Historic Nantucket, Summer 2003, Vol. 52 No. 3

THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES Arie L. Kopelman President

Peter W. Nash

Barbara E. Hajim

Alice F. Emerson

Bruce D. Miller

Patricia M. Bridier

First Vice President

Second Vice President

Third Vice President

Treasurer

Clerk

Rebecca M. Bardett C. Marshall Beale Robert H. Brust Nancy A. Chase John H. Davis Mary F. Espy Julius Jensen III

Harvey Saligman Alfred Sanford III Isabel C. Stewart John M. Sweeney E. Geoffrey Verney Marcia Welch Robert A. Young

JaneT. Lamb Carolyn B. MacKenzie Bruce Percelay Arthur I. Reade Jr. Susan Rotando Melanie R. Sabelhaus Frank D. Milligan Executive Director

RESEARCH FELLOWS Dr. Elizabeth Litde

Pauline Maier

Nathaniel Philbrick

Patty Jo S. Rice

Renny A. Stackpole

FRIENDS OF THE NHA Pat & Thomas Anathan Mariano & Mortimer Appley Heidi & Max Berry Christy & William Camp Jr. Laurie & Robert Champion Dottie & Earle Craig Prudence & William M. Crozier Robyn &John Davis Sandra & Nelson Doubleday Nancee &John Erickson Marjorie & Charles Fortgang Nancy & Charles Geschke Susan & Herbert Goodall III

Georgia & Thomas Gosnell Silvia Gosnell Barbara & Robert Griffin Barbara & Edmund Hajim GeorgeS. Heyer Jr. Barbara & Harvey Jones Kathryn & James Ketelsen Sara Jo & Arthur Kobacker Coco & Arie Kopelman Sharon & Frank Lorenzo Carolyn & Ian MacKenzie Phyllis & William Macomber

Miriam & Seymour Mandell Ronay & Richard Menschel Aileen & Scott Newquist Charron & Flint Ranney Gleaves & Thomas Rhodes Ellen & Kenneth Roman Marion & Robert Rosenthal Ellen & David Ross Linda & Harvey Saligman Charlotte Smith Genevieve & Richard Tucker Marilyn Whitney Yuriko & Bracebridge Young Jr.

ADVISORY BOARD Walter Beinecke Jr. Joan Brecker Patricia Buder Helen Winslow Chase Michael deLeo Lyndon Dupuis Martha Groetzinger Dorrit D. P. Gutterson

Patricia Loring William B. Macomber Paul Madden Robert F. Mooney Jane C. Richmond Nancy J. Sevrens Scott M. Stearns Jr. Mary-Elizabeth Young

Nina Hellman Elizabeth Husted Elizabeth Jacobsen Francis D. Lethbridge Reginald Levine Katherine S. Lodge Sharon Lorenzo EDITORIAL COMMITTEE

Mary H. Beman Margaret Moore Booker Richard L. Brecker Thomas B. Congdon Jr.

Nathaniel Philbrick Sally Seidman James Sulzer David H. Wood

Peter J. Greenhalgh Robert F. Mooney Elizabeth Oldham

Cecil Barron Jensen

Helen Winslow Chase

Elizabeth Oldham

Claire O'Keeffe

EDITOR

HISTORIAN

COPY EDITOR

ART DIRECTOR

Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket history. Original research, first-hand accounts, reminiscences of island experiences, historic logs, letters, and photographs are examples of materials of interest to our readers.

Copyright © 2003 by Nantucket Historical Association Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published quarterly by the Nantucket Historical Association, 15 Broad Street, Nantucket, MA 02554.

Second-class postage paid at South Yarmouth, MA and additional entry offices.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket Box 1016 • Nantucket, MA 02554-1016 • (508) 228-1894; fax: (508) 228-5618 • nhainfo@nha.org For information about our historic sites: www.nha.org

NANTUCKEr VOLUME 52, NO.3

SUMMER2003

4 "The Best N antucketer of Us All":

Dr. Benjamin Sharp

by Frank D. Milligan

6 Nantucket Hero

George Nelson Macy Captain George A. Grant:

by Robert F. Mooney

Whaleman

10

by Peter M. Wilson

Mary Starbuck:

13

Poet, Authot; Nantucket Historian

Nikita Carpenko

Excerpt from

by Ben Simons

The Other Islanders, Part III

by Frances Ruley Karttunen

16 Florence Folger Webster:

A Nantucket Life in Pictures

Margaret Fawcett Barnes

by Claire O'Keeffe

A little episode in the life of a grande dame ...

by Elizabeth Oldham

20

~~ 22

Memories of Mac

"Might as well sit right here."

by Kate Stout

An Interview with George Andrews

24

by Jim Sulzer

Historic Nantucket Book Section

26

Review by Cecil Barron Jensen

Antiques Show News

29 NHANews On the cover:

..:;.a...._..

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On the back ofthis photograph, Captain George A. Grant is recognized as "Custodian a/Whaling Museum, taken in front ofsperm whale jaw." The Whaling Museum first opened to the public in 1930 and will be substantially restored over the next two years. P1<996 SUMMER

200. 3

3

FROM

THE

EXECUTIVE

DIRECTOR

''The Best N antucketer of Us All'':

Dr. Benjamin Sharp

U

NUKE TRADITIONAL MUSEUMS,

historic sites have a rhythm about them that is as predictable as Nantucket's tides and the arrival of summer daytrippers. Ever so quietly, springcleaning and seasonal staff training give way to packed walking tours, guided tours of Hadwen House and the Oldest House, and comgrinding demonstrations at the Old Mill. In town the lines lengthen in the foyer at the Whaling Museum as visitors flock into Sanderson Hall where interpretive staff continues the NHA's long-standing tradition of recreating the whaling story, a tradition that Peter Wilson in this issue of Historic Nantucket ascribes to the Whaling Museum's first curator and real-life whaler, George Grant.

Summer brings back to the island and to the NHA many seasonal residents who share with Nantucket year-round residents a passion for preserving and teaching our island's fascinating history. For one hundred and ten years NHA volunteers-trustees, educators, special event coordinators, and researchers-have gathered in offices, workshops, and private homes with one goal in mind: to support an organization in its preservation and education work. The coming together of volunteers with common goals but uncommon zip codes is a tradition that has left a distinguishing mark upon this historical association.

Perhaps no individual better reveals this commitment to service than Dr. Benjamin Sharp (1858-1915), of whom the notable Nantucket resident and former NHA president William F. Macy wrote: "No 'off Dr. Benjamin Sharp, islander' I have ever known has absorbed so much of ca. 1913 the spirit of all that was best in old Nantucket as he."

Pm Following Sharp's sudden and tragic death in 1915,

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Macy was asked to say a few words about his late good friend at the NHA's Annual Meeting. Macy summed up his sentiments with one short but telling sentence: "Though not a Nantucketer, he was perhaps the best Nantucketer of us all."

Benjamin Sharp was born in Philadelphia in 1858 and studied at Swarthmore College and Nantucket's Coffin School, an institution for which he would later serve on the board of directors.

Sharp went on to receive a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1880 and studied in Europe where he received a Ph.D. , majoring in zoology. Sharp chose not to practice medicine, a decision for which he seemed to have few regrets: "I have not killed anyone yet," he once said, "but then, I have never really practiced medicine; I have helped to take a man's leg off at the knee joint; the leg was saved-but not the man."

Ben Sharp worked as a professor of zoology at the University of Pennsylvania and undertook extensive research at many locations, including two summers at the zoological research station in Woods Hole. He soon acquired considerable fame as a scientist and published extensively. He was selected as the zoologist in charge on Robert Perry's first trip to Greenland in 1891 and three years later traveled north again, this time to Alaska, Siberia, and the Arctic. That same year he was elected to the Academy of Natural Sciences, which seemed to propel him increasingly into international research and lecturing.

Despite a hectic international itinerary, few gave more to the betterment of the island. He was called "Nantucket's foremost citizen"-unquestionably a citation of note for any resident, seasonal or otherwise.

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More importantly, he was universally recognized as a man everybody respected and liked as a friend. In the 1870s Sharp purchased a Nantucket property where he loved to paint and entertain a dose circle of friends that included Susan Brock, the NHA's curator from 1894 until 1928. That Sharp would buy a home on the island was not surprising, given his love for the sea. He never tired of going down to the wharves during summer storms.

Sharp gave inestimable time to various Nantucket causes, including the Coffin School, the Maria Mitchell Association, the Civic League, and especially the Cottage Hospital, for which in 1912 Sharp and a group of friends purchased an estate on West Chester Street for the then tidy sum of $16,000. But it was the NHA to which he devoted most of his energy while on island. "In the Historical Association alone I feel his loss to be irreparable," wrote Alexander Starbuck, NHA president from 1903 to 1927.

A relentless and meticulous researcher, Sharp undertook an extensive study of the Nantucket whaling fleet, a project that he failed to complete due to his untimely death. Sharp combined exacting research techniques with the creativity and writing style of a novelist. In his article entitled "A Captain of the Vanished Fleet," published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1907, he revealed not only his extensive knowledge of early whaling but his grasp of the human side of this often dehumanizing industry. His main character, a whaling captain, he introduces as "a whale man born when Nantucket was at a standstill, cold and hungry ... as its forefathers had been during the War of the Revolution." His close friend William Macy believed Sharp to be "one of the few real authorities on whaling and everything connected to it." And many applauded his ability, as Macy explained, to actually visualize life on an old-time whaleship better than anyone who had never actually been on a whaling voyage. "He actually lived it," Macy said during his address at the NHA's Annual Meeting in 1915. "He knew every rope and every spar. And this was his attitude toward everything in our history. It was not a matter of exact dates or statistics with him-it was the thing itself, not the dead dry bones, but the actual living, human side of it."

The pages of this issue of Historic Nantucket contain wonderful stories of Nantucket artists, soldiers, whalers, fishermen, and spiritual and cultural leaders.

HISTORIC

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Some were born on Nantucket. All eventually moved here. Undoubtedly Sharp and his wife (who in later life also served on NHA committees) would have moved here and continued to work alongside so many individuals-from home and away-who gave, and continue to give, their abilities and resources to the historical association's cause. Place of birth or primary residence was not important to Sharp and island residents respected him for that. In the end they also thanked him: "He saw only the best in us," William Macy concluded, "and so we gave our best to him."

Long may the NHA partnership between Nantucket and seasonal residents continue.

Dr. Sharp with his bicycle, ca.

1895

-Frank D. Milligan

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5

Nantucket Hero: General George Nelson Macy by Robert F. Mooney

T

HE MACY NAME HAS ALWAYS BEEN PROMI- 1 himself a natural leader of men. One of the duties of a

nent in Nantucket history, but no one in junior officer was recruiting, and Macy was an excellent the family surpassed the achievements, recruiting officer. Going home for a weekend, he left bravery, and patriotism of George Nelson with twenty-three Nantucket men in tow; then he stopped at Martha's Vineyard and picked up five more.

