Daffodil Weekend picnic in ’Sconset, 1985 NHA COLLECTIONS P10149

THANK YOU Isky Santos, unidentified individual, and Mina Manner NHA COLLECTIONS PH127-SC17

’SCONSET ORAL HISTORY PROJECT LAUNCHED

The NHA thanks the Judy Family Foundation for providing the lead funding for the project, which was matched by generous gifts from additional foundations and individuals. $25,000 Judy Family Foundation $5,000 to $10,000 William Charlton Daintry and Reb Jensen

Under the rubric of documenting each neighborhood, the NHA launched the ’Sconset Oral History Project. This web-based project can be found on a new webpage titled my “My Nantucket Neighborhood.” The site includes photographs, documents, art, and oral histories relating to more than a century of life in Siasconset, which convey the unique personality of the village to islanders, visitors, and interested individuals everywhere.

The ’Sconset Oral History Project goal is to collect, preserve, and present the voices and stories of the village and make them widely accessible through digitization methods. The project represents an expansion of the “At the Pump” interactive oral history display, which was part of a major exhibition ’Sconset 02564 a decade ago. A wealth of oral history interviews and videos created for that exhibition are being edited and linked to the website. In addition, the NHA is partnering with Nantucket filmmaker John Women on the porch of Stanton on a series of new interviews 25 Shell Street, Siasconset with ’Sconset residents that will become NHA COLLECTIONS GPN527 part of “My Nantucket Neighborhood: ’Sconset.”

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Maribel Finnell Foundation Liz and Jeff Peek $2,500 Bill Belichick Tomkins-Broll Family Foundation Deborah and Jim Walker Suzy and Jack Welch $1,000 to $2,000 Kathleen and Jim Poole Emma and Tom Ward Ginnie and Tom Wright Up to $500 Kathy and Joe Arvay Karyn Butler and John Thompson Clement and Richard Durkes Kitty and Peter Goldsmith Hollie and Jamie Holt Pamelee and Ray Murphy Cynthia and Michael Roberts Lynne and John Stahler

NHA PUBLICATIONS r. Stuart M. Frank, one of the world’s foremost experts on scrimshaw and an NHA Research Fellow, is authoring the first scholarly publication on the association’s scrimshaw collection.

This highly anticipated book, with a working title of The Illustrated Catalogue of the NHA Scrimshaw Collection, will take a holistic approach to illustrate the many different kinds of scrimshaw in our collection— including teeth and tusks as well as swifts, busks, toys, and many other household objects and tools made from ivory. Although small portions of the collection have been published previously, never have so many pieces been described nor in such scholarly depth. The hardcover 11-by-9-inch, 350-page book will be heavily illustrated with more than 600 photographs by Jeff Allen.

For many years, Dr. Frank has taken a special interest in identifying scrimshaw artists and attributing particular works to specific makers.

Subsequently, this book will include new artistic attributions, new biographical details, and new analyses of the printed sources whalemen used for inspiration.

Panbone whaling panorama, ca. 1830 ACQUIRED IN TRADE FROM DAVID GRAY NHA COLLECTIONS 1956.3.1

SUPPORT THIS NHA PUBLICATION Gifts of all sizes will be greatly appreciated. Contributions of $1000 and above will be recognized on a donor page in the book.

HOLIDAY GIFTS THAT INSPIRE The NHA published Collecting Nantucket: Artifacts from an Island Community by Michael R. Harrison, Obed Macy Director of Research & Collections.

This copiously illustrated work explores one hundred fascinating artifacts and documents from the NHA’s permanent collection.

A second edition of “Sometimes think of me”: Notable Nantucket Women through the Centuries, with embroidered narratives by Susan Boardman and biographies

by Betsy Tyler, includes new narratives of historic and contemporary women.

Available for purchase at nantucketmuseumshop.org

nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

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The Studio at Greater Light, 1986 NHA COLLECTIONS P9803

G R E AT E R L I G H T

Beverly Hall as Hanna Monaghan

REINTERPRETED n December, the NHA will reopen Greater Light to the public with a revised interpretation. In contrast to previous uses of the space, which has been used as a gallery and for public programs, curatorial staff will transform the Studio, or great room, into an historic interior, showing what the room looked like when Hanna and Gertrude Monaghan lived in the home.

The exhibit will feature examples of the Monaghans’ eclectic mix of furnishings and art, collected during their lifetime and melded together to create a unique Nantucket space.

Members of the curatorial department have been researching the look of the room during Gertrude and Hanna’s residency, and preparing more than thirty objects for exhibition. Greater Light closed for daily tours on Columbus Day, they moved the furnishings to the site and assembled the exhibit, which will allow visitors to walk around the interior for close appreciation of the collection.

Highlights of the reinterpretation include a replica of the Persian curtain that once hung across the Studio’s dramatic floor to ceiling window. In addition to evoking the earlier interior, the curtain will serve to control the amount of natural light in the space and protect the objects. This will allow many of the Monaghan’s more fragile items like their Navajo rugs, artworks, and a sofa embroidered with illustrations of family history to be exhibited.

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Greater Light, located at 8 Howard Street, was the summer home and studio of Gertrude and Hanna Monaghan, two independent, highly educated, unmarried Quaker sisters from Philadelphia. Gertrude (1887–1962), a professional artist, and Hanna (1889– 1972), an actress and author, first came to the island in 1923, renting a small studio near the harbor.

Originally built around 1790 as a livestock barn, Greater Light was discovered by the sisters in 1929 when they followed a herd of cattle up Main Street.

Enthralled, they purchased the dilapidated building and set about transforming it into their own summer oasis, adorning it with cast-off architectural elements, decorative objects, and eclectic furniture. Their personal aesthetic blended art and whimsy with an appreciation of unique handcrafted works—woven, carved, forged, or painted—that coalesced in an environment that is a monument to their spirit.

The NHA is grateful to Beverly Hall, who tirelessly performs Hanna in Her Garden for visitors to the property. The NHA acknowledges the Margaret R. Ritchie Battle Family Charitable Fund’s generosity for supporting the new installation as well as the Nantucket Art Colony exhibitions which was presented in partnership with Artists Association of Nantucket.

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Left to right: NHA Manager of Education, Amy Durbin; NHS Students Jecika Simkhada, Marta Saravia, Samir Banjara, Breanna Barrett, Faith Hensley

YOUTH MENTORSHIP PROGRAM UPDATE uring the summer, seven Nantucket High School students participated in our Youth Mentorship Program. It was a pleasure having these talented and impressive students wear our NHA uniform. We learned much from them as they assisted in most aspects of the day-to-day operations.

They experienced valuable work lessons and “how small details add up to the make the big picture,” as described by mentee Marta Savaria. Four of the students, having completed the spring portion of the program, took a field trip to Boston and to see how other museums operate. Breanna Barrett notes that “working at the NHA has definitely helped me with my professionalism by teaching me how to handle visitors in a mannerly fashion…” Mentees gain a greater understanding of their shared history and an appreciation for the NHA in the community.

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The NHA is grateful for the generous support by an anonymous donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation for Nantucket, a grant from the ReMain Nantucket Fund at the Community Foundation for Nantucket, and by a gift from Suzanne Clary, made in memory of Elizabeth “Libby” Oldham, which makes this program possible.

NHA INTERNSHIPS NOW OFFERED YEAR ROUND One of the great joys is our ability to host interns throughout the year. The breath of the organization is such that in any given season there is much work to do in our various departments. Interns, both undergraduate and graduate, respond to our call. Their energy and enthusiasm is infectious. Who can forget our summer interns who bravely donned whalers’ costumes in the summer heat to beckon tourists? These same interns conducted site surveys and acted as interpreters at the historic sites. The Research Library benefited from the work of a collections assessment intern with assistance on projects including the creation of finding aids for manuscript collections, copies for digitized logbooks, and the development of a collections assessment guide for future interns to continue this work.

This fall, interns continue to assist at the Research Library and in the Education Department. The Research Library welcomed two interns who are working in the archives, from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Glasgow. They are focusing on in-house digitization of the NHA’s logbook collection and assist with the collections assessment project.

