Historic Nantucket, Winter 1992, Vol. 40 No. 4

WINTER

1992

V 0 L U M E 40 No. 4

Nantucket Women

From The Director

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Diane Ucci, Managing Editor Helen Winslow Chase, Historian Shannah Green, Production Photos: NHA collections unless otherwise credited

Judith Macy and Her Daybook; or, Crevecoeur and the Wives of Sherborn

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By Lisa Norling

"Captain, the Lad's a Girl!"

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By Jacqueline Kolle Haring

African-American Women in Nineteenth-Century Nantucket: Wives, Modistes, and Visionaries

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By Gloria Davis Goode

On the Trail of Nantucket

Women's History

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ave you seen the Hadwen and Macy-Christian houses, or Greater Light and its garden recently? Results are most visible. Staging is up at the Quaker Meetinghouse and it, too, is taking on a "restored" appearance. We hope you notice these capital improvements. Much restoration is going on inside our structures as well. There is a greater emphasis on educational outreach, including our "Living History for Children" program, monthly lecture series at the Whaling Museum, and a comprehensive Nantucket schools program.

These activities are the result of great commitment on the part of many volunteers and our small but energetic staff. It is impossible to single out any one person or group. So many of you have helped us take that "round turn" I spoke of earlier.

We hope you will also respond through the Annual Appeal, NHA's way of "turning the corner" in its budget at year's end. We are confident you will again meet the challenge. Perhaps a friend or family member would benefit from a gift membership.

Remember, this is your association. Nurture it and share in its benefits!

Best wishes for '93.

By Barbara Westmoreland

Maurice E. Gibbs

Lucretia Coffin Mott engraving by J. Sartain of courtesy of the Nantucket Atheneum.

Photo: Michael Galvin

Cover Photo:

J. Kyle's painting.

THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

Departments What's News at the NHA

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We couldn't do it without you ...

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Preserving and Enhancing Our Island Treasures Items of Interest The Museum Shop Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket history. Original research, firsthand accounts, and reminiscences of island experiences, historic logs, letters, and photographs are examples of materials that interest our readers. We expect articles to be entertaining and instructive for a general audience and to adhere to high standards of historical accuracy. Although Historic Nantucket currently lacks the space to print notes or bibliographies, we encourage our authors to use documentation and will make annotated copies available at the NHA's Research Center. Historic Nantuclret strives to publish enjoyable reading that will promote public appreciation of Nantucket's history and preserve important information about the Island's past.

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Robert E. Allen, Whaling Museum Manager C. Marshall Beale, Comptroller Helen Winslow Chase, Historian Sheila M. Cabral, Secretary Thomas W. Dickson, Museum Shop Manager Maureen Dwyer, Assistant Curator of Collections Mark W. Fortenberry, Curator of Structures Dorrit C. Gutterson, Receptionist Jacqueline Kolle Haring, Curator of Research Materials Michael A. Jehle, Curator of Collections Elizabeth Little, Curator of Prehistoric Artifacts Peter S. MacGlashan, Registrar Richard E. Morcom, Assistant Curator of Structures Valerie R. Ryder, Finance Manager Richard P. Swain, Miller Betsy Tyler, Assistant Curator of Research Materials Diane Ucci, Director of Education Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published quarterly as a privilege of membership by the Nantucket Historical Association, 5 Washington Street, Nantucket, MA 02554 Second-class postage paid at Nantucket, MA .

Postmaster: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket, Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554-1016.

FAX 508.228.5618

WHAT'S NEWS AT THE NHA Museum Support Center

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II the careful planning and ongoing fundraising has finally manifested itself on Bartlett Road. The Museum Support Center construction is well under way; it started in September when local contractor Toscana Corporation cleared the lot to create the building's footprint in preparation for the foundation. Cape Building Systems, Inc., of Mattapoisett, first poured the foundation walls and then the floor slab.

After the foundation was completed, local electrician Ken McCauley installed the electrical conduit lines and Butch Ramos put the plumbing connections in place just before the floor was poured. The floor work was completed without interruption, much of it at night under lights, which ensured a perfectly smooth and even surface. The trucks poured the concrete in the early morning hours and the final floating was done after dark. In just five short days Cape Building Systems raised the entire steel frame, which they accomplished with fewer workers than they used to need for a good old-fashioned bam raising! Their next step was inserting the wood framing members between the steel columns, while simultaneously framing the roof, and finally enclosing the building in plywood.