Macy during the Civil War. Born on Nantucket in 1837, he was the eldest son of In those days, part of the appeal of the volunteer army George Wendell Macy, a successful island businessman. was the chance to serve with one's friends and neighMacy graduated with honors from Nantucket High bors. As the islanders eagerly joined Company I, School in 1855, and set off to Boston to make his own the company included about sixty island volunteers, fortune. He was employed by the merchant banking thanks to Macy.

The story of the 20th Mass. is the story of the Army firm of Warren & Osborn on State Street, where he soon made friends with several promising young of the Potomac, which fought in every battle from Ball's men, mostly Harvard graduates, who belonged to Bluff to Appomattox. Originally numbering about 750 Boston's prestigious old militia company, the New men, the regiment incurred over fifty per cent casualties.

George Nelson Macy I England Guards. With the advent of the Civil War, George Nelson Macy suffered three crippling wounds they readily accepted young Macy and together they as he fought in every battle (except for detached duty at (1837-75), volunteered for the Union army in, as it was called, the Antietam), and rose from lieutenant to major general.

Brevet Major General, Harvard Regiment On October 21, 1861, the regiment was tested Twentieth Mass.

Most of Harvard's Class of 1860 were eager to at Ball's Bluff, near Leesburg, Virginia, in one of Infantry enlist in the newly formed elite regiment, the Union Army's early disasters. After crossing the the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Potomac River in small boats, they were atop a seventyInfantry. In the burst of enthusi- foot bluff, surrounded by Confederates, with the river asm following the attack on at their backs and no boats in sight. The 20th Mass.

Fort Sumter, no Harvard served as the rear guard for the army, then had to man was refused a commission make the decision: swim or surrender. Lieutenant Macy

by Governor John Albion swam the river to find more boats to rescue survivors, Andrew, and thus the gain the admiration of the regiment, and win promotion regiment contained illustri- to captain. ous names like Henry In December of 1862, the regiment was part of the Livermore Abbott, William army under General Ambrose Burnside, who ordered Francis Bartlett, Caspar the assault on the colonial town of Fredericksburg. The Crowninshield, and Oliver Massachusetts men were chosen to lead the way, crossWendell Homes Jr. They ing the Rappahannock River in small boats, then marchsoon added their non-Harvard ing through the streets in the face of deadly rifle fire friend, George Nelson Macy, of from well-concealed Confederates-the first instance of Nantucket, as first lieutenant of genuine street fighting in the war. Captain Macy led the the regiment. way through the streets, losing forty men during an Macy had command of Company advance of fifty yards.

I of the 20th Mass., and soon proved After securing the town, the Union forces attempted

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seven charges up Marye's Heights, a deadly killing field swept by Confederate cannon and rifle fire. Among the 12,000 casualties of the Union Army at Fredericksburg were seven Nantucket men killed in action-the saddest day of the war when the news reached home.

Amid all his wartime travails, Macy carried on a romantic correspondence with his island sweetheart, Mary Hayden. They numbered each letter for continuity and ready reference. In February he requested fifteen days' leave from the army, explaining: "I ask for fifteen instead of ten days for the reason that as much time is required to go to Nantucket as to Canada." He returned to Nantucket, where George and Mary were married on February 16, 1863, and honeymooned on the island.

Returning to the army, Macy was at Gettysburg on July 3,1863, and when Colonel Paul]. Revere, grandson of the Midnight Rider, was killed, Macy assumed command of the regiment. Facing Pickett's Charge that day, the 20th Mass. was in the front line of General Hancock's men on Cemetery Ridge. Macy led his men into the melee that stopped Pickett's Charge. A minie ball shattered his left hand; the arm was amputated and, after recovery in Boston, he was fitted with an artificial arm.

Despite his disability, Macy returned to action. As a full colonel in the Wilderness, on May 6, 1864, he was ordered to lead a charge to save the Union line of defense. Charging up the Orange Plank Road, he was shot in both legs, but survived.

The unsinkable Macy returned to duty in Virginia in August 1864. At the battle of Deep Bottom, near Richmond, he was leading his men on horseback when his horse was shot and fell upon him. Macy arose and pushed forward with his men until he fell senseless on the field. When he retUrned to Nantucket to convalesce, he had to be carried on a litter from the steamship to his home on Main Street.

For his distinguished conduct at the Wilderness and Deep Bottom, Macy was promoted on February 6, 1865, to the rank of brevet (temporary) brigadier general. He was then rwenty-seven years old. Later he was appointed brevet major general by General Ulysses S. Grant.

At the Grand Review of the Army held May 23, 1865, Macy led the parade before President Andrew Johnson and General Grant, in a scene immortalized by General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: "Now rides the Provost Marshall General, Gallant George Macy of the HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

20th Massachusetts, his (left) arm symbolized by an empty sleeve pinned across his breast."

After the war, Macy returned to Boston, where he became an officer of the Suffolk Savings Bank and of the Union Club. He and his wife were the parents of three daughters. While working at the bank, he was accustomed to carrying a small Derringer pistol in his vest pocket. Returning home on February 13, 1875, he suffered a dizzy spell and fell, the pistol firing and sending a ball through his heart. He is buried in Forest Hills Cemetery.

Macy's widow married, but after her second husband died she was obliged to return to the Macys' home at 123 Main Street, Nantucket. She petitioned for a pension as the widow of the Civil War hero, supporting it by testimonials from several Civil War generals.

By Act of Congress, Macy's death was found to be the result of his many wartime injuries, and his widow was awarded a full pension in 1902.

There is no memorial to George Nelson Macy in Nantucket, although there should be. His home at 123 Main Street is still standing, largely as it was during his day, privately owned.

It was not customary during the Civil War to award medals to officers, although some were authorized years later. Officers were rewarded by brevet promotions. In any other war, Macy, for his many campaigns, his steadfast courage under fire, and his three major wounds, would have merited a Congressional Medal of Honor.

TheMacy home at 123 Main Street, ca. 1960s.

Photograph by John W. McCalley

Robert F. Mooney is coauthor of The Civil War: The Nantucket Experience, with Richard F. Miller, whose research contrzbuted to this article. Bob is also a member of the NHA's Editorial Committee and sometime contributor to Historic Nantucket.

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7

Captain George A. Grant Whaleman by Peter M. Wilson

The author's grandfather, Wzlliam B. Medlicott.

Photo courtesy ofthe author

8

HISTORIC

EVENTY-THREE YEARS AGO, A CURIOUS SIX-

S

year-old was presented to a remarkable gentleman who had just been appointed curator and custodian of the Whaling Museum and all the wondrous objects exhibited there. The lad's grandfather, William B. Medlicott, made the introduction. We were standing outside under the large carving of a whaleboat and its crew on the wall of the museum where, with a bit of ceremony, he said, "Peter, I would like you to meet Captain George Grant," and it was he who had made the carving.

Grandad and Grant had much in common. They were both born in 1857; Grant died in 1942 and Medlicott in 1943. Their neatly trimmed silver-gray hair and mustaches framing very blue eyes gave them similar fine good looks. The captain's intent clear eyes remain fixed in my memory to this day.

Both men came from seafaring families. Grant was the son of Captain Charles Grant, who was noted in the "100 Years" issue of the Inquirer and Mirror as "the most famous whaleman." Charles went to sea in 1825 at the age of eleven, as steward aboard the John Jay out of Nantucket. His whaling career covered fifty-six years.

He received his first command aboard the Walter Scott at thirty, sailing from Nantucket in 1844 for a voyage of four years and eight months. He was accompanied on the next voyage by his wife Nancy (Wyer), who continued sailing with him for thirty-two years, when he retired from the sea in 1881. All of their children were born during whaling cruises in the Pacific. George, the youngest, arrived October 28, 1857, when Nancy was ashore at the British Consulate in the town of Apia on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa.

Medlicott descended from ship broNANTUCKET

kers in Bristol, England. His father, William G. Medlicott, went to sea at age twenty-one, sailing aboard ships carrying brokered cargoes. During a voyage to America in 183 7, his strength as a swimmer enabled him to survive a shipwreck off of Long Island, New York. Not long after coming ashore, he decided to stay on this side of the Atlantic, where he eventually settled in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, as a manufacturer of woolen clothing in nearby Windsor Locks, Connecticut. His son, William B., was born in Longmeadow and as a young man began to visit Nantucket in the early 1880s, both as an insurance representative and as the result of his growing devotion to the island. Of primary interest was his participation in the development of the Nantucket Historical Association, where he met many people involved in the organization, including Grant and his longtime friend William F. Macy.

Grant had his share of whaling experiences, and verbally dramatized many of his adventures for visitors to the museum, delighting young wish-to-be greenhands.

Many of his yarns were about his father, whom he would describe as a fine, respected whaler. Three weeks after Grant was born, he was taken aboard the Mohawk wrapped in "banana skins." The ship set sail from Upolu on November 24, 1857, and headed easterly across the Pacific where the crew continued to take whales. In February 1858, they lost a blubber pot when it rained two barrels of oil into the fire, which was safely quenched. Fifty barrels had been taken since the Mohawk departed Samoa. Captain Charles Grant was hoping to take forty more. But the captain's goal of a taking another forty whales was dashed with only one pot in the tryworks. On February 19, while at anchor in the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, fitting out for the voyage home, Captain Charles Grant was able to take on oil as freight. They rounded Cape Hom and reached Nantucket August 28, 1858. George at ten months SUMMER

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At left: George Grant using props and demonstration to explain the history a/whaling.

P/6714

At right: Captain Grant sailed on ships /or thirty-three years and harpooned his first whale at sixteen.

P/ 923

Both photographs /rom the Inquirer and Mirror, ca. 1934

knew nothing of all these activities, but he was to learn much about whaling during the years to come.

Grant continued to sail with his parents until he was seventeen, when he signed on the Mary Frazier and remained part of the crew for four years. He was well trained for the task, having harpooned his first whale at sixteen. When he returned to Nantucket in 1880, at age twenty-three, he married and, like many of his fellow whalers, went back to sea the next day. Between visits to the island, he sailed on ships for thirty-three years.

Following retirement, he served nineteen years at the Surfside Lifesaving Station and then became curator and custodian of the Whaling Museum. He served in that capacity until his death in 1942.

Medlicott did not follow a career at sea; however, his business interests and skill as a maker of ship models took him offshore from time to time. After graduation from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1876, he taught mathematics and science for two years and worked in his father's knitted-goods factory from 1879 to 1893 .

He then began a career as an authority on property insurances. For twelve years he lectured on the subject at Harvard and was a member of the Business School faculty. During his many years as a claims representaHISTORIC

NANTUCKET

tive, his travels took him to San Francisco in the aftermath of the fire in 1906, to the West Indies in 1914 as a representative of the Atlas Assurance Co. Ltd. of London, and to Nantucket. On several winter crossings to the island, his skill as a skater enabled him to finish the journey to town from the ice-bound steamer. In June 1884, Medlicott married Grace Harding. They had six children, including my mother, Grace Medlicott Wilson. William died on October 30, 1943.