COLLEGE CLASSES FOR CREDIT WITH THE NHA

Left to right NHA Summer 2018 Interns: Edward Harthorn, Jake Hill, Rita Carr, Claire Barnewolt, Paul Cahill, Karl Wietzel

Abbie Minard, Collections Assessment Intern

This fall the NHA welcomes students from both Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Boston University (BU). Students from WPI will illustrate engineering and mathematical concepts behind simple machines. Interactive displays will be developed to demonstrate how things work. Students are designing concepts this fall that will be fabricated in the winter/spring.

BU students will reimagine the Rights and Race exhibition at Hadwen House, presenting new and contemporary ways to engage visitors with this important Nantucket story.

Isabella Browne Lörcher, Collections Assessment Intern

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OPTIMIZING OUR COLLECTION OF PROPERTIES or the vast majority of visitors, the most visible way that the NHA accomplishes its mission is through historic preservation. For 124 years it has focused funds and efforts on preserving some of the most important and recognized structures on the island, making them inclusive and accessible to the public. The NHA is steward of twelve pre-Civil War buildings, two early 20th-century buildings, four sites, plus the modern Whaling Museum, Gosnold collection storage center, and an employee housing apartment building. Remarkably, 78,000 square feet is under roof.

That’s a lot of shingles!

An important objective is to find the best use for the properties such that they provide maximum public benefit. Consequently, the NHA is renovating the Thomas Macy Warehouse (TMW) and the Hadwen House concurrently with a forecasted completion of April 2020.

The Board of Trustees thanks the Nantucket Community Preservation Committee (CPC) for awarding $150,000 in grant funding last year, which, along with an additional $50,000 from the Massachusetts Historical Commission and $10,000 from the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, allows for necessary external restoration of the TMW. The NHA is also grateful to the Town of Nantucket for installing a handicap ramp, which provides unfettered access into the building. Exterior renovations are anticipated at $300,000 of which the NHA will seek the balance from its membership.

The NHA is profoundly thankful to architect Robert “Bob” Miklos, FAIA, founder of designLAB architects for his generous pro-bono help as we renovate the Thomas Macy Warehouse and Hadwen House.

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THOMAS MACY WAREHOUSE In July 2018, Trustees voted to repurpose the TMW from its current use as a leased commercial space to an NHA-operated retail and exhibition center. An NHArun retail function will be on the first floor and historical displays will be designed on the second floor. The original winch, which is thought to be the only extant version on public display, will be repaired and presented. Given the TMW’s historical significance, coupled with its strategic location on Straight Wharf, it is the expectation that this site will serve as a gateway site for visitors to learn about Nantucket’s history.

The TMW interior is in urgent need of significant infrastructural upgrades. Life-safety equipment and ADA access to the second floor must be addressed.

Long overdue upgrades to plumbing and electrical systems, plus the installation of an HVAC system, will serve the structure well into the future. This interior renovation will cost $700,000.

HADWEN HOUSE The Hadwen House was opened to the public as a house museum 54 years ago. It remained as such for decades but then was closed, except for the occasional house tour.

Starting with the summer 2018 season, the NHA reopened the first floor of the Hadwen House to visitors. A new HVAC system was installed in the spring along with new exhibitions. Trustees are encouraged by attendance to the site and project 8,000 visitors by year end. The NHA believes that the Hadwen House can make an important contribution to cultural tourism, particularly for visitors interested in the architecture and decorative arts of the period. Therefore, as the principal steward of Nantucket history, the NHA seeks funding of $600,000 to renovate the first and second floors.

Clearly, a shuttered Hadwen House is not additive to the NHA’s mission. As an expedient, summer interns stayed in three of the five upper bedrooms, and occasional private events occurred in the gardens. This past summer, visitors enjoyed access into the house, experienced an exhibit that was tailored to the surroundings, and appreciated a sculpture exhibition in the garden, which was recently renovated with $12,500 of grant support from the Nantucket Garden Club.

All of this suggests that there is the opportunity to create a historic house museum experience at the Hadwen House, the Thomas Macy House, and Greater Light and to do so for minimal investment.

The restoration project at the Hadwen House will include the installation of required life-safety and ADA equipment and services coupled with updated plumbing, electrical and HVAC systems. Completion of this work will allow the NHA to provide 2,500 square feet of additional exhibition space to the public on the second floor plus make the equivalent space on the first floor fully ADA accessible.

As with many of the NHA’s projects, restoration of the Thomas Macy Warehouse in concert with the Hadwen House will allow the NHA to fulfill its core mission objectives by rehabilitating, restoring, and preserving two of the island’s most historic resources and using them in ways that are highly interesting and accessible to the public.

OUTDOOR FAMILY LEARNING AT OUR PROPERTIES A series of outdoor hands-on programs are being specifically designed for families and will be implemented across three properties next summer, highlighting whale ecology, native culture, and an appreciation of simple mechanics. Ed Rudd, Director of Facilities and Mary Emery Lacoursiere, The Peter M. & Bonnie J. Sacerdote Chair of Education & Community Relations, will manage the projects.

The first theme focuses on whale conservation and ecology. The program will be centered in a new Children’s Park located adjacent to the Candle Factory and behind the museum shop. Elements will include an inflatable 20-foot whale, a sail boat, and interactives that foster an appreciation for marine mammals.

The second theme speaks to the under-told story of Wampanoag life and culture on island for 3,000 years. The NHA will tell this story on the property of the Oldest House. Working with Plimoth Plantation and juxtaposing the current Colonial garden and the sheep pen, a Wampanoag garden will be sown, a dug-out canoe will be on display (or carved in situ), along with programs that communicate the Native way of life pre and post-1659 contact with English settlers.

The third theme, located at the Old Mill, will illustrate the mechanical concepts behind simple machines. Interactives will be developed to demonstrate how things work. Worcester Polytechnic Institute students are designing models this fall that will be fabricated in the spring. Examples will include how cogs, pulleys, and levers can lighten the load and how wind power is harnessed by the mill.

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THE ORIGINS OF THE

RAINBOW FLEET

By Michael R. Harrison

very August, as part of Nantucket Race Week, the little catboats of the island’s beloved Rainbow Fleet raise their colorful sails and parade around Brant Point, weather permitting. This island tradition dates to the 1920s, and grew out of efforts by the leaders of the Nantucket Yacht Club to find a suitable boat for children and teenagers to learn to sail in.

Originally, a catboat was any boat with a “cat rig,” that is, a single mast well forward supporting a single gaff-headed sail. Over time, this rig became associated with beamy, shoal-bottomed centerboard boats designed to operate in the windy, choppy, and shallow waters of such places as Lower New York Bay, Massachusetts Bay, and Nantucket Sound. The catboat is, historically, the quintessential Nantucket boat after the whaleboat. Although not exclusive to the island, the catboat was the dominant sailboat in the local fishing fleet and the quintessential party boat for summer visitors from the 1860s to the 1920s. Enormous catboats up to 40 feet long developed, able to profitably fish in Nantucket Sound or carry dozens of passengers on pleasure trips around the harbor. Smaller catboats designed for racing developed from these large workboats, particularly in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Many other boat types have sailed at Nantucket, but the catboat alone represents island’s dual roles as a place of hard work and carefree play.

Pleasure boating was well established as a feature of

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the Nantucket summer scene long before the Nantucket Yacht Club was founded in 1906. Immediately the club organized races where the members could pit their catboats, knockabouts, and other recreational craft against each other. Because different boats have different performance characteristics, a system of handicapping was used for certain races to make the competition fairer, and boats of similar rigs or designs were raced only against each other. Before long, the yacht club, like many other clubs across the country, sought to encourage members to invest in boats all built to the same design, to make racing fairer and eliminate the need for handicapping.

The first step in this direction came in 1910, when a committee of the club commissioned 25-year-old B. Karl Sharp (1884–1962) to design a 13-foot catboat for members’ use as a “one-design” racing boat. Sharp was a lifelong island summer resident and a son of Dr. Benjamin Sharp (1858–1915), a gifted zoologist and sailor who contributed extensively to the cultural life of Nantucket.

Above: “The Rainbow Fleet, outward bound, Nantucket, Mass.” Postcard

by H. Marshall Gardiner, from a staged photograph taken in 1929. Helen Sherman recalled many years later that he image was planned by Austin Strong. The boats were towed around the Brant Point by the Nantucket Yacht Club’s motor launch. Note the dead calm water.