On frequent return visits to the island, I always took time to call on Captain Grant at the museum. My last visit before his death was in the summer of 1942.

Memories of him and the contagion of his wonderful talks about whaling have influenced my attempts to follow in his footsteps as an interpreter at the Whaling Museum.

Peter M. Wzlson manages the Periwinkle Guest House on Nantucket and has worked as a member of the NHA interpretive stafffor three years. This is his first article /or Historic Nantucket.

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Mary Starbuck: Poet) Autho1; Nantucket Historian

by I BenSimons

M

ARY ELIZA STARBUCK (1856-1938), known

as "Molly," was the daughter of a Nantucket whaling captain and becan1e the founding secretary of the Nantucket Historical Association, a poet, and the author of a book of memoirs, My House and I. Gifted with words and enchanted with a sense of Nantucket's fragile past, this "minor Mary" dwelt in the quiet twilight of a vanished world-but was one of the island's first modem women.

Unmarried, living alone at 8 Pleasant Street surrounded by her Walter Folger Jr. clock, her astronomical telescope, and her beloved Isabella grapevines, she remained betrothed to her house: "We have our friends, my house and I, even our lovers."

Throughout her life, she had glimpses of attachment, Mary Starbuck as to h er h an d some cousin, imprisone d d uring t h e as a young woman Civil War: "Seth didn't live long after he came home. ca. 1880s I wish he had. I wonder if the twinkle would have come back to those deep-set gray eyes! Or was everything GI'N4JJ9 'different'?" Always the pageant of life passes before her eyes, but slowly fades into a recollection: "Was everything 'different'?"

As a witness to an era of transition, Starbuck was privy as a girl to "the first stirring of womanhood toward public self-expression, the first awakening to the consciousness of woman's right to 'live her own life.' " When the first woman in bloomers appeared on island, her mother delivered "a sort of impersonal smile, the Woman's Smile of Wisdom." Starbuck's own spacious mind had ample room for both horns of the dilell11lla: for her mother's skeptical smile and for the new stirring of "self-expression."

Her own self-expression would take many forms, including a small volume of l O HrSTORlC

NANTUCKET

poems first published in 1911 bearing the title "Nantucket" and Other Verses. The title poem includes her best-known lines: "] ust a sandy wind-swept island!"

What more would you have it be, With a turquoise sky above it, Around it a sapphire sea?

Raised in the tradition of Whittier, Starbuck captured in her poems a sense of the fleeting, colorful, mist-covered landscape that earned her the epithet "poet of the purple isle." A poem entitled "The Purple Island" cries: Purple Island! Purple Island!

There are mystic moments when All voices of the springtime Call us o'er and o'er again Back to thee, far purple island.

Individual poems in that collection, amplified and reprinted in 1922, paint word scenes of Miacomet, Pocomo Head, 'Sconset, and other familiar haunts in quaint, convincing atmospheric strokes. In addition to the majority of weather- and sea-filled pieces, something more modern and introspective emerges in a few poems, such as "Consciousness" : Because, you see, All those things he thinks he knows Are only vertebrae Without connecting tissue, Are only toys For men to play with!

Who the offending man was remains a mysteryperhaps her older brother who went off to Phillips Academy, while Mary sat at the feet of her teacher at the Cent School-but the bristling consciousness of her awakened mind signals something far deeper than descriptive lines like "gaunt, crazy wind-tossed pine trees/A never-ending moor." Her poem "Down" conveys a sense of her own active but dissociated inward eye: SUMMER

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Quite still I lie. I do not feel, Of that I'm very sure, My brain still works-no, photographs perhaps Without developing"No pain, no ache, or do you think?"

Oh no, I look at pictures in my brain, that's all.

Like a long-developing daguerreotype, she would spend her own days at 8 Pleasant Street sorting through images from her Nantucket past.

These images were grounded in memories of her father, Captain Charles Starbuck. The captain was "tall and handsome" with a "full-toned, beautiful voice." He adored his children, gave them "silver pennies" upon returning from a voyage, and would bring exotic gifts, "shawls and china and lacquer ware," from his "great gamble" beyond Cape Horn aboard the Starbuck ship Islander. He drank neither tea nor coffee, took no "liquor," and shared with his daughter, his "regular witch," a love of flowers and gardening. He was a straight-dealing captain who lost his fortune on the Islander and returned home to die soon after. The associations with the roving life ran deep with daughter Mary:

the Pacific Club, of which he was an original purchaser.

His stepdaughter built up her treasure of memories to make her "to that extent ... an Historical Personage": "It is a curious feeling to realize that some trifling experience of one's life should have become of great importance because it happened so long ago that there is slight likelihood of its ever happening again." Her memory of the swarming plovers certainly qualifies.

As she travels through a lifetime of Nantucket memories in My House and I (1929), she repeatedly returns to a concept fanllliar from her childhood: the "thousand-year box." These thousand-year boxes were found in barns, sheds, or kitchens, often "a thing despised by

Casks of pickled limes, of cocoanuts, of Cape Horn nuts, as English walnuts were called, and Castile nuts, now known as Brazil nuts.

And small kegs of lime juice and of tamarinds, both of which made refreshing drinks for warm days.

Mary's mother, Lois (Pease), remarried another sea dog, Captain James Wyer. The Starbuck fanllly remained in their house on Pleasant Street and Captain Wyer moved in, renting out his Orange Street home. Wyer would often don his "gurming coat" and take his new fanllly to see the plover "going over," as Mary remembers: The sound came nearer, a little soft, staccato whistle, then louder, a bit shriller but the notes dropping still softly, though more quickly, and then the upper air was filled with the nervous, plaintive notes of the plover until the whole atmosphere seemed to become of an unbearable density with the mysterious crying of the invisible birds, driven by instinct into the blackness, fearfully, pathetically leaving the known for the unknown!

Captain Wyer ended his days in the "Cap'ns' Rooms" at HISTORIC

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the good housewife," as they contained the clutter and loose ends of years: "There were brass knobs, no two alike, odd locks, odder keys, parts of drawer handles ... whale-ivory umbrella handles or tops of walking sticks ... silk velvet to make a bonnet." In general, they contained things "cast as refuse to the void" and '"source stuff' like the 'Sewers of Paris."' Soon, this idea becomes a model for the very approach to preserving the past. As the Nantucket of old slips away, what would it be like to create just such a thousand-year box for the artifacts and experiences that threaten to fade?

All of those collective "trifling experiences" she refers to

Artist Susan Boardman's embroidered narrative inspired by Mary Starbuck's lzfe and poetry

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11

Starbuck continued to live at 8 Pleasant Street until her death in 1938. Years earlier, she had attended the last Quaker funeral on Nantucket, "A sad and uncom- . fortable day ... soft, moist and gray in the early spring ... the petulant gusts of a 'smoky sou'wester' blew gritty clouds of dust from the road." She had learned from the Quakers in her midst, she said, "the principle of not saying anything unless one has something to say. Of course the other lesson has to be learned later-the trick of saying something when there isn't anything to say." With the last prayer at the Quaker's graveside, "that we might 'be at home in peace with Thee,' I saw that the man was trembling and trying to control himself." With her own death, she took her deepest memories with her.

Mary Eliw Starbuck in 1934,

at the gate to her house at 8 Pleasant Street P/276 1

Ben Simons is the NHA's assistant curator and contributed an article about the NHA's recent acquist~ tions to the Spring 2003 issue a/Historic Nantucket.

could mature into something so grand as a "Historical Personage," and the parade of "precious 'old associations"' could emerge as something like history: We thought that it would be a curious combination to dig up! Future generations would be informed that their ancestors went to bed with their hats on instead of the traditional boots, or that the Nantucketers wore beaver hats instead of nightcaps. Nantucketers were always different!

12

At first, Starbuck's own house played the role of the preserve for the memories and artifacts that surrounded her so vividly. But in 1894 she acted as a moving spirit in the foundation of the Nantucket Historical Association, serving as its first secretary. She and many fellow Nantucketers whose houses were filled with the ghostly remains of their ancestors, and who might have been faced with a difficult "succession of choices," had joined to form a more public organization that could house all of the artifacts accumulated fo r years in a larger version of the same: "Otherwise the world would [have] become an exaggerated 'thousand-year box' and no place to put it!" It took the foresight of Starbuck and her generation to organize and create a new stronghold for time.

H I S T 0 RI C

N A N T UC K E T

NOTECARDS USAN BOARDMAN 'S BEAUTIFUL EMBROI-

S

deries of nine Nantucket women h ave been reproduced as images on notecards.

The back of each card has text detailing the significance of the piece and the process of producing them. Susan Boardman underwrote the production and printing of the box of cards, which is on sale at the Museum Shop, 11 Broad Street and the NHA Research Library, 7 Fair Street. Profits from the sale of the cards go to the NHA's endowment for restoration and maintenance of historic properties. C all (508) 228-5785 to order a box.

The price per box, including tax, is $21; $19 for members. Postage is additional.

SUMMER

2003

Nikita Carpenko Excerpt /rom The Other Islanders, Part III

T

HE MALLARDS THAT INHABIT THE PCX)L FED

by Consue Spring are the descendants of the pet duck of Ukrainian sculptor Nikita Carpenko, who came to Nantucket in 1930 and built his studio on the nearby lot bounded by Union Street and Spring Street. According to a short story among his papers, Carpenko-not being very knowledgeable about birds-originally called his pet "The Grand Duck Peter," but had to change the name to "The Grand Duchess Petrina" when she began laying eggs. Today a duck-crossing sign at the bend of Union Street and a wooden shelter by the spring with a quarterboard reading "Ducky" serve Petrina's countless progeny.

To Nantucketers, Carpenko was as inexplicable as a character straight from the pages of Russian literaturea person of considerable talent and charm driven to act out two great stereotypes of that literature: the wounded survivor of an interrupted childhood and the sodden buffoon. That he told his life story to interviewers in almost exactly the same words that he used in writing and rewriting a third-person account of a boy named Niki makes it unclear to just what extent he invented himself and to what extent he was incapable of constructing any story that was not about himself. It is only possible to accept the information that appears on his death certificate as reliable because it was provided by his older sister, a sober and pious woman who joined him on Nantucket during the last years of his life.

According to Luba Carpenko Chernitza, their parents were Andrew Carpenko and Nadegda Kaminsky of the Ukraine. Luba was born in 1895 and Nikita in 1898, and they came of age during the Russian Revolution.

From there Nikita Carpenko takes up his own story, stating that his childhood home was Poltava, a provincial capital of central Ukraine, due north of the Black Sea. In the heart of grain and cattle country, Poltava had seen little excitement since Czar Peter the Great's utter defeat of far-ranging Swedish invaders there in HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

1709. Carpenko tells of a dreamy seven-year-old boy who, in that landlocked town, was enchanted by ships and aspired to be a sailor and shipbuilder like Peter the Great. Sent instead to the same military boarding school as his older brothers, the boy was protected from the other cadets' harassment by their respect for his unique talent for building model ships.

At seventeen he was sent on to training as a cavalry officer in the czarist army, still with no prospect of becoming a seaman. The Russian Revolution ended his prospects as a cavalry officer as well. He told a reporter that he became a pilot and did some bombing runs before fleeing the Revolution via Siberia, Manchuria, and China and thence by ship at last to Seattle. There he financed the beginning of his new American life by selling a ship model he had carried with him across Siberia and the Pacific. "From then on," he wrote, "my future was tied up in ship models. Making them and selling them."

From Seattle he moved on to San Francisco, where he took art classes and had what he describes as a formative experience with a Dutch former sailor and master rigger named Harry V os.

Vos , too, built model ships, and according to Carpenko, was an unsparing critic of Carpenko's efforts, claiming that he could not distinguish a cabin from a bathtub on one of Carpenko's models, slashing the rigging with a penknife, and making Carpenko do the work over until he got it right.

Responding to this mentorship, Carpenko gave himself over entirely to the art and science of model-bu ilding.

by Frances Ruley

Karttunen

Petrina the duck at Consue Spnng NIIA COIJ..EC/"ION 312. FOWER 4

S U M M E R

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13

M",k L.rcl - '

From left to right: Carpenko and wife Peg operated the Norwegian Pottery Shop at his studio.

This ad appeared in the Inquirer and Mirror

in June 1938, although Union Street is referred to as Consue Street.

The Carpenko fa mily Christmas card, ca. 1944.

Nikita Carpenko self-portrait.

AU.. NHA COU.ECTION J 12, FOWER 4

14

HISTORIC

Writing of himself in the third person, Carpenko said that , " ... he began to study, in order to learn more about the ships that he so loved. By this time, the ship models had begun to mean dreams that never came true. As he worked and learned more and more about the grace and beauty of the sailing ships, the models . . . took him in his imagination to strange lands. He was no longer so much interested in sea battles, but now he thought of the places where the ship had been, the strange ports, the strange cargo, the passengers as well as the sailors.

He had so much love for the model ships and they meant so much to him that he now endeavored to make them as nearly lifelike as possible. .. . There was no dry mechanical workmanship about his models. . . but an imaginative artistry that made the models into something alive and seaworthy."

The 1920s were a period of intense activity in Carpenko's life. In his biography for an exhibit brochure, he dated his departure from Russia to 1921.

During his apprenticeship to Vos in San Francisco he became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and by 1930 he had crossed the country and taken up residence in Nantucket just as the Depression descended on the nation and the island.

During the economic hard times of the 1930s, he managed to survive by living frugally while building his reputation as a master builder of ship models. An article in the May 1938 issue of Yachting featured his model of the ship Argus of New York. Two years later an article appeared in The Rudder about two models, one repaired by Carpenko and the other built by him.

In late spring of 1941 an exhibition of his work in Manhattan's Orrefors Gallery brought an abundance of positive publicity. Press releases described him as a specialist in American ships of 1750-1850 who dug dams N A NTU C K ET

n

r

~"

1

C rond 0:...1: .. '\1.-\f..""

during breaks from twelve-hour workdays in his Nantucket studio, where he also slept. A New Yorker article of May 31 , 1941, expanded on the clam-digging angle to say that he located the clams with his bare toes.

The May 31, 1941, issue of Cue also reviewed the exhibition. Carpenko's model of the Hudson River packet sloop Experiment was commissioned for President Franklin Roosevelt.

Keeping company with Carpenko in his studio were Petrina the duck and a terrier named Lord Buckingham, both figuring in Carpenko's sketch books of the time. In the draft of a story, Carpenko proposes to the animals that they share their home with a princess, who turned out to be a Midwestern fellow artist named Margaret Deal. The couple married in 1944, and Peg, Nik, the duck, and the dog all figure in idyllic sketches and a Christmas card from those times.

The couple sought to diversify by writing stories together, but publishers were discouraging. In the fall of 1947 they received a letter from Adele (apparently their agent) informing them that Whittlesey House had rejected one of their coauthored stories on the grounds that the publisher did not care for animal stories for adults. She held out the promise of taking the story to other publishers while suggesting that they instead produce a children's book on ship-model building. Adele described her pitch for this potential project in which she would promote the Carpenkos as "a most attractive couple, very excellent marriage, all kinds of lessons involved, their not trying to make each other over, the contrasts, the two nationalities." This was probably the impetus for the fragmentary third -person story of Carpenko's life that appears among his papers under the title "The Dry Sea." SUMM E R

2003

The marriage was not so excellent after all, and "The Dry Sea" appears to have been abandoned. After the frenetic years of the Russian Revolution, the flight across Siberia to China, the voyage to Seattle and formation as an artist in San Francisco, Nantucket's slow pace during the Depression and the years of World War II had proved less than healthy for a man of Carpenko's temperament. At some point he began to unravel like an old sweater. Peg divorced him.

At the end of the 1940s Carpenko had turned from model ships to sculpture. His new works, carved from whatever came to hand-broomsticks and table legs included-were mainly elongated heads reminiscent of both Modigliani's work and the moai of Easter Island.

In the course of three years he produced over a hundred of them, exhibited his new work in New York's Guggenheim Museum, and had it featured in

Life Magazine.

This turn led to business correspondence with museums and galleries about rights to sell reproductions and also to private correspondence with women who aspired to be sculptors themselves. Apparently he sent invitations to them to spend summers working in his studio, growing vegetables in his garden, and selling pottery. In extant letters the women answered graciously but did not come. One correspondent wrote to him on behalf of herself and another woman that "There have been times when we were on the brink of accepting your offer of room and board and no attempted seduction. (Perhaps the threat of the revitalization of your 'love parts' scares us. We have enough problems already.)" Instead, it was his widowed sister Luba who came to look after him.

Her brother had become a monumental drunkard.

A bottle of Emily Antosch's dandelion wine would have been the least of it. One of Carpenko's stories opens with "Doctor Steve" emerging from a binge. "Doc's up and about again. Surely seedy and my, so thin. You'd think, wouldn't you . ... " A purchaser of one of his pieces of sculpture whom Carpenko dunned for nonpayment responded with a nasty letter that read in part, "I would like to remind you that were it not for my wife's good offices one night several summers ago, you might at this time have been banned from the island of Nantucket. As I was informed by an authority of the local government, the instance in which we became involved through our own choice was your fourth, one relatively close to the HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

other .... We will contact you as soon as practicable to discharge the indebtedness. Until then, I hope your health remains good, and that you have not reverted to the state in which we unhappily found you."

Carpenko carved and polished a wooden head for his own memorial. On May 4, 1961, his sister found him dead in his studio. The death certificate reads "Sudden death. Presumably due to Coronary Thrombosis."

His body was interred in Prospect Hill Cemetery, and over his grave a Russian cross of wood was raised. Enclosed in glass at the center of the cross was his last wooden head.

Quiet, kindly Luba, a retired registered nurse, lived on for another sixteen years tending her brother's studio and garden and looking after the ducks before she too was laid to rest in Prospect Hill Cemetery.

At his death Nikita Carpenko had resided for over thirty years on Nantucket, longer than he had ever lived anywhere else. In time the great wooden cross on his grave rotted, sagged, and finally was removed.

A man whose extravagance and prodigious appetites got him into hot water time and again, he would probably be vastly amused that his most enduring contribution to the place where he spent nearly half his life is a duck pond.

Photograph of Nzkita Carpenko

by Bzll Haddon"Nantucket Classics"

Ethnohistorian Frances Karttunen is the author of The Other Islanders, a three-part history of the non-

English population a/Nantucket. Parts I and II are now viewable on-line at the NHA website, www.nha.org.

She is a frequent contributor to Historic Nantucket.

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15

MMORTALIZED AS A TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD BRIDE IN

Plain Threads to Nantucket Redsn.': Three Centuries of Nantucket Fashion, the NHA's current exhibition at the Peter Foulger Museum, Florence Folger Webster inspires further inquiry. Her forthright gaze, and particularly her wedding gown, which manages to be both tailored and fussy with its perfect pleating and bow-bedecked skirt, make you wonder who she was and what happened to her.

After wondering just that while working on the exhibition, my chance encounter with Florence's grandson, David E. Webster, and his wife Carole at an NHA event led me to a fascinating morning with the W ebsters, listening to old stories and examining their treasure trove of family memorabilia. David is the fifth generation to have lived at 112 Main Street and, since most of those generations had only one or two children, all of the documentation, photographs, and artifacts remained in the house until the Websters' recent move to lovely new digs on Madaket Road.

Born the only child of doting parents, Franklin Folger Jr. and Elizabeth Hall Ray Folger, Florence lived in the Folger family home at 112 Main Street all her life. Her roots were dug deep into Nantucket soil-she was directly related to all of the original twelve settlers (some as many as fourteen times) and the family has been traced back to William the Conqueror.

Married to off-islander William A. Webster of Springfield, Mass., in 1887, and widowed eleven years later, Florence raised their two children, Franklin Folger and Helen, on the second floor of 112 with her parents living on the first.

She traveled extensively throughout her life, and in her later years she spent winters with her son and his family-wife Emily and grandsons Franklin Folger Jr., David, and John-in Westfield, New Jersey. Upon their return to Nantucket every summer, Florence, who always wore gloves, would whip off a glove and polish the sterling silver doorplate bearing the family name before anyone was allowed to enter the house.

Florence Folger Webster, remembered by grandson David as "very pretty-a real lady who grew prettier and prettier as she got older," died in 1945 and is buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery next to her beloved parents.

The pictorial of Florence's life at right is in essence a pictorial history of Nantucket fashion as well. With a lifetime spanning two centuries, this Civil War baby grew into a twentieth-century woman, her high-buttoned shoes and street-skimming skirts giving way to pumps and dresses hovering below the knee.

Her love of hats and gloves never wavered, even as she bore witness to the birth of the telephone, automobile, and airplane; a stock market crash; and two world wars.

-Claire O'Keeffe Florence's bndal outfit is on display at the Peter Foulger Museum, so you can see firsthand its pleats and bow detatling. Also on exhibit are her husband's wedding coat; Florence's beloved fur muff along with an 1884 photo of her carrying it; and a velvet-bound wedding book listing her wedding party, guests, and gifts received, including an ivory fan of which she was the eighth-generation owner and six vermezl demitasse spoons stzll in her grandson's possession.

Clockwise from bride: Infant Florence with mother Elizabeth H. R. Folger in 1865. The Websters still have her high chair with "1865" painted on its curved back.

Florence ca. 1866--67. Florence ca. three-/our years old, wearing an off-the shoulder plazd dress with high-buttoned shoes in this hand-tinted tintype.

At five in an 1870 tintype. A demure Florence at seven. Florence with friends, who were later her bridesmazds, in /etching hats, ca. 1885 tintype.