NHA COLLECTIONS PC-BrantPoint-47

An early catboat anchored in the harbor, 1866, photograph by Josiah Freeman NHA COLLECTIONS SG14618

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Captain George A. Veeder (far left) with a party of holidaymakers aboard the Seminole, August 16, 1886. The Seminole was typical of the large catboats that operated out of Nantucket at the end of the nineteenth century. Photograph by Harry Platt NHA COLLECTIONS P22465

The elder Sharp instilled in his two sons a deep love of sailing, which led Karl both to a lifetime of yachting and to the study of naval architecture at MIT, from which he graduated in 1907. He founded the firm of Edwards and Sharp, naval architects and marine engineers, with E. A. Sharp soon after graduating.

Sharp’s one-design catboat was intended to be a small and affordable boat for racing. Thirteen feet long overall and 6-feet, 2-inches in beam, the design carried a 20-foot mast and 16-foot, 8-inch boom to support a 175-square-foot sail. Six members stepped forward to order copies, which the M. J. Casey Co. of New Bedford delivered to Nantucket in July 1910. The boats cost $150 each, plus $10 for Sharp’s plans and his “supervision of the builders.” The original owners were James Cunningham Bishop, F. A. Dillingham, Sidney Este, Alfred Gardiner, Lila Hedges, and Mrs. Henry O. (Jenny) Underwood.

A review of Sharp’s one-design catboat was published in the yachting magazine The Rudder in May

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1916. It declared the boats “very successful,” explaining that the “boat . . . is just the thing for a club that wants a wholesome and inexpensive one-design class, or for the individual who wants a good type of small boat for the youngsters to learn in.” Indeed, summer yachtclub racing reports published in the Inquirer and Mirror highlight these boats being raced by children. Teenager Louisa Dillingham raced her family’s boat Hobo many times in 1911 and 1912. Twelve-year-old Muriel Bishop raced the Merry Widow with her 18-year-old sister, Augusta, as crew, although they were frequently defeated by 12-year-old Linda Wallace in the Kewpie. The boats were also popular with women sailors, with race reports frequently mentioning Lila Hedges in the Vim, Jenny Underwood in Tinker, and Eliza Codd in Pronto.

It appears that no more of these boats were built beyond the initial six; it is not clear why they did not form a lasting one-design solution for the Nantucket Yacht Club. But they did demonstrate the utility of a small catboat for youngsters to sail. Helen Wilson Sherman,

Karl Sharp’s design for a 13-foot one-design catboat, 1910.

Architect Eliza Codd sailing her Karl Sharp-designed 13-foot one-

NHA COLLECTIONS MS. 348, FOLDER 11

design catboat. NHA COLLECTIONS P4209

who learned to sail at the club in the 1920s, recalled in a 2002 interview that “there were a lot of children floating around the yacht club,” the result of a summer culture where women and children come to the island full time and needed activities, while many husbands remained at home to work and visited for more limited periods of time. Sherman also recalled that many of the boats club members sailed were too big for children to handle. In 1921, the club made a second attempt to create a one-design fleet of small catboats, this time expressly for young sailors to learn in and race. Vice Commodore Clarence Gennett led the effort, reportedly at the behest of Commodore Henry Lang. Gennett commissioned a design for a 16-foot catboat from W. D. Allen, president of the Port Jefferson Marine Railway Corporation of Port Jefferson, Long Island. Allen was a descendent of Nantucket and New Bedford whaling captains as well as a graduate of MIT. The design his firm developed for the club envisioned boats 16-feet long and 7-foot, 9-inch in beam, with 18-foot, 2-inch masts and 20-foot, 3-inch booms.

The sail area was to be 230 square feet. The design was accepted by the club’s officers in November 1921, and seven members stepped forward to commission boats based on it. These were constructed at Port Jefferson in the spring of 1922 and delivered to the island in time for the summer racing season. The first seven boats were the Blue Devil, for Henry Lang; Flapper, for Clarence Gennett; G.W.G., for B. F. W. Russell; Luan, for Ann Donald; Margie, for Leeds Mitchell; Moby Dick, for Everett Crosby; and Nancy, for Henry Shaw.

It was Gennett’s idea that the boats wear sails of different colors to distinguish them, and the lively ef-

fect this created immediately led to the name “rainbow fleet.” The first seven boats had sail colors blue, light yellow, green, tan, red, deep yellow, and old rose.

The club hoped to create a fleet of at least sixteen boats. To do this, more members needed to buy into the idea and purchase boats. Gennett lined up a commitment from Ray S. Deering at the Nantucket Boat Works committed to building four or more by summer 1923 for a cost of $475 each. To press the scheme, Gennett, who was a recording company executive from Indiana, sent a phonograph record to all the members of the yacht club in January 1923 encouraging the purchase of more Rainbows. On the record, Gennett sent greetings and extolled the project: The “rainbow fleet” should sail this summer sixteen strong. . . . We ask you as a member of the Nantucket Yacht Club to help us make the racing at the club a feature of the summer at Nantucket. This appeal to our members . . . to buy a boat is made in the spirit of Nantucket and each member is requested to join our fleet with the “rainbow” sails and race with us on the afternoons of Independence Day, Labor Day, and each Saturday during the season.

Do it now! . . . Ask the owner of a “rainbow” boat how they sail and if they are not safe for children and grown-ups. They are loads of fun, fresh air, and salt water. Join us now. Do not put it off. Act today.

Gennett’s special appeal was only mildly successful, resulting in orders for just three additional boats. There became the Dede, for H. W. Davis; Surge, for Joseph Metcalf; and Wolverine, for A. E. Smith; with sail colors of

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orange, light blue, and coffee brown, respectively.

The Rainbow fleet raced each other many times during the summer of 1923 and attracted frequent comment in the newspaper, “the usual race of the ‘rainbow fleet’ was a picturesque as ever,” the “Yacht Club Notes” columnist reported in early August, “the varied colored sails making a most beautiful picture. The fleet, ten in all, jockeyed at the starting line . . . . The winner was the Surge.” The next month, The “Water Front” columnist wrote, “The Yacht Club’s ‘rainbow fleet’ with their manycolored sails made a pretty picture in the race on Labor Day . . . . Many persons gathered on the wharves and on the point to watch the progress of the race.”

Despite the popular visual interest the fleet immediately created, the ten original Rainbow catboats proved to have sailing and maintenance difficulties. The Rainbows were strong boats for sailing close to the wind, but they proved to be deficient running before the wind, where careful handling was needed to prevent the bows from diving in even mild following seas. Their weather helm was very hard, difficult for a strong adult to handle and largely impossible for children. There were also construction deficiencies with the steam-bent ribs and the planking, requiring close attention at the start of each season.

After a few years of lackluster performance, it became clear to club leadership and the boats’ owners that the 16-foot Rainbows were not fulfilling their intended purpose. To solve this inadequacy, Captain Charles S. Collins ordered in 1927 a flight of smaller and lighter 12foot catboats from the Beetle Company of New Bedford.

These were so-called “Beetle Cats,” a design developed by the Beetle shop in 1921 that was already popular all along the southern New England coast and was demonstrably easy for children to handle.

For the 1927 season, the older Rainbows continued to race, while the new “Little Rainbows” formed a class of their own sailed entirely by children. A racing report from July 1927 notes, “The Little Rainbow Fleet has proved itself a fine class and every one is proud and happy. Master Cutler won on Wednesday, sailing a fine race and the whole fleet congratulates him. Miss Smith had hard luck with her tiller. Miss Gennett and her brother made a gallant fight but succeeded in coming in second.

Miss Helen Wilson won an easy third and hasn’t go over

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the thrill yet. The poor old Rear-Commodore hit a shoal and never came in at all.”

Both classes continued in 1928, but the end was in sight for the original Rainbows. “In the R Class, the old rainbow class,” the newspaper reported in early July 1928, “only one boat went over the course, which was the Flapper, sailed by Clarence Gennett.” In the N or Little Rainbow Class, multiple boats enthusiastically raced. By 1929, there were at least twenty-three Little Rainbows racing for the club, while there were no longer enough old Rainbows to race in their own separate class.

By 1931, most of the old Rainbows had been sold off and the Rainbow Fleet, now made up entirely of 12-foot Beetle Cats, numbered sixty strong.

Helen Wilson Sherman, one of the first Little Rainbow sailors in 1927 and the second commodore of the Little Rainbow Association, remembered that it was her uncle, the playwright Austin Strong, who introduced the Beetle Cat to the Nantucket Yacht Club. In later years, Strong himself took credit for starting the Rainbow Fleet, which is an exaggeration. But it is not an exaggeration that he took a special interest in youth education and sail training during his two years as club commodore in 1930–31, and the Rainbow Fleet flourished under his leadership and that of yachtsman William W. Swan, the well known racer Strong brought to Nantucket in 1930 to teach the club youngsters. It was Swan in 1930 who instituted the rule that only juniors under seventeen years of age could race in the Little Rainbow Class.

It took only a few years for the colored sails of the Rainbows, both big and little, to become part of the image of Nantucket. “See Gardiners pictures of the Rainbow Fleet,” newspaper ads suggested in 1929, referring to the souvenir views and postcards which photographer H. Marshall Gardiner specialized in producing for sale to island visitors. His iconic view of the Rainbow Fleet outward bound around Brant Point is one of the defining images of the island in the twentieth century.

“The [yacht club] Racing Committee has a very warm feeling for the Little Rainbow Class,” the newspaper declared in 1930. “They consider that it is the most important class in the fleet, for it not only brought fame to the Club, but is has made a reputation on account of turning out so many fine young sportsmen and sportswomen.” .

MEDICINE

ABOARD THE

W HALE RS In recognition and celebration of our new Nantucket Cottage Hospital.

by Malcolm W. MacNab, M.D., Ph.D.

magine yourself signing on as a crew member of a Nantucket whale ship in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century. You will be working not only in a dangerous occupation but living for several years in crowded, unsanitary conditions, without a trained physician, without an understanding of nutrition and disease or the availability of modern drugs. At least, depending upon the year of your sailing, you would have some form of health insurance, which I will discuss later in this article.

The knowledge of medicine as we know it was nonexistent. The theories of Hippocrates and Galen persisted to some degree into the nineteenth century.

Disease was thought to be the result of an imbalance of the bodily fluids or “humours.” There was recognition that there were “contagions,” that disease could be transmitted, but treatment for many disorders consisted of simply trying to remove the assumed cause of sickness from the body. This typically was done by bleeding, purging, sweating, urinating, defecating, and vomiting.

Healing was based upon restoring the natural balance. It was not all that different from our current emphasis on good diet and exercise, but the theory often ignored the fact that some disease was the result of external factors or our basic genetic makeup.

Advances beyond this basic theory of humeral balance were slow in coming. True scientific medicine was developed through the late nineteenth century almost exclusively in Europe, not in the United Sates. For exam-

Illustration from The Mariner’s Medical Guide, 1864 OPEN KNOWLEDGE COMMONS, U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE, 63570630R

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ple, James Lind in 1753 conducted a controlled experiment among British sailors to demonstrate that scurvy could be prevented by eating limes. Modern germ theory developed in the 1860s, ’70s, and ’80s with Louis Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and Robert Koch. The understanding of germ theory came too late for the whalers. The only major contribution from the U.S. came from Massachusetts General Hospital with the development of general anesthesia in 1846.

The United States was also behind in the training of physicians. In contrast to the United States, by the nineteenth century England had established standards for doctors. English sea captains were required by law to have a ship’s surgeon, but American sailing masters were not. The images we all have of Patrick O’Brian’s naval surgeon Stephen Maturin in Master and Commander or Dr. Charles Guilloû documented in Nat Philbrick’s Sea of Glory were not to be found on the Nantucket whaleships.

For the most part, the duties of medical care were left to the master; or, if the captain were injured or sick, the medical duties would fall to the first mate. In some cases when the master’s wife traveled on the voyage, medical duties were often performed by her. Some American whale ships did have a doctor, but these men did not always start their voyages in the capacity of a physician.

We will shortly discuss one of these physicians, the Nantucket whaleship physician John King.

Most doctors at the turn of the nineteenth century never went to medical school and were trained in apprenticeship to established physicians. There were not enough medical schools to provide formally trained physicians for the country as a whole, let alone the Nantucket whaling fleet. In 1800, there were only three medical schools in the United States, in 1810 there were five, in 1860 there were 65, and by the early 1900s there were 155, more than there are accredited today. In the U.S., there were no uniform standards or licensing procedures for physicians until the Abraham Flexner Report sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation in 1910. This report resulted in the closing or probation of the majority of American medical schools.

In keeping with the Nantucket tradition of “extraordinary women,” Nantucketer Lydia Folger Fowler obtained a medical degree from the Central Medical College of New York in 1850. She was the second woman to earn a

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Title page from The Mariner’s medical degree in this Medical Guide, 1864 country and the first OPEN KNOWLEDGE COMMONS, American-born woman U.S. NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE, to do so. Lucretia Coffin 63570630R Mott and Maria Mitchell were her cousins.

So, doctors were rare and poorly trained in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Diagnosis consisted of such techniques as smelling urine. Surgery was rudimentary and physicians’ fees were high. Families tended to treat themselves, which of course meant it was the women who were the healers and pharmacies were in their back yards. I suggest that you visit the Historical Association’s Oldest House, where you will find a therapeutic garden of medicinal herbs and flowers. On Nantucket, the tradition of women as healers goes back to the mid-1600s to Wonoma, the daughter of Wauwinet, the chief of one the two warring Wampanoag factions.

Because of her reputation as a healer, tradition says that Wonoma tended the sick of the rival faction and fell in love with the rival chief, Autopscot. Her healing ways did much to improve relations among the Nantucket Wampanoags. Love and good health cure everything.

Like today, you could not always find a doctor during the whaling period, but you could find a lawyer. What were the legal requirements for the care of sailors?

Before the Revolution, admiralty and maritime laws

in the U.S. were fragmented and confused. Several colonies established their own laws, which were often in conflict with each other and British law. After the Revolution, the U.S. did establish some basic laws to protect the health of sailors on ships of greater than 175 tons and crews of greater than sixteen, and Nantucket whalers would have qualified. Ships had to carry an “adequate medicine chest,” and hospitals were established for sailors. The present-day U.S. Public Health Service evolved from these maritime-oriented hospitals and that is in part why to this day U.S. Public Health Service physicians still wear maritime uniforms. Justice Joseph Story, in his 1823 landmark decision Harden v. Gordon, expanded sailors’ medical rights beyond access to a medicine chest by stating that ship owners were responsible for the health care of their crews on board ship, including living and medical expenses. He went further in the 1832 Reed v. Canfield decision to cover sailors injured or who became sick while on shore leave. Justice Story was raised in Marblehead, Massachusetts, which was a major fishing port, and I assume he had great empathy for sailors. You may remember Justice Story also delivered the Supreme Court decision on the slave ship Amistad.

Mandated health care is not new to the United States.

What were some of the medical problems and diseases our whalers would encounter? Trauma was common and the whalers’ living conditions were not ideal for good health. Common sailors lived in close contact in the small area quarters of the forecastle. Rats, cock-

roaches, and fleas were facts of life. I am sure that the food was not prepared by the standards of the Nantucket Board of Health. With the exception of scurvy, syphilis, gonorrhea, and smallpox, most whaling logs and journals produced by the Nantucket whalers often list ailments in non-specific terms such as “fever,” “diarrhea,” or “weakness.” However, the keeper of the log or a person responsible for medical care was very often able to differentiate some aliments by observation. Examples include listing specifically “malaria,” or using its familiar term “intermittent fever”; “consumption,” which in the 1880s was identified to be caused by the tuberculosis bacillus; and “break-bone fever,” because of severe body pain, which today we have identified as dengue fever.

The English kept much more detailed records but they did not always draw the correct conclusions. The Sick and Hurt Board in London concluded that the high rate of insanity on the English men-of war was due to seamen banging their heads on low beams while drunk.

Trauma is well documented in the whaling log books in the Nantucket Historical Association Library.

If OSHA, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, had existed at the time, the agency would have certainly closed down the industry. Frequent falls from the rigging, the use of sharp-edged tools on a slippery and rolling deck, working with boiling oil, riding on a Nantucket sleigh ride, and fighting a 60-ton whale were typical job descriptions and activities of the workplace.