Two travel tintypes: top right was taken in 1887. The lower left is labeled "1890 Kansas City." Florence is shown/or the first time wearing glasses. In oval: posing outside 112 Main Street in 1942, in paisley dress and leather mary-jane pumps with diamond detailing. Note the ladylike hanky and the newfangled hean"ng aid around her neck. On a visit to her grandson, David E. Webster, at mzlitary school shortly be/ore her death in 1945. From left: son Franklin Folger Webster, grandsons John and Davzd (in unz/orm), daughter-in-law Emily, and Florence (in hat and gloves, of course). Florence's parents, Franklin Folger Jr. and Elizabeth Hall Ray Folger, in garden at 112 Main ca. 1900. Son Franklin, grandson Franklin Folger Webster Jr., aged "2 yrs 8 Ih mos.," and Florence holding nine-month-old Davzd in "Lowell's Bac/...oyard, Nov. 1929."

Margaret Fawcett Barnes (1895-1979)

A little episode in the lzfe of a grande dame) if ever there was one. by Elizabeth Oldham

18

HIS T 0 RIC

plenty of them); it was exactly as her mother and father had ily in the glitcreated it. tering theatriMargaret and her first huscal milieu of band, Robert Wilson, were the late nineteenth centuthe cofounders of the Straight ry, Margaret was the I I Wharf Theatre, which she daughter and only child I j I supported in every way possiof George Fawcett and I ble-writing plays, directing Percy Haswell-he the them, organizing fund-raisers. actor-manager of a hugely In the 1970s, shortly after successful theater compamy sister Faith had come to ny, she its leading lady. live with our mother in George was one of the Martins Lane, she and my founders of the actors sister-in-law, Wiki Oldham, colony in 'Sconset-that were welcomed into the circle band of free spirits who of Margaret's friends. On one congregated there for of my regular visits, I was some thirty summers, privileged to be invited with relieved of their thespian them and, among others, responsibilities by the M i" Marg<~rct r ;1wcct1 rabing the co l o r~ :H opening ceremony of the Merle Orleans, to Margaret's blistering city heat that Moarw m Wirc lc'~ St:ll ion. ' Scon~ct. in 1901 . annual Fourth of July cocktail closed the theaters of the party in the garden at Rosemary. The daylilies were Great White Way every swnmer until air conditioning abundantly in bloom and it was there that I first tasted came along. that ineffable Italian specialty-batter-dipped and Many of you will have seen the photograph of a girl, deep-fried daylilies. a woman standing beside her, raising the flag at the After Rosemary was closed for the summer, it was momentous opening of the 'Sconset Marconi station in Margaret's custom to spend a little while in town 1901. That was six-year-old Margaret and her mother. before moving to her winter home in Florida.

Their summer house-Rosemary-was one of the early (Margaret's second husband had died by that time.) homes built along Main Street and was distinguished by a two-story "tower" annex with its conical roof, now She would rent a place for a few weeks, socialize with removed, that gave it an almost medieval aspect. her in -town friends , and then take off in her big Chrysler with her big dog Burgess, who I think had at Margaret inherited the property and made it her summer place for the rest of her life. I don't think she least some Bouvier des Flandres in her breeding. changed so much as an antimacassar (and there were The Margaret Fawcett Barnes Collection in the NHA

B

ORN TO A FAM-

NANTUCKET

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Margaret Fawcett Barnes in costume /or the 1959 Main Street Fete.

P5600

Margaret in 1978 with two other grandes dames: Grace Henry (!), a lawyer, and Liz Schoeffler, an artist.

Research Library includes an essay she wrote: "For Burgess," in which she is described as "A large, noble dog who lived only to be loved .... Whether we had a large car because we had a large dog, or the other way about, Burgess monopolized the whole of the back seat."

Well, one year when it was time for Margaret to head south, she thought it might be prudent, as she was then 81 years old, to have a companion-someone to share the driving. She asked Faith, who was willing, and Wiki was on island to check in on Mother. So that all worked out. Faith would drive with Margaret to Florida, and fly back to Nantucket.

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

The day came for departure-bags packed in the big car, Burgess in her back-seat domain, Faith at the wheel. The Chrysler slipped onto the steamer (it was a steamer then) and away they went to Woods Hole.

After disembarking and going along for a while, Margaret said to Faith, "I think Burgess has had enough traveling for today. Let's stop here."

They were in Falmouth.

Elizabeth Oldham is the copy editor of Historic Nantucket, a research associate at

the NHA Research Library, and a bright light a/Nantucket's theater community.

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19

Memories of Mac by Kate Stout

This 1966 view of the Straight Wharf Theatre is taken looking up Main Street /rom the water.

Cap'n Tobey's was only one story, and the Tavern had not yet been built.

Photograph by Cortland V. D. Hubbard ofPhiladelphia P\1620

20

H I S T 0 R I C

(1907-1996) IS the undisputed father of community theater on Nantucket. Although there had been other theater initiatives before, the Theatre Workshop of Nantucket was his baby, if not his brainchild. TWN continues to this day to make theater and theater arts available to the island community, in large measure because of the legacy of this one man.

OSEPH MACLELLAND "MAC" DIXON

J

Mac was born a Mormon in Utah, his father a salesman and his mother an actress. Although she died when he was only six, she did see him make his stage debut-in a nonspeaking role-at age three. Like all three of his siblings, he had a yen to be a performer, putting himself through college by playing the piano.

Mter graduating from the University of Utah in 1930, he headed east to New York City, where he studied at the American Laboratory Theatre for four years .

By the time he was twenty-nine, he had landed the role of his life-the Emperor in The Emperor's New Clothes, which would run on Broadway for two years and 1,200 performances.

Although in some ways a fish out of water in the city, Mac persevered in his quest to act on the stage, taking odd jobs as a dog walker and caregiver to a man his friends remember only as Mr. Barger, and acting whenever auditions proved fruitful. Indeed, he would land three more Broadway roles and soon count among his

N A NT U C K E T

friends Henry Fonda and James Stewart.

Soon after his arrival in New York, Mac met the woman who would not only become his benefactor but would bring him to Nantucket and employ him to run the theater she dreamed of starting on the island.

Jane Wallach, in her day, was the quintessential theater angel-she loved the theater, had lots of money, and enjoyed nurturing talent. Mac fell into her life as a struggling actor seeking employment as a dog walker.

Wallach, a former tennis champion and Newport, Rhode Island, tennis pro, lived in the city and summered on Nantucket. As their friendship progressed, Mac began accompanying Jane to the island in the summer. He was a surrogate son to her and she, to him, an adopted aunt.

With World War ll, Mac's career took an unanticipated turn. He enlisted in the Air Force, left New York and his career, and headed off to war. Eventually he would earn the Bronze Star. But when Mac returned to the States, instead of returning to New York, he took a post teaching theater and speech at Bennington College in Vermont. His academic career was just beginning to gain momentum when he was summoned back to New York to look after Wallach, following a car accident.

Nantucket was the logical place to take Wallach to recuperate. Mac thought he would return to New York and resume his acting career, but he never did. By 1953, Mac had moved to the island permanently and was installed in Jane's house at 72 Orange Street. The idea for the Theatre Workshop would become a reality on Straight Wharf in 1956 when the curtain went up on Heaven Can Wait. Eric Schultz, who worked with Mac on more than seventy-five shows, says, "Mac became the custodian of [Wallach's] vision."

That vision found its focus on the word "community." Mac, a theater professional, was charged with developing a company made up largely of enthusiastic but unskilled amateurs. It would prove to be his most inspired and inspirational role. "He would scour the community to find people he could mold as talent," Schultz remembers.

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Literally, people with a background or interest in the performing arts would hardly have arrived on Nantucket before Mac came knocking. In 1957, John and Elizabeth Gilbert had been on-island only long enough to join a church choir before Mac got wind of them.

John was up a ladder at his home when Mac stopped by and persuaded him to play the title role in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mzkado. Elizabeth would go on to perform in more than thirty-seven plays under Mac's direction, become one of his closest friends, and work steadfastly to keep 1WN on track even after his tenure was up.

Warren Krebs, an island newcomer in the late 1970s and a man destined to follow in Mac's footsteps as artistic director, was cast as Colonel Pickering in My Fair Lady, virtually off the boat. Artist Reggie Levine was recruited early on to help with posters and set design.

Mac worked his usual wiles on hin1, too, luring Reggie onto the stage, most memorably as Puck in Mac's 1976 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Eric Schultz, Mac found out, had both acting and set-design experience. He put Eric to work in both capacities-an association that would stretch from 1969 to 1994, when the roles were reversed and Eric directed Mac in a staged reading of my play Together Alone. By the time he died, Mac had had his hand in more than 150 plays just at ilie Theatre Workshop.

"Mac had a gift for seeing potential in people," recalls Ginger Andrews, who started off working as a summer stage manager for Mac at Straight Wharf while a high school student, "even when they didn't see it themselves, and helping them discc;JVer it. He came from both an educational and professional theater background. He had a real authority and a deep insight into people."

Over the course of his twenty-five-year tenure as 1WN artistic director, Mac acted in many productions himself, playing memorable roles in Charley's Aunt, Plaza Suite, Arsenic and Old Lace, and his own personal favorite, the part of Norman Thayer in On Golden Pond, to name only a few. But he is perhaps best known for his directing because it combined his two lovesacting and the company he had assembled around him.

"He truly was an actor," recalls Eric Schultz. "It was his calling. So he was an actor's director. Watching Mac direct-he always sat in the back row of the housewas a joy. He would emote the entire show in his face."

Initially, TWN was an off-season enterprise at Straight Wharf, allowing local residents the opportunity HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

to explore a winter avocation as thespians. By 1968, however, Mac had steered 1WN into a year-round production schedule. Then, in April1974, disaster struck: Straight Wharf Theatre burned to ilie ground, leaving 1WN homeless. When 1WN rose from the ashes in its new home at the Congregational Church's Bennett Hall, it was in large measure due to Mac's considerable influence-and the intense loyalty he had inspired in boili the theater community and the island community at large.

Mac Dixon served as artistic director of 1WN from 1956 until his retiren1ent in 1981. The theater-indeed, ilie Theatre Workshop-was his life. As Reggie Levine remembers, "He lived theater, he woke up ilieater, he went to bed ilieater."

Never marrying, he made of his troupe of loyal players a cherished family, welcoming even the prickliest artistic temperaments and prim prima donnas into the fold. They rewarded him by doing their best work for him, by demonstrating their high regard in the best praise he could wish for-a fine performance.

The kind of man who put ilie "gentle" in gentleman, he would not readily have been mistaken for a "theater type," even as a young man. All his life Mac was never to be seen without a tie. He adored such niceties as afternoon tea, and he was unfailingly genteel and humble.

"He was the kind of man who could be head of a show and do the janitorial sweep up because it was necMac in 1964. essary," remembers Krebs.

Although he remained connected to the theater until Photograph by his dying day, occasionally acting and always willing to John W. McCalley lend encouragement, Mac handed over the mantle of 1'5598 leadership at 1WN to Richard Cary when he retired. Cary had been his technical director. He, in turn, would be succeeded

by Warren Krebs-further evidence of Mac's dedication to the principle of the "workshop" in TWN's name. Once under his wing, few wished to leave, and none did so without a far greater knowledge of the medium and a considerable debt to the man they'd known simply as Mac.