Here are some recorded examples of injuries recorded in

Photographic portrait of Dr. John

Justice Joseph Story

B. King, practiced medicine on

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 3C10196U

Pocket microscope belonged to Dr. Charles F. Winslow

whaling voyages and on Nantucket

NHA COLLECTIONS 1972.65.3

NHA COLLECTIONS GPN1459

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whaling logbooks: the Clarkson’s voyage of 1838–1842 recorded “man bitten badly by shark while cutting-in” and the log of the Asia (1791–1794) recorded “severe injury when Cabin boy fell from Mizzen mast; had fits, senseless and convulsive fits.” He did, by the way, recover; his treatment appeared to be primarily prayers to God. Many of the drugs used on whaling voyages, such as mercury and lead, were very toxic, so you may agree that praying may have had some advantages. The logbook of the 1827 voyage of the Congress recorded that sailor “Charles Lord fell from main top to deck, smashed face all to pieces.” The Nauticon log (1848-1853), kept by the captain’s wife Susan Veeder, reports, “Jack Wright was badly hurt overboard”; “3rd Mate, fell from the Main Top Gallant head and was killed almost instantly, breathing only a few times”; “line fouled and whale dragged Second Mate out of boat and under water. Was taken out minutes later and was quite exhausted and vomited considerable blood.”

One notable exception to the captain substituting as the “ship’s surgeon” was John King. Dr. King was an 1832 graduate of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1837, he signed on to the Nantucket whaling ship Aurora, originally as a common sailor, under Master John Hussey. We are fortunate to have his journal of the ship’s voyage in the NHA library. His handwriting, by the way, is very elegant and clear and far different from most of today’s physicians’. The most frequent specific conditions listed in his journal were wounds and gonorrhea; the most frequent non-specific conditions were diarrhea and dysentery.

What about scurvy and other nutritional diseases?

Scurvy is a deficiency disease that results from the lack of vitamin C, which is required for correct collagen synthesis in humans. As mentioned above, by 1753 it was well established that the disease could be prevented by the ingestion of fruit. Even so, a search of the whaling log records in the NHA Library revealed the mention of eleven cases resulting in two deaths, including Master Benjamin Coggeshall of the Alabama in 1847. Not always knowing when they could acquire fresh fruit, whalers would preserve potatoes and cabbage in molasses to prevent scurvy. Another nutritional disease common in sailors was beriberi resulting from a deficiency of thiamine or vitamin B1. Beriberi is not documented in the

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Nantucket log books. It is not known if the consequences of beriberi were recorded as simply complaints or symptoms such as emotional problems, weakness, and fluid accumulation. In addition to vitamin C and thiamine deficiency, sailors were also at risk of becoming deficient in niacin and riboflavin. A sailor’s diet was hardly “well balanced.”

The common diseases of our time, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, were not prevalent in the nineteenth century. Because of infection, death in childbirth, and trauma, people did not live long enough to acquire these diseases, nor did they have a lifestyle that would encourage the development of these modern medical problems. It is hard to get fat when you are climbing the rigging and cutting in whales.

If the standard of care were often left to the captain, what did he use to obtain his surgical and medical knowledge? He had available some publications and guides, many published by the British Navy. Chapters would have included everything from lists of surgical and dental instruments and medications for the “medical chest” to detailed instructions for amputation. I have this vision of a whaling captain standing over a man whose leg is about to be amputated, without anesthesia, and reading his guide book. I have problems reading the instructions when putting together the simple apparatus of modern life. And it is not always so simple!

Remember, an “adequate” medicine chest was required by law. The various herbs and chemicals were labeled with numbers corresponding to the accompanying instructions; for example, for diarrhea give number 6, for headache number 2. There is a story of a sea captain who ran out of number 11. His solution was to give the sick sailor equal parts of number 5 and 6. This was not one of our Nantucket captains.

Recommended drugs and herbs listed for the “medicine chest” evolved over time. This was in part because of changes in medical practice and in part because of the difficulty of keeping herbs fresh on long voyages.

Dr. King’s journal from the voyage of the whaling ship Aurora provides a list of 47 medications and preparations, with fewer herbs and more chemicals than found in earlier guides. John King acquired drugs from a British ship’s surgeon to bring the Aurora’s “medicine chest” up to date. He also lists instruments with a set of detailed

instructions for amputations of the thigh, leg, arm, fingers, and toes. How much of these “state-of-the-art” medications and instruments were actually supplied by the owners of the Nantucket whaling vessels is unknown. Remember, Dr. King resupplied his “medicine chest” from a British ship.

What other support did the captain have at his disposal? There were “house calls,” “ER visits,” and “consultations.” Whalers would often ask for assistance from ships with doctors and surgeons. Meeting another ship, particularly a British war ship, or stopping at a missionary station would offer the opportunity for medical assistance. Ships would often stop in Paita, Peru, where there was a hospital, either to have a doctor come on board or leave a sick sailor there. Other onshore medical facilities were found in Hawaii and Tahiti.

In 1839, David Baker, the master of the whaleship American, paid $12 to a French physician from Peru to treat two sick sailors. The fee was equivalent to the value of almost half a barrel of case oil, or $12, which is equivalent in purchasing power to about $325 in 2018 dollars.

In addition to the captain’s medical guide, occasional “house calls” or “consultations,” and hospital visits, some lucky captains had a valuable asset—their wives— because they would occasionally accompany the captain on a voyage and of course sometimes serve as the ship’s nurse and medical practitioner. A sailor once fell from the rigging and smashed his head like a “pumpkin.”

While the captain and other crew members turned away and could not watch, the captain’s wife cradled the injured sailor’s head in her lap and dressed his wounds.

When necessary, however, the captain acted. According to the ship’s log, Captain Joseph Chase of the Clarkson “cut off Frank Sylva’s leg it being in decaying state after being broken 15 days,” and Captain Peter Brock’s wife recorded in the logbook of the Lexington, “Jack Jones, sailor had two fits—captain bleed him.”

And then there was the tale told of a Captain Coffin, who was injured himself and required a leg amputation.

He held his pistol and said to his mate, “Now, sir, you gotta lop off this here leg, and if you flinch—well, sir, you get shot in the head.” Both men are reported to have fainted after the amputation.

Working on a whale ship was not a conducive environment for good health because of dangerous work,

cramped quarters, and the lack of modern drugs and trained physicians. The intrinsic dangers of the work could not be avoided, but the medical care itself was a contributing factor to the unhealthy environment.

Treatment with heavy metals, plastering, bleeding, and frequent purging would not be considered part of the program of a modern day cruise.

What may have been more important to the whalers’ overall health was their isolation: they lived in a virtual quarantine. Being at sea for long periods of time, they were not exposed to epidemics in the U.S. For example, malaria was endemic to the United States until the early twentieth century and there were multiple epidemics of yellow fever, measles, influenza, smallpox, cholera, typhus, and typhoid fever occurring into the late nineteenth century. Tuberculosis, or “consumption,” was not uncommon. Vector-borne diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, or dengue would only affect the individuals directly infected. A vector-borne disease is not communicable from person to person but is transmitted to humans by an insect or arthropod, in the same manner as Lyme disease on Nantucket. The danger occurred when the whalers left their ships and acquired a communicable disease from others in the South Sea Islands. It is interesting to note that in Dr. King’s journal the most frequently noted diseases are wounds, diarrhea, and gonorrhea. What were the long-term effects on whalers with venereal disease treated with mercury and what about the proliferation of the disease when the whalers retuned to Nantucket? There is little documentation for diseases on whaling ships that were easily recognized and were present in the United States at the time. Although the danger of disease may have been reduced to some degree by the sailors’ isolation, the danger of trauma was greatest when they remained on their ships.

All things considered, it was a wonder that these men came back alive. But there is one more important factor left to consider in the health profiles of these whalers: their DNA. They had excellent wiring 200 years ago because only the strongest survived infancy, childhood, and adolescence. In many cases, it was those good genes that would bring these men home to Nantucket alive after what would probably be the most harrowing experience of their lives. These sailors were made of truly sturdy stuff.

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RECENT ACQUISITIONS

NHA COLLECTIONS MS. 220, LOG 410

THOMAS NICKERSON LOGBOOK

Returns to Nantucket A gift of the Friends of the NHA

By Michael R. Harrison This past summer, the NHA acquired its 411th logbook, a slim volume with marbled paper covers from the 1830s recording a whaling voyage to the coast of Africa aboard the ship Wabash of New London, Connecticut. The logbook is a gift of the Friends of the NHA, and it is the work of the first mate on the voyage, Thomas G. Nickerson of Nantucket. Nickerson was one of the eight survivors of the tragedy of the whaleship Essex, which was sunk by a whale in 1820, and is best remembered as the author of a first-person account of the disaster, “Desultory Sketches from a Seamans Log,” the manuscript of which is also in the NHA’s collection.

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THOMAS G. NICKERSON (1805–83) was born in Harwich, Massachusetts, and moved with his family to Nantucket at the age of six months. A few months later his parents, Thomas and Rebecca (Gibson) Nickerson, both died, leaving him and his siblings to be reared by his maternal grandparents, Robert and Rebecca Gibson. In 1819, at the age of fourteen, Nickerson signed aboard the Essex for his first trip to sea. He was the youngest member of the crew. Fifteen months later, he was at the Essex’s wheel when an enraged whale rammed the ship, and he formed part of First Mate Owen Chase’s boat crew during the three months the men struggled to rescue themselves from the waters of the equatorial Offshore Ground in the remote Pacific. Returning to Nantucket, Nickerson signed aboard a second whaleship within a few months, sailing with his former captain, George Pollard Jr., on the ship Two Brothers in late 1821. Again, fifteen months elapsed, and again he survived a shipwreck when the Two Brothers struck a reef near French Frigate Shoals in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Nickerson continued whaling even after this second calamity, working his way up to boatsteerer, then second mate and first mate before switching to the merchant service around 1834.

For three decades, he commanded merchant ships for a succession of New York owners, eventually settling in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Margaret Drew, whom he had married in Nantucket in 1828. In the 1870s, they operated a summer rooming house on North Street (now Cliff Road) in Nantucket. He died on island in 1883.

Nickerson began his seagoing career aboard Nantucket vessels, but he found advancement and success on ships from other ports. During the boom times of Nantucket whaling, demand for ordinary seamen was high, and ship owners routinely recruited off island to fill their berths. Good captains and mates, however, were more easily found on island, and competition led many

men with leadership ambitions to seek advancement in other ports. This labor interchange was particularly strong between Nantucket and New Bedford, and in 1828 Nickerson became second mate on the New Bedford whaler Isaac Howland under Captain William Austin.

This was a profitable voyage, returning 3,174 barrels of sperm oil to New Bedford in fall 1831, but it may not have been a happy one. Nickerson’s name appears alongside other Howland crewmen in an 1831 affidavit by Captain Austin claiming the men deserted the ship during the voyage. Nothing is known about Nickerson’s actions aboard the Isaac Howland, but possible bad blood could account for him seeking employment in New London in 1832, where he landed a berth as first mate aboard the Wabash for the voyage documented in the NHA’s newly acquired logbook.

The 250-ton Wabash made six whaling voyages from New London between 1828 and 1834. Each of

Thomas G. Nickerson NHA COLLECTIONS GPN4361

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NHA COLLECTIONS MS. 220, LOG 410

these voyages focused on hunting right whales in the South Atlantic and lasted less than a year. These shorter voyages in search of right whales were typical of New London whalers at the time and contrast with the generally longer, multi-year voyages in search of sperm whales that Nantucket ship owners bankrolled during the same period. Of 29 documented whaling voyages departing from New London in 1832, at least 20 (69%) made trips of less than a year to the coasts of Africa or South America looking for right whales. In contrast, of 43 Nantucket whaler sailings that year, 29 (67%) headed to the Pacific to hunt sperm whales and were away for about three years. In New Bedford that year, about twothirds of the sailings hunted in the Atlantic, while the remaining one-third sailed for the Pacific.

Captain Luther Fuller took the Wabash to sea on June 23, 1832, setting a course down Long Island Sound and across the Atlantic to the Azores. It was Nickerson’s duty as first mate to keep the ship’s daily log, and he

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duly recorded the last of the ship’s crew arriving, the captain coming aboard, and the ship’s progress across the Atlantic. The Wabash arrived at Fayal on July 7, and Nickerson drew a watercolor sketch of the island next to the day’s entry, which recorded that Captain Fuller went ashore to procure “vegatables &c” and “returned at evening.” John H. Frink, a passenger from New London, departed the ship at Fayal to return to America.

“Mr. Frink had come thus far for benefit of his health,” Nickerson noted. Frink was no doubt able to return to the states with relative ease, as there were “many American ships in port.”

From the Azores, Fuller took the ship south past the Cape Verde Islands and then on to St. Helen’s Bay on the South African coast, which the Wabash reached on September 6. Nickerson sketched a view of the bay into his log.

Two days after this landfall, the Wabash men killed their first right whale, although it sank before

NHA COLLECTIONS MS. 220, LOG 410

they could tow it back to the ship. Three days later, Nickerson wrote (in his punctuationless style), “Saw several whales struck one which stove the starboard boat returned on board ship being two rough to whale Saw many whales apparently quite at home.” A month later, at the beginning of October, the ship entered a promising ground 1,200 miles east of Cape Town, where they found many American ships hunting, but not until October 24 were they able to both catch and cut in a whale, gaining 100 barrels of oil for their efforts.

After a month in these waters and only one whale caught, Nickerson wrote, “Having now looked well over this ground and feeling satisfied the whales are not plenty have thought proper to return again to the eastward with all possible dispatch.” To the east they encountered more success, killing and cutting in ten right whales during November 1832 and eight more (including one 90-barrel sperm whale) during December.

Nickerson highlighted the whaling activity in his log with stamps and drawings, which made it easier to pick out the whaling days from the sea of cursive writing in the book. He made or brought with him a stamp of a whale’s tail, to mark days when whales got away, and a stamp of a right whale, to which he often added red spouts of blood with his pen. He does not seem to have had a stamp representing sperm whales, nor ones for finbacks or humpbacks, which the Wabash saw frequently but did not hunt. On the two occasions when the men killed sperm whales, Nickerson drew the whale into the log by hand.

In addition to the whale stamps, the log contains numerous watercolor sketches of national flags that Nickerson drew to indicate encounters with other ships.

The Wabash saw many other vessels, and the logbook demonstrates that Captain Fuller made a point to speak to other whalers to gain information that might be useful for his voyage. Fuller spoke or exchanged signals

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with 35 ships, barks, brigs, and schooners during the ten months of the voyage, meeting a few of them more than once. These included eight Connecticut vessels and ten from Massachusetts, although only one from Nantucket, the bark Peru under Captain William Brooks Jr. Such interactions among whaleships were common, and captains routinely exchanged where they were from and bound, how long they had been at sea, and how many barrels of oil they carried. Nickerson, however, generally only recorded each ship’s name and home port. Occasionally he noted a captain’s name and oil figures, as on January 14, 1833, when he wrote, “Spoke with Ship Bourbon of Havre de Grace Capt Cargill with 2050 bbls oil—7½ months out”—a very healthy return in a relatively short time.

If an impression emerges from Nickerson’s log, it is that hunting whales in rowboats in the open ocean was a difficult and uncertain business. Time and again Nickerson notes sighting whales and not being able to catch them.

“Saw two whales could not strike the whales are very few and shy,” he wrote one day, following up the next day with “Saw several whales lowered the boats couldnot get near them” and “Saw several whales couldnot strike them the whales are very Wild.” On another occasion, one of the boats harpooned a whale “which proved a racer,” swimming off at high speed towing the boat behind it. “At Sun Set cut off the line having no opportunity to use the lance.” In December 1832, the Wabash was cutting in a whale when it encountered a “gam of whales.” Although the boatsteerers managed to harpoon five animals, the harpoons “drawed” (pulled out) from three, and one whale sank after being killed, leaving just a single whale to bring back to the ship.