Kate Stout is the artistic director a/Theatre Workshop and founder and editor of the former Map and Legend. She is a past contributor to Historic Nantucket.

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2003

21

"Might as well sit right here."

An Interview with George Andrews

by In August 1999, George Andrews (1916-2000) sat in the Jim Sulzer entrance to his shanty on North Wharf and talked with

me about the old days. He was cheery and friendly and spoke in that musical old wheeze of a voice that so many George Andrews Nantucketers knew and loved. His pronunciation of key and Wonoma words reflected his fisherman's past: for instance, as in the he explained, fishermen said T AKE-l, not block and TACK-!. And instead of saying fill-A, he pronounced Easy Street basin, "fillet" as FILL-it, as in "I FILL-it-ed the fish ."

his North Wharf shanty

in the background.

Photograph by Beverly Hall Pl/49¡1

I

'M GEORGE ANDREWS. I'VE BEEN A FISHERMAN

all my life. I never had any other job. It was a good life. Didn't mind working. I hated to get up three or four o'clock in the morning, but if you think your net's full of fish or something, you don't mind getting up, you know how 'tis.

Of course, we tried to be high-liners. You get some satisfaction when you come in with more than anybody else.

But that doesn't always happen. We got skunked like everybody else.

There was quite a few of these old-timers around, and they were very fussy about getting things done right. . . .

They'd watch the guys that were beginners, or they weren't too expert at it, and they'd watch them clean the fish. And if they left quite a little meat on the bone, the guy would pick up the two pieces.

"Now," he'd say, "which part are you going to throw away?" (chuckles) One of them was in here

buying a fish, and he said, "Save the backbone for the cat." So I was very careful when I filleted the fish. And he looked at it, and he picked up the fillets and he put then1 in a bag, and he threw the backbone in the bucket. He stood there and he says, "The cat would starve off of that." So then I knew I was doing all right.

I liked to hang around, I liked to hear the stories the old-timers told, you know. Some of them would tell stories, and I'd hear the same story from my father.

Sometimes it was a little different, you know. It wasn't always the same. So they'd improve on it over the years.

Of course, that's natural, I guess. But there's not many old-timers left now. Hardly any.

In 1846, I think it was, they had a big fire; it burned out the whole waterfront, the whole waterfront was gone. The whaling was going down, but they were still trying to keep it going, so they wanted to build right up again. This was one of the first buildings that was built.

It was built for a family shop at that time. You see, they didn't have lumber yards. If you were going to build a big house, you had a vessel come with all the lumber on it, so they stored the lumber here. It was mostly upstairs; the joists up above are about three by ten, and they could put an awful amount of weight up there.

My father bought it [the shanty] about 1905 or a little bit later. Scalloping was coming in big then.

He had some other people opening here. There was times we had twenty-five or thirty lined up here, all opening scallops.

That went on through the twenties . . . when the Depression came, it happened that the scallops shied up then at the same time, so there wasn't really very much.

Just before that, my father had an oyster business, and he'd have several hundred bushels of the seed oysters come, and he put them up in Polpis Harbor, and after a couple of years, when they grew, why he'd go and dredge them up and he'd be down here opening them. He sold them retail, and he shipped some away, vanous ones.

SUMMER

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John D. Rockefeller used to buy a barrel of oysters, oh I guess for a couple of weeks. He had big parties, you know. That's why the Oysters Rockefeller ... they claim that's where it came from. He had a special way of cooking them.

My brother and I collected all the fishing gear. A lot of them went out of business, and they'd give us the gear. One old guy, when he didn't want to mend a net, he'd cut it adrift somewhere near where we were, you know. So we'd go and pick it up. He knew that's what we were going to do. We got gear for every kind of fish there is, as far as I know.

There's miles of nets up there [in the shanty], and there's miles of long-line trawl for codfish, and there's rope. Of course we had all kinds of rope. We had small rope to tie on the net, and we had big rope for other things, for mooring ropes.

When there was a storm we'd go along outside of Brant Point, where there'd always be half a dozen boats, mostly small or medium. They'd part their rope or drag their anchor and they'd be up on the beach half full of water. So we'd go over there with a plank and rollers and a TAKE-1. A block and TACK-1, they call it; fishermen always called it a TAKE-1. And we'd hook that on the truck, we'd pull the boats up, get them safe up above the surf. Of course, they'd get full of water, and we'd have plenty of buckets so the kids there, a lot of kids around, we'd give 'enJ each a bucket and then they'd bail the water right out in no time. Then in the winter time we put the boats in the garage for them . We rolled boats for miles, putting down planks and putting rollers under them. So we got a lot of rollers.

We got a lot of masts up there, and nobody wants wooden masts now, you know.

I gathered up a lot of stuff to build lobster pots and kept building 'em, but I still got a lot of stuff left.

Then we would build boats. My brother built boats, so we got more or less lumber left.

So I've saved everything. I got a lot of bronze shaft and big propellors, and I've got to see the junk man and see what he can do with them.

We had quite a lot of shipwreck stuff up here. Big blocks and all kinds of stuff that came ashore. When I was very young there was a lot of vessels wrecked here.

And there was wreckage all over the shore. You could pick up all kinds of stuff.

It's just mostly junk. When we didn't know what to do with it, we'd throw it up there.

HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

I

We were always bringing in bluefish, more or less, you know, sometimes a hundred and sometimes only a dozen. But I could always get rid of mine. They'd grab 'em right off because I always took ice and I iced them up as soon as I caught them and so they were good and fresh when I brought them in. Some of the others would ... well, they used to say they were pretty good on one side and they were cooked on the other side.

I went bluefishing a lot. I was getting about a hundred fish-four hundred pounds every day. I shipped them, two or three barrels, to Woods Hole. I got twelve cents a pound for them. That was all right. I got fifty dollars most every day and I had a good time catching thenJ, you know.

We caught them with four lines, two on outriggers and two on the boat, and I'd see them around there with fish on all four outriggers, you know. I'd pull them in fast as I could, because you usually caught them on one tide. When the tide turned, sometimes the fish would leave. I don't know why, but they did. Of course, some days they didn't get hardly any.

I was a real Rube Goldberg. I don't know whether you knew Rube Goldberg. [Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a cartoonist whose specialty was fantastical machinery. -Ed.] He would get any old things he could pick up, and he'd make all kinds of machinery out of it. I was the same way. I built winches, all kinds of winches and everything. I had everything easy on my boat. I'd haul in a thousand pounds of dogfish and a bushel of flounder. We'd pick up the flounder and heist up on ... we had a net, a special net on the deck, we'd heist that up and all the dogfish would slide overboard.

We didn't have to pick them out.

So now I'm just puttering, just trying to hold it together. I don't know what will happen.

Things are so out of joint here. Things go for an unheard of price. We could sell it and retire, I guess. But right now I'm sitting here in a nice breeze, the best there is on the island, so there's no use to build a milliondollar house and sit in that. Might as well sit right here.

Jim Sulzer is a member of the NHA's editorial committee and contributed to the summer 2001 issue of Historic Nantucket. An author and radio producer, Jim has taught at the Nantucket Elementary School for the past seventeen years.

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Historic Nantucket Book Section Review by

Cecil Barron Jensen

We Are Nantucket: Oral Histories of Life on Nantucket Island Interviews by Nancy Anne Newhouse Portraits by Mikki Ansin $40, soft cover

E

VERY ONCE IN A WHILE A BOOK IS PUBLISHED

that is an instant success. Last year's We Are Nantucket was just such a book. From the day it arrived on Nantucket, people were talking about it. Author Nancy Newhouse signed copies at local bookstores, spoke at the Atheneum, and, no doubt, received accolades from every street corner in town. The secret to the book's success, however, is simple-Newhouse honored her neighbors.

The book is a collection of the oral histories by thirty-three Nantucketers. As Newhouse states in her introduction, the Nantucketers in the book are not all natives and only a few can trace their families back to the first settlers. The other Nantucketers in the book are washashores and their many reasons to relocate to Nantucket are almost as interesting as the stories they tell of being here. For instance, Barbara Ripley (1902-) moved here because a plan to revitalize Iran was scratched. "He [Nelson aka 'Rip'] had been asked by his firm in New York to go and live in Iran. Because they were going to ... they had a nineyear plan for Iran." But in the end, "We moved to Nantucket after the assignment to Iran fell through. The Shah did not want nine American companies to help rebuild his country after all." Once here, Rip and Barbara made a lasting impression on the island-working on behalf of the Conservation Foundation, the Nantucket Historical Association, St. Paul's Church, and other organizations. In fact, giving to Nantucket was Rip's credo. Barbara tells us that he said, "I will, of course, want to give all I've got to Nantucket by way of my services. But I want to make it dear that I'm not going to ask a single penny for anything I do."

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The same is true for most of the Nantucketers in We Are Nantucket. Their generosity and love of the island lies at the heart of this book. One touching oral history is by Bertha Angers (1897-). Born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Angers worked for nine years as a chambermaid at the New Bedford Hotel. "It was a very hard job and I had to take two months off due to illness."

When she went back to work she was asked to make up a room for Mr. (name) MacLaughlin, the owner of the Ships Inn on Nantucket. He was so impressed by her quick and tidy work making his bed that he offered her a job. For a time she worked with her illness in New Bedford, but eventually decided that she needed a change and moved to the island at the age of thirty-two.

"I only weighed seventy-nine pounds when I came to Nantucket." Angers continued at the Ships Inn for thirty-seven years, only stopping because her doctor, Dr. David Voorhees, "told me I had to quit work." Here is a life of dedication and hard work, but still Bertha found time to give to her island. "I used to take care of all the altar cloths at St. Mary's Church. I would wash them, starch and iron them, and put them away ... took care of them all. My friends and I used to sew bandages for the hospital."

Other people in the book are better known for the lasting impressions they made on the island. Walter Beinecke ( 1919-), for instance, tells of rebuilding Straight Wharf and about the Nantucket Historical Trust. It's a story of enterprise and trust in the island's economic possibilities. But ultimately, "We wanted to maintain the character and distinction of Nantucket."

The "character" of Nantucket is perhaps the central theme of We Are Nantucket. Allowing people to remember days-gone-by, teachers, friends, spouses, and colleagues who are no longer alive, and the places of their youth makes for good reading. Who wouldn't yearn for the opportunity to see Nantucket through their eyes? Jane Lamb (1923-) tells of growing up in Wauwinet with such enthusiasm and love that it is impossible not to wish for a similar childhood. "I had my Rainbow .. a Beetle Cat ... 'Nit Wit' I called it.