At the end of January 1833, the Wabash returned to the African coast, anchoring at Angra Pequena (now Lüderitz Bay, Namibia) to gather provisions. The sealing schooner Pacific of Newburyport was already there, and Nickerson’s comments in the log confirm that this was a place known to American whalemen. “It is often the case when ship[s] frequent this place,” he wrote, “[that] there can be bullocks obtained which are driven from 150 miles in the interior and which can be bought for small quantities of powder.” The captain sent a boat ashore, not to trade for cattle, but to gather eggs from the plentiful African penguins that inhabited the coast.

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The rest of the crew fished and painted the ship while waiting for the boat to return. “At this place there is no inhabitants,” Nickerson continued. Reflecting the prejudices of his time, he described the indigenous Khoisan people of the region as “miserable half starved Hottentots who lurk about a few miles back from shore but even of those we have seen only two.” The boat returned the next day with eggs, birds, and other items.

From southwestern Africa, the Wabash sailed northeast, bound for the United States, passing St. Helena on February 20 and Ascension Island eight days later. Nickerson added sketches of both to the log. A few more whales were caught and cut in, but on April 5, about 250 miles northwest of Bermuda, the captain decided whale hunting was at an end and ordered the tryworks torn away. Two days later, the Wabash spoke with the brig Gullnifft of Philadelphia, and “Capt. Donaldson very humanely presented us with a plentiful supply of refreshements.” Four days more and the ship made port in New London, returning home 9 months and 21 days after setting out. In that time, Captain Fuller and his crew caught a total of nineteen right whales and three sperm whales, resulting in a respectable 1,683 barrels of whale oil and 150 barrels of sperm oil. The voyage ended, Nickerson wrote, “with as good health and spirits as it was begun throughout the whole crew.”

The logbook concludes with a table of whales caught and amounts of oil realized, as well as a list naming the 25 men in the crew. Whatever official role the book may have played in reporting the details of the voyage to the ship’s owners, it remained afterward in Nickerson’s possession. Blank pages in the back were torn out for scrap or used for family notes and children’s sketches.

The log was clearly read from time to time: notations on an early page calculate the number of years that had elapsed from 1832 to 1873, then to 1876, and finally to 1897. Thomas and Margaret Nickerson had no children of their own, so the book passed after their deaths to one of her sisters, in whose family it descended. It remained on Nantucket for many decades; one page contains anonymous notes of a day spent sightseeing on island in 1905. Now it has come back to the island again, where anyone interested can read it online or at the NHA Research Library on Fair Street.

Who really was the inventor of modern baseball?

Excerpted from “Credit where credit is due . . .” by Elizabeth Oldham, Historic Nantucket, Summer 2008, Vol. 58, No. 3 In 1971, the NHA received a letter from Harold Peterson of Sports

The Heritage Society CREATE YOUR LEGACY

Illustrated, who wrote: “I am writing a history involving the Nantucket Cartwrights. If I could ask your help in finding out more about these particular Cartwrights while they lived on the island, that would be a great kindness on your part. As you may know, Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr. was to a considerable degree the inventor of modern baseball.”

Edouard Stackpole responded, writing, “I can understand why the Cartwrights appeal to you as they are a most interesting family. There is little known about Alexander Cartwright on the island, although his part in developing the game of baseball is well known to the older generation.”

Perhaps. But, as Hobson Woodward wrote in an article for the 1998 Early Summer edition of Nantucket Magazine: “Any fan will tell you that Abner Doubleday was the inventor of baseball.

But few know that if it hadn’t been for the son of a Nantucketer, America’s ball game would not be what it is today. Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr.—the son of a Nantucket mariner—was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in 1938. There, his portrait is captioned with the words ‘Father of Baseball.’ A more fitting tribute is not possible for a man who literally created the game as we know it.”

Hobson cites Peterson’s book, The Man Who Invented Baseball, in which he states that turn-of-the-century baseball owners wanted to mask the game’s origin as an English sport, so they created a story saying that Abner Doubleday invented the game in a Cooperstown field.

The story is wholly false, and, according to Peterson, “one of the most amusingly fraudulent pieces of manufactured history extant.”

Create a legacy that demonstrates your passion for Nantucket and its history. For more than a century, Nantucketers have generously made planned gifts to the NHA to help preserve island history.

The NHA recognizes these individuals as members of the Heritage Society. The membership includes names like Coffin, Swain, Starbuck, Bunker, and Gardner that echo Nantucket’s past.

Several of the NHA’s iconic historic properties were received through bequests, such as the Thomas Macy House. Promised gifts of art and artifacts have helped the NHA build its collections. Generous monetary gifts provided through the wills have added significantly to the NHA’s endowment, boosting financial stability.

Including the NHA in your will or estate plan is one of the simplest and most impactful ways to support both your passion and the NHA’s mission. Gifts of cash, securities, insurance policies, and retirement assets such as IRA rollovers may be unrestricted or designated to a specific purpose. They can also provide you with tax benefits during your lifetime and for your heirs.

IN MEMORIAM

Robert “Bob” Hellman (1930–2018)

To discuss your interests and learn more about the Heritage Society, please contact Cristin Merck, Director of Stewardship, at

Bob was one of the world’s leading experts on

cmerck@nha.org or (508) 228–1894, ext. 114.

the tools of the whale hunt as well as extremely knowledgeable about the art of scrimshaw. He was an interpreter at the NHA from 2005–14.

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RECENT ACQUISITIONS BEINECKE-STACKPOLE COLLECTION Costume historian Julie Beinecke Stackpole has generously contributed a collection of artifacts from the estate of her mother, Mary Ann Beinecke. The donation comprises artifacts and ephemera relating to Beinecke and her involvement with the Nantucket Looms, the Cloth Company of Nantucket, and the Nantucket School of Needlery. The collection of over one hundred objects, which includes many significant textiles and garments and a wealth of archival items, is an important addition to the NHA’s collection and tells the story of Beinecke’s central role in the craft revival on Nantucket in the 1960s and 1970s.

Highlights of this donation include working documents from the School of Needlery correspondence course, samples of yarns developed by Beinecke, a book of color photographs, and fabric samples from the Jared Coffin House project and the first years of the Nantucket Looms. Several fabric samples, garments, and accessories tell the story of the growth of the Nantucket Looms

during the 1960s, including innovative woven textiles designed by Beincke and Andy Oates. Also included in the collection are unique printed textiles by Leslie and D.D. Tillett from 1964 –1968, when the Nantucket Looms expanded and was known as the Cloth Company of Nantucket.

“The Nantucket craft revival was a key aspect of the transformation of the island in the 1960s and 1970s, and the NHA has been making concerted efforts to be certain that the revival is represented among our artifact and archival holdings,” says Michael R. Harrison, Obed Macy Director of Research & Collections.

The NHA thanks the Stackpole family for their continued generosity and foresight in entrusting the organizition with this historically significant collection. These artifacts and their stories can now be shared with the public through the NHA’s online collections database, and included in future exhibitions and public programs.

Button-down shirts with prints NHA COLLECTIONS 2018.0011.031– 033

Piece of patchwork fabric made from early Nantucket Looms fabric NHA COLLECTIONS 2048.011.001

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Rigged model of the catboat Wonoma made by Mark Sutherland, 2018 MUSEUM PURCHASE 2018.12.2

Captain George Washington Gardner Jr. by William Swain NHA COLLECTIONS: 2018.24.1

PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON GARDNER JR.

CATBOAT MODELS Nantucketers and Their Boats, this year’s feature exhibition in the Whaling Museum’s McCausland Gallery, provided an opportunity for the NHA to commission models to expand the representation of island smallcraft in the association’s permanent collection. These commissions included detailed rigged models of two historic Nantucket catboats, the Samoset and the Wonoma. Both models are the work of model builder Mark Sutherland of Concord and Nantucket and represent important stages in the development and use of catboats for fishing and recreation on island.

The Samoset was typical of the large catboats that operated out of Nantucket at the turn of the twentieth century. Captain Patrick Robinson (1869–1965) had the boat built at a size big enough to carry parties of tourists on fishing and sightseeing excursions around the island.

Robinson sold the boat in 1906 in

order to command the private yacht of the Schenk family, then worked thirty-eight years as caretaker and captain for businessman and sportsman William Wallace. The compass of the Samoset, a gift of Captain Robinson’s grandchildren, is also in the NHA collection.

The Wonoma was the last of Nantucket’s large catboats to remain in commercial operation.