Had a great big nit wit on the white sail. It was wonderful. I loved that boat ... wish I knew where it was now SUMMER

2003

. .. probably at the bottom of the briny deep. I think the Rainbow is one of the best little boats that ever happened. You can sail it right up onto the shore, pull up your centerboard, take up your rudder, and you're all set. " Lamb apparently still loves her life in Wauwinet, "It's the hurry up, hurry up. It's not a nice, easy life anymore. That's why I'm right here perfectly happy, you know? The wind can blow and the rain can come and that sott of thing."

Albett "Al" Silva's (1909-2002) oral history is full of enterprising good fun. His stories make you laugh. For instance, he tells of giving a friend a hollow goose decoy.

His friend said to him "How the hell do I know it's hollow?" Silva agrees, "He didn't. So after that I made a few more, but I kept this and I put in a golf ball." The stories of his friendships sing off the pages of the book.

"My closest friends were Bob Congdon and Harold Anderson. We used to go up to Bob's parents' place up

at Lake Winnepesaukee . . .. We didn 't go up there shooting . . . went up there to do a little boating and raising hell. Bob was a very, very good friend and so was Harold . .. very dose. You don't find those today."

The truth is, however, there are good friends to be made today- people we see every day at the Atheneum, the Stop & Shop, church, the post office, or on the streets of town. We are all waiting to make connections . Newhouse's book, W e Are Nantucket, reminds us to stop and talk to our neighbors. By slowing down and ¡ pausing for a good conversation , Newhouse captured the spirit of thirty -three Nantucketers- generous, kind, fascinating souls-who have plenty of stories to tell of their island. Not all of the people in the book are still with us, so for Newhouse's efforts we are grateful. But for her reminder to connect to the people around us and record personal histories, we are eternally in her debt.

MUSEUM SHOP BOOKS

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HE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION'S MUSEUM

Shop now sells many of its popular books on the web.

Visitors to the NHA's website at www.nha.org can browse the titles and their descriptions before making a choice to purchase. Listed below is the complete list of books available online. Please visit soon.

The Lightship Baskets of Nantucket: A Continuing Craft

By David H. Wood Away OffShore: Nantucket and Its People, 1602-1890

Picturing Nantucket: An Art History of the Island with Paintings /rom the Collection ofthe Nantucket Historical Association Edited by Michael Jehle

Revenge of the Whale: The True Story ofthe Whaleship Essex

By Nathaniel Philbrick

Scallop Season: A Nantucket Chronicle

By Jim Patrick and Rob Benchley

By Nathaniel Philbrick

Bartlett's Oceanview Farm Cookbook

By Dorothy Bartlett

The Nantucket Restaurant Cookbook

By Melissa Clark and Samara Farber Mormar Photography by Cary Hazlegrove

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy ofthe Whaleship Essex

By Nathaniel Philbrick

Moby-Dick or, The Whale

By Herman Melville; Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick

Thomas Nickerson, Owen Chase, and Others: The Loss ofthe Ship Essex, Sunk by a Whale Edited and introduced by Thomas and Nathaniel Philbrick

Nantucket Impressions

We are Nantucket: Oral Histories ofLife on Nantucket Island

By Robert Gambee

By Nancy Anne Newhouse, Portraits by Mikki Ansin

HISTORIC

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ANTIQUES

26TH AUGUST ANTIQUES SHOW August 2-August 10, 2003 ScHEDULE OF WEEK'S EVENTS Friday, July 25

Founders & Underwriters Antiques Show Cocktail Party Hosted by Bob & Mia Matthews, 11 Cliff Road, 6:30 to 8:30P.M. Saturday, August 2

Antiques Show Cocktail Party Founders, Chair's Circle, Bene/actors & Patrons In the garden at Moor's End, 19 Pleasant Street, 5:30 to 7:30 P.M.

Antiques Show Dinner Founders, Chair's Circle & Benefactors Hosted by Trianon/Seaman Schepps Eleanor Ham Pony Field, 10 Mill Street, 7:30 P.M. Tuesday, August 5

Friends of the NHA Lecture Ms. Leslie Greene Bowman, Director & CEO Winterthur Museum, An American Country Estate Point Breeze Hotel, 5:30P.M. Booksigning & Reception immediately following Thursday, August 7

Antiques Show Preview Party Nantucket High School, 5:30 to 8:30P.M. Friday, August 8

26th August Antiques Show Opens: Nantucket High School, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

Chzldren's Education Program, 10 A.M. Appraisal Day, 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. Saturday, August 9

26th August Antiques Show: Nantucket High School, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Sunday, August 10

26th August Antiques Show: Nantucket High School, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M.

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Welcome to the 2003 August Antiques Show The news of the 2003 August Antiques Show is so exciting, and I am pleased to share some of the details with you here. I'd also like to encourage all of the NHA members to participate in this fundraiser-it is a first-rate antiques show of which you can be very proud.

First, we are delighted to have Nathaniel Philbrick serve as the honorary chair of the August Antiques Show. Nathaniel is author of the National Book Award winner In the Heart o/ the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and the perennial favori te on Nantucket history, Away Off Shore. A member of the NHA's editorial committee, Nat is a longtime friend and adviser to the organization and we are delighted to have him involved in the Antiques Show.

This year we have a team of generous underwriters supporting the show. The principal sponsor is a Friend of the N antucket Historical Association, an anonymous individual who challenged us to match the gift.

Returning this year to underwrite the Antiques Show Dinner is T rianon/Seaman Schepps-an important and much valued gift. Other major sponsors are Ann Taylor and the G eschke Foundation. In addition, we have eighteen other sponsors and donors. To all our underwriters-thank you; we couldn't do it without you.

Take a good look at the Antiques Show schedule listed on this page. You will see that we have a fabulous line-up of special events surrounding the show.

Please note that the Cocktail Party, Live Auction, and Antiques Show Dinner, on Saturday, August 2, for the first time precede the opening of the sh ow. The Preview Party is on Thursday, August 7, and the show opens on Friday, August 8. Another bright point will be the Friends of the NHA lecture by Leslie Greene Bowman, the director and CEO of Winterthur, An American Country Estate, speaking on "Henry Francis Du Pont an d Winterthur: The Great Collector and His 'Country Place,"' on Tuesday, August 5, at 5:30 P.M.-not our usual Monday date.

With your participation and support, the 2003 August Antiqu es Sh ow is certain to be a wonderful success. I look forward to seeing you there.

Appraisal Day, 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. Raffle Drawing, 4 P.M.

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-Anne S. Obrecht, Chair SUMMER

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ANTIQUES

The Antiques Council's Efforts for 2003

HISTORIC

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>

•

•'

•

..

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Celebrating Three Hundred Years of Nantucket Fashion

The Antiques Council, manager of the 2003 NHA Antiques Show, was founded in 1990 as a not-for-profit organization created to manage antiques shows for charity, offer the buying public education about antiques, and set the highest possible standards for its members and the shows it manages. At this year's show for the NHA, we have initiated a few changes and have included four new dealers in the show.

We are excited to have the following dealers join us this year: Jeff R. Bridgeman American Antiques, a dealer in American folk art; Malcolm Franklin, Inc., a seventeenth- to early-nineteenth-century English furniture and decorative arts dealer; Stephen B. O'Brien Jr. Fine Arts, who specializes in decoys and sporting paintings and prints; and Washington Square Gallery, Ltd., dealers in historical and decorative antique prints.

For the first time we will be offering booth talks with dealers, on Friday, August 8, at 1 P.M. They will consist of four dealers speaking for fifteen minutes.

The discussions will center on nautical art as a theme with the dealers sharing their particular interests as evident in their merchandise. The participating dealers will be Nina Hellman, Alan Granby, Diana

Bittel, and Jeff Cooley.

We will again be offering appraisals, but due to the very positive response last year for the one-day event, we have now included an extra day. This year the appraisal days will be on both Friday, August 8, and Sunday, August 10, 11 A .M. to 4 P.M. Finally, the Antiques Council has encouraged every dealer to write about something of particular interest in their field of expertise to be included in a compilation of articles published in a bound booklet called "Focus." Look for it on the table in the main room.

-Diana Bittel, Antiques Council Liaison

SHOW

· ~·

The Twenty-Sixth Annual August Antiques Show will celebrate the theme of this year's major exhibition at the Peter Foulger Museum: Plain Threads to Nantucket Reds'": Three Centuries of Nantucket Fashion. In addition to the show's decorations reproduced by an army of volunteers led by Debbie Hatfield, the NHA curators will present a small display of artifacts representative of Nantucket styles from the early days of Quakerism and the whaling empire to modem resort wear.

Drawing on the NHA's extensive collections and loans from many island individuals and businesses, the Peter Foulger exhibition showcases the evolution of Nantucket dress, beginning with an early-eighteenth-century wedding skirt and examples of plain Quaker clothing.

The prosperous citizens of Nantucket's whaling community adhered to the Quaker emphasis on simple lines, lack of ornament, and minimal accessories.

In spite of this, Quaker matrons and maids had considerable freedom to choose the finest materials, in a beautiful range of colors. Whaling captains and gentlemen could experiment with elaborately embroidered silk vests for special occasions while maintaining .... the modest appearance required by the times.

From the mid- to late-nineteenth century, as Quaker dominance faded, women's dresses became livelier, with the appearance of vibrant plaids, checks and laces, growing bustles and hoops, and detailed embroidery. Nantucket's China Trade saw the arrival of beautiful silk tunics, robes, and trousers.

W edcling dresses from the late nineteenth century used rich cream colors, exquisite satins, and delicate lace work. One wedding dress featured in the exhibition was worn by five consecutive brides from 1928 to 1978.

Top: Entrance to the NHA's annual August Antiques Show at Nantucket HighSchool.

Clockwise /rom top: Beaver hat; summer hat with artificial /lowers, ca. 1885-90; boy's felt hat, ca. 1860.

Pierced ivory and paintedszlk/an, ca. 1806, bought by Captain Eliakim Gardner ofthe Orizimbo as a present /or his wife Pamela; beaded purse.

Wedding shoes o/ Florence Mana Mernam who married Frederick Parsell Hill on December 16, 1896.

Photographs by JeffreyS. Allen

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Whale's tooth

By the advent of the colorful Actors Colony in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, light summery materials, blouses, and flowery hats had replaced the more constricted outfits of earlier years.

This period also produced the classic wool and silk one-piece bathing suits from the flourishing beach culture of the new century. Starting in the 1920s, Main Street Fetes saw a variety of antique colonial costumes designed to replicate the early dress of Nantucket's first citizens. The Nantucket.fashion exhibition concludes with a display of the bright and bold cocktail-circuit dress of the postwar era, whose most representative pieces were Lilly Pulitzer outfits, whale pants, and Nantucket Reds:'"" From the demure Quaker silk dress to the exploding colors of preppy chic, the exhibition presents the changing looks of Nantucket dress through the centuries.

-Ben Simons

response the funds were miraculously raised to save the ship. The magnificent USS Constitution floats in Boston harbor today because of that poem.

I believed that if I could evoke some images of how I felt about the island, then maybe I could help my friend Nancy Chase in her efforts to preserve the Mill Hill property and the NHA's historic buildings.