Fisherman James Andrews ordered the boat from Charles H. Crosby of Osterville in 1902 for use in commercial and charter fishing.

The boat received an auxiliary engine in 1904; the installation of ever more powerful motors in the boat over time eventually made its sailing rig obsolete—a fate shared by many island catboats. The NHA’s new model depicts the Wonoma after its rig was removed in the 1940s. James’s son George ran the Wonoma in the island scallop fishery until 1971, and the boat was broken up in 1990.

The NHA has received an important portrait painting of Nantucket whaling captain George Washington Gardner Jr. (1809–96). Gardner was the son and namesake of the island captain who first opened the important Offshore Ground, in the remote equatorial Pacific, to whaling in 1818. Young George made two voyages as a boy and teenager in his father’s ships before taking command of the Mariner of Nantucket in 1836 at the age of 27. He subsequently commanded the Nantucket and the Narragansett before retiring from the sea and becoming a railroad agent in New York state. The NHA holds logbooks from all three of Gardner’s commands, as well as logs related to his father’s ships.

The portrait is attributed to William Swain (1803–47), the leading portrait painter on Nantucket in the 1830s.

The work is the generous gift of island summer resident Don Russell, one of Captain Gardner’s descendants. The donor is also related to Daniel Russell, the penultimate captain of the ill-fated Essex; Captain Gardner’s daughter Phebe married Captain Russell’s son Benjamin in 1857.

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THANK YOU FOR MAKING NBD ’18 THE MOST SUCCESSFUL NHA GALA EVER!

August 1– 4, 2018, the NHA presented its premier fundraiser, Nantucket by Design. This week of events offered outstanding talent and renowned experts throughout the world of design celebrating creative and inspirational work across many fields and disciplines.

The NHA extends its sincere gratitude to all the corporate sponsors, leadership ticket holders, design luminaries, the event committee, and to Phoebe Tudor for her dedication and incredible leadership as the Nantucket by Design chair in 2017 and 2018. The event was the most profitable in the NHA’s history, raising close to $1 million towards the organization’s work to be the best possible steward of the collections, the properties, and the stories that tell of our island’s rich history.

Design Luncheon featured a presentation by designer David Kleinberg, and moderated by Sophie Donelson, former editor-in-chief of House Beautiful magazine.

Design Panel moderated by Chesie Breen, editorin-chief of ID Boston magazine, with the design talent of Amanda Lindroth, David Netto, and Nick Voulgaris III.

All-Star Private Dinners presented by Magellan Jets, hosted luminaries and guests in private homes and NHA’s historic properties.

“ With the help and participation of many sponsors, attendees, designers, and the terrific staff of the NHA, Nantucket by Design turned out to be the organization’s most successful fundraiser yet! People come from near and far to hear from noted interior designers and authors, to socialize in a beautiful summer spot, and to support the NHA. It has been my pleasure to chair this event for the last two years, and hope to see it continue to grow next summer.”

—Phoebe Tudor

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Night at the Museum Gala honored immediate past-president and trustee emerita Janet Sherlund and her husband Rick.

Chesie Breen, David Kleinberg, and Kelly Williams

Rick and Janet Sherlund, and Phoebe Tudor

Danielle Cremmen and Marvin Wright

Sophie Donelson and Marla Sanford

SAVE THE DATES! AUGUST 1–3, 2019 The NHA and The Antiques Council are pleased to announce a collaboration that aligns Nantucket by Design with the Nantucket Summer Antiques Show in August 2019. The Antiques Show’s opening night preview party will benefit the NHA. “As an historical association, the NHA believes that antiques play an important role in adding texture and context to the interiors of Nantucket homes, so we are delighted to be partnering with the Nantucket Summer Antiques Show to incorporate a fun event for discovering treasures into our schedule for Nantucket by Design.” ­— Kelly Williams, NHA President of the Board of Trustees nha.org / NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

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Whaling Museum

Quaker Meeting House

Oldest House

Greater Light

Hadwen House

Host your event at the Whaling Museum, Hadwen House, or one of our historic sites.

Contact Ashley Martin: (508) 228 –1894, ext. 131, or rentals@nha.org.

Chairs David Handy and Donald Dallaire

The 20th annual Festival of Wreaths at the Whaling Museum will commence with a Preview Party on November 20, where guests bid on their favorite wreaths to benefit the NHA’s year-round outreach efforts.

More than 90 hand-crafted wreaths made by members of the Nantucket community are on display during the week of Thanksgiving. David M. Handy and Donald Dallaire are the 2018 chairs for the Festival of Wreaths.

Honorary Chair Kim Corkran

The Festival of Trees Preview Party is the most highly anticipated event of the Nantucket holiday season and the 25th anniversary of this celebration is sure to be no exception. Featuring nearly 100 trees designed with a combination of island ingenuity and holiday spirit, this stunning display transforms the Whaling Museum for the month of December. The NHA is grateful for the lead sponsorship of Marine Home Center along with support from many local businesses. The 2018 chairs are Beth English and Mark Donato, with Kim Corkran as Honorary Chair.

This family event features holiday carols, seasonal treats, and childfriendly crafts in the Whaling Museum among the festive atmosphere of the Festival of Trees. This community event is free for all children and NHA members and just $5 for nonmember adults.

Sunday, December 9, 2 p.m.– 5 p.m.

Preview Party, November 20 Open to the public: Daily 10 a.m–5 p.m.

Wednesday, Nov. 21 – Sat., Nov. 24 10 a.m.– 2 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 25 Closed Thanksgiving Day, November 22

Chairs Beth English and Mark Donato Preview Party, November 29 Open to the public: Daily 10 a.m.– 5 p.m.

November 30–December 31 Closed Christmas Day, December 25

November 23–December 31 Daily 11 a.m.– 4 p.m.

New this year! Tour NHA historic homes decorated for the holiday season.

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OLD MILL GEOPHYSICAL SURVEY

By Jon Bernard Marcoux, Ph.D. DIRECTOR OF THE NOREEN STONER DREXEL CULTURAL AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION PROGRAM AT SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY

Jon Bernard Marcoux, Ph.D., of Salve Regina University conducted a Ground Penetrating Radar Survey of the NHA’s Old Mill, assisted by Cultural and Historic Preservation program students Delaney Daly and Josephine Taranto. The three main goals for the survey were as follows: 1. to determine whether the survey area contains intact archaeological deposits associated with the property’s history; 2. to identify patterned anomalies that might aid cultural and historic interpretation of the landscape associated with the property; and 3. to provide the NHA with location data of possible cultural features that can be used to guide future archaeological explorations and help manage cultural resources on the property.

The results of the survey demonstrate that the property likely contains a number of intact cultural features. The investigation identified two possible buried road beds, two possible buried millstones, the circular cobble track used to guide the large mill cap wheel, an unidentified linear feature, and two filled ditches.

Nantucket Scout Troop 97 with help from the Webelos at the Harvest Fair in October Results of ground penetrating radar survey depicting buried features.

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Holiday Gift ideas FROM THE NHA

NANTUCKET BOOKS

NAUTICAL GIFTS

CHILDREN’S TOYS

JEWELRY

HOLIDAY ORNAMENTS

Museum Shop Gift Cards available in store or at nantucketmuseumshop.org

The Museum Shop is open until the end of the year, or shop online anytime.

Remember, NHA members always receive a 10% discount.

11 Broad Street • Shop online at nantucketmuseumshop.org

PERIODICAL POSTAGE PAID AT NANTUCKET, MA AND ADDITIONAL ENTRY OFFICES

P.O. BOX 1016, NANTUCKET, MA 02554–1016

at the NHA Take part in the excitement of touring three NHA historic homes, beautifully decorated for the holiday season. The NHA will showcase Hadwen House, the Thomas Macy House, and Greater Light decorated in holiday trimmings from November 23 through December 31. Inspired holiday decor will be designed by Donna Elle of Donna Elle Seaside Living, David M. Handy Events, Susu Aylward, and Patty Kepanash.

On November 30 the three homes will be included on the Friends of Nantucket Public Schools Holiday House Tour, with a reception and viewing of Festival of Trees at the Whaling Museum.

November 23 – December 31, Daily 11 a.m.– 4 p.m.

For ticket information nha.org