I admire and support her efforts for the NHA. Nantucket and its history is so basically, beautifully American. It was hard for the people who came here originally and they lived in difficult times. Today we tend to look back at those times with rose-colored glasses. There is a sense of humanity that runs through the island's history. I feel it when I walk on the moors, through the pines, and by the ocean. All the material things that invoke the artistic, creative mind-they are there to be found if you look.

Love Me As I Am

Ivory Whale's Tooth Included in Auction Scrimshander Lothar R. Candels, M.D., has been a friend to ivory carver Nancy Chase for more than thirty years. Last October, he asked what he could do in her efforts to help with "Mill Hill and Beyond," a campaign to fund the NHA' s endowment. She gave him a large ivory whale's tooth and asked him to create something very special. This unique scrimshawed tooth is to be auctioned at the August Antiques Show on Friday, August 2. The proceeds will go to the NHA' s endowment.

Dr. Candels gave this background about his poem which he scrimshawed on one side of the tooth: The poem I've composed is a spin-off from Oliver Wendell Holmes's Old Ironszdes. That particular poem brought attention and general awareness of the ship's plight to the American pubiic. It was marked for demolition, but because the poem generated such a

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Yea, love me not For that which thou wouldst do to me But rest instead thy weary head Upon my golden sands.

Listen to the wind, Note well my honored history.

Walk softly through My rolling scented moors, Take heed the salted air, The cry ofparting gull The szlence of the setting sun ...

Yea, love me as I am.

The tooth also features a map of the island taken from Obed Macy's History a/Nantucket, published in 1835.

-Nancy A. Newhouse For more information about the Antiques Show Auction, please call (508) 228-1894.

SUMMER

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N H A

NEWS

HERITAGE SOCIETY RESEARCH PROJECT Following is the initial report on the Hentage Society Research Project conducted by island researcher Betsy Tyler.

Future issues a/Historic Nantucket will include accounts of bequests made over the last century to the NHA. They make fascinating reading.

T

HE NHA HAS BEEN THE RECIPIENT OF BEQUESTS

of money, artifacts, and real estate since the first $200 legacy appeared in 1900. The purpose of the Heritage Society Research Project was to identify and recognize all those generous donors of the last 109 years who made a provision for the NHA in their wills.

In order to determine who had bequeathed what to the NHA over the course of a century and more , the following sources were examined: NHA Archives (housed in the Research Library) , including minutes of the â&#x20AC;˘ Council and the Board of Trustees; Proceedings of the NHA, Historic Nantucket; and current office files and databases. Information found in the preceding sources led to further research in the NHA registrar's records, the Nantucket Registry of Deeds, Nantucket Probate Office, and the Nantucket Atheneum's obituary file.

The resulting roster of original members of the Heritage Society contains 142 names.

The legacy of those donors includes sixtyeight monetary gifts , ranging from a modest $100 to $678,435.31 (Adm.William Mayhew Folger's contribution, which built the Peter Foulger Museum). Sup-

The

porters of the NHA also left fifty-seven artifact bequestsfrom an ancestor's "turnip watch" to enormous scrimshaw collections, as well as five gifts of real estate. Some donors, like Hanna Monaghan, who bequeathed to the NHA Greater Light, its contents, and a $2,000/ year restricted maintenance fund, left a combination of monetary support, artifacts, and real estate.

Development director Jean Grimmer's idea of recognizing a long history of donations to the NHA was endorsed by the many staff members I worked with. Records of all members of the Heritage Society are in a special file designed specifically for me by Amy Jenness, as I thought of new ways to record and present the information. Georgen Gilliam, Libby Oldham, and Marie Henke were a great help at the NHA Research Library, retrieving archival records and listening to stories of my discoveries. At the Gosnold Center, Tony Dimitru and Mark Wilson searched accession logs and database records for artifact donations, and we had great success. Someday I hope to actually see the "turnip watch" donated by Annie Hunton in 1973.

Heritage

.....--.-octet

HI STOR I C

NANTUCKET

-Betsy Tyler

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Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce

NEWS

Staff Member Recognized for Hospitality Award

NHA special events and marketing manager Stacey Stuart was chosen by the Nantucket Tracy Bakalar, Island Chamber of Commerce to receive the Lt. Governor Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism Kerry Healey, and 2003 Hospitality Award for her outstanding serNHA spedal events vice to visitors and the Massachusetts tourism and marketing manager industry. Stacey has had a twenty-nine-year career in the hospitality industry working in Stacey Stuart.

North Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, and Nantucket. Before working at the NHA, Stacey worked as the guest services manager at the White Elephant Hotel and the director of sales at the Jared Coffin House. A director of the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce, Stacey enthusiastically volunteers at annual events including Nantucket Stroll and the Daffodil Festival. In addition, she gives her time to other Nantucket nonprofits including Toys for Tots, the Iron T earn F undraising Committee, and various committees at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital. executive director

Interpretive Staff Member Awarded Mellon Fellowship Justin Pariseau, a summer interpreter and 2003 graduate of Boston College, was recently awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies.

The fellowship includes full tuition and a stipend for his first year of graduate study at the College of William and Mary. The comprehensive fellowship application included an excerpt from his history thesis-"A Separate World: Black Nantucket and the Fight for Equality, 1769-1858." Justin completed the major patt of the research for his thesis at the NHA Research Library last summer when he was the NHA's senior interpreter. "The focus is on Nantucket's New Guinea community in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries," he said. "I followed the period of time when Nantucket's black community first fought for its freedom and then the efforts to establish schools and churches on the island." For his research, he also used Nantucket's probate and court records, the Massachusetts State Archives, and the Boston Public Library's rare books and manuscripts collections.

Justin has enrolled in the M.A./Ph.D. program at William and Mary and plans to study nineteenth-century American history with a focus on race and abolition issues and the Atlantic World. "This is a new field that includes maritime studies and the social history of the eastern seaboard, including the islands of the Caribbean, north to Canada's Maritime Provinces and south to Mexico's coast." Justin is also pleased to be

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studying close to Colonial Williamsburg. "I hope to continue to work with material culture and its applications to history," he said.

Exploration: Cuttyhunk The NHA is pleased to announce that the next trip in the series of museum explorations is planned for Cuttyhunk on Tuesday, September 9. Participants will board a private ferry departing from Falmouth for a ninety-minute trip through the Elizabeth Islands. Once in Cuttyhunk, the group will meet with the curator of the Cuttyhunk Historical Society, visit a historic house, and lunch at the island's Fishing Club. Volunteer coordinator Nina Hellman and chief curator Niles Parker will lead the trip. By the tin1e of printing, the trip is close to selling out because of word-of-mouth recommendations. However, if you are interested in attending, please call (508) 228-1894, ext. 0, to see if there are cancellations.

Date Change The NHA's Annual Meeting date has been changed.

This year's meeting will be held in the garden of Hadwen House, 96 Main Street, on Friday, July 25 at 1 P.M. Members are encouraged to attend the annual gathering. It is an excellent chance to meet with the board of trustees and staff and to hear of upcoming plans for the restoration and renovation work planned for the Whaling Museum and the Peter Foulger Museum.

Bill Schustik in Residence For three weeks in July, Bill Schustik will be on island as the NHA's Artist in Residence. In addition to a July 3 kick-off concert at the Old Mill, Bill will perform for SUMMER

2003

N H A

a variety of audiences. Among his scheduled concerts, he will perform for children enrolled in NHA education programs, at senior centers, local camps, the Nantucket Atheneum, and for a gallery opening on Straight Wharf. "We are so pleased to have Bill here for an extended visit," said NHA education and public programs coordinator Kirstin Gamble. "We really hope he will share the fun of maritime history and traditions with as many people as possible."

NEMAAward The NHA won a second-place award in the annual New England Museum Association Publications competition for its 2002 Year-End Appeal. This year, 203 publications from sixty-six museums won awards in sixteen different categories. The NHA won in the Development Materials category. Associate director and director of development Jean Grimmer served as the project manager for the Year-End Appeal featuring historic photographs of people from the NHA's collection of 50,000 images. Claire O 'Keeffe of communicationDESIGN was the art director .

"Nantucket people and all they have given to the NHA are at the heart of our annual appeal," said Grimmer. "The faces, and the memories they evoke, are what make this piece so special."

Join Us The NHA is pleased to offer two outstanding speakers for the Monday Super Series: Summer Evenings of Arts and Ideas. The series, organized by the NHA, the Maria Mitchell Association, the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies, and the Nantucket Atheneum, offers eight nationally recognized speakers in July and August at the Unitarian Church. WNAN is the media partner for the series of lectures. On July 14, hear author H. W. Brands talking about his most recent book The Age of Gold: The Calz/ornia Gold Rush and the New American Dream. Television and radio host Christopher Lydon joins the Super Series on August 4 when he speaks on "Ralph Waldo Emerson at 200: A Global Conversation." Both lectures are at 8 P.M. Tickets are $15 and available at the NHA offices, (508) 228-1894, ext. 0, or at Nantucket Bookworks at 25 Broad Street.

Letters to the Editor After participating in the NHA's Sheep Shearing Festival in June, Frances Karttunen wrote to tell of the long tradition of sheep raising on Nantucket. Below is the excerpt from The Other Islanders, Part L which she included in her letter.

HISTORIC

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When they first arrived, the English settlers had not yet settled on sheep as their source of livelihood. They expected to carry on diversified farming with grain crops and dairy cattle as well as sheep. (The Elizabeth Islands were noted for their fine dairies, as Crevecoeur noted in the 1700s). In their first decade on the island, the Proprietors found that grain could be grown on the plains on the south side of the island, and they could cut hay from the stonier north side and from the salt marshes. This sort of subsistence farming yielded no surpluses, however, so in 1672 they voted to concentrate on sheep raising and the export of wool. The number of sheep on Nantucket rose to between eigh t and ten thousand, and at one point even little Tuckernuck Island sustained a herd of about a thousand.

The editors also received two messages from members divulging the identity of the missing name in the photograph of the Map and Legend staff on page 16 of the spring issue of Historic Nantucket. Roy Pask was identified by Flint Ranney and Daryl Westbrook.

Thank you both for your help.

IN MEMORIAM Paul Morris ongtime resident-artist, author, historian, marinerat-heart-Paul Morris died on Thursday, June 17, at the age of79.

First visiting Nantucket in the early 1950s, in 1958 Paul left a high-pressure job in a New York advertising firm to move to the island with his wife Signy and daughters Meg, Beth, and Kathy, taking up residence in the house on New Mill Street that had been their vacation home since 1954.

He took to the water immediately, running Paul's Boat Livery out of Old South Wharf before the 1960s transformation of the waterfront. He taught art at the Nantucket schools and he and Signy operated the Morris Ivory Shop in an outbuilding at their home where they produced carved and engraved artifacts.

A longtime member of the NHA and sometime lectur~r in the Whaling Museum, Paul will be remembered for his salty wit and his devotion to all things Nantucketthe water and the boats especially-a true Wharf Rat.

L

SUMMER

2003

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