As Cape Building Systems put

The Museum Support Center. the final touches on the building's plywood enclosure, Kalman Construction Company of Nantucket arrived on site to roof the building with asphalt shingles, place exterior redwood trim on the outside, and install the painted doors and windows. At this juncture the wall shingles are being put into place and the interior phase of the project will begin.

Photo: Diane Ucci

We encourage and invite you to drive by and see the future home of our precious collections and structures workshop now that it has really taken shape.

There is much more work to be done and funds to be raised, but we are moving closer than ever to our goal, thanks to your continued support and interest.

Hadwen House Revisited

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s Executive Director Maurice Gibbs stated in his opening letter, our structures are undergoing both interior and exterior restoration in preparation for the NHA's centennial in 1994. This winter the Hadwen House is the focus of both. After Jim Tyler's painting company finished the outside of the house, they moved in to begin work on the three parlors and main stairway.

Realizing that the interior of the Hadwen needed restoration, the trustees of the Historical Association directed Curator of Collections Michael Jehle to begin this project. With the help of his assistant, Maureen Dwyer, along with a group of volunteers, further research was done on the period when the Hadwen family was

in residence. Results of the research will give the NHA an opportunity to bring the interpretation closer to what it might have been during the most prosperous days of whaling on the island.

Unable to locate any remaining examples of mid-nineteenth -century wallpaper and carpeting on the island, Maureen and Michael went to the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), which has Nantucket wallpaper samples in its collections. They were removed by William Sumner Appleton, founder of SPNEA, when he was here for the 1927 restoration of the Oldest House. After their trip, Michael was able to locate two manufacturers that make wallpaper reproduc-

tions with the same block-printing method used in the mid-nineteenth century. The carpet that will be used in the Hadwen House is based on an authentic Brussels sample from Middle Brick, one of the Three Bricks.

The materials and labor involved in the Hadwen restoration are costly, and the NHA has had considerable support from its membership on this project. It would not have been possible without the volunteers who put hours into research; Mary Lethbridge, who gave a gas chandelier for the front hall; and the Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association, who gave three additional period gas chandeliers and are underwriting the entire cost of the work in the formal parlor.

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It is through Judith Macy's daybook that we catch a glimpse of the family life,

household responsibilities, and religious culture of many eighteenth-century women on Nantucket.

Judith Macy and Her Daybook; or, Crevecoeur and the Wives of Sherborn

by Lisa Norling

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f the more than five hundred account books held in the collections of the Nantucket Historical Association, there are just two predating the nineteenth century that were kept by women. One is the much-examined record, spanning 1662-1757, kept by the famous Mary and Nathaniel Starbuck. The other, which has not garnered anywhere near the same kind

of attention, is Judith Macy's daybook.

The modest volume, covered in thick, soft, dark-brown leather, records transactions and accounts from 1783 to 1805. Judith Macy's name is written firmly several times on what serves as a title page and again at the top of the first page of record keeping. In spite of the certainty with which her book is labeled, though, it

Judith Macy's daybook, where her transactions and accounts from 1783 to 1805 are recorded.

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is not immediately obvious just which Judith Macy this was; there were at least three adult women with that name on Nantucket at the time. A little detective work reveals references within the daybook to "Silvanus Macy," "Obed Macy," "Judith" and "Ruth," which suggest that the keeper might have been the Judith Macy with four children of those names, and comparing the handwriting with signatures on various legal documents confirms it.

The volume belonged to Judith Folger Gardner Macy (1729-1819) .

This Judith was a direct descendant of the first Nantucket Folger, Peter, through both her father (Daniel Folger, 1701 -44) and her mother (Abigail Folger, 1703-87): Judith's parents were cousins and Peter Folger's great grandchildren.

Her sister was the notorious Kezia Coffin, and her sons the prosperous merchants Sylvanus and Obed Macy.

(Obed is also well-known, of course, as the foremost early native chronicler of the island; his History of Nantucket was first published in 1835.) Yet for all her prominent connections, Judith has gone virtually unremembered.

So have most Nantucket women of the eighteenth cen-

tury. In fact, we know surprisingly little about the women who lived through that formative period in Nantucket's history when the island acquired its most characteristic features: its equal commitments to Quakerism and to the whalefishery. The pantheon of notable Nantucket women from the nineteenth century is crowded with such illustrious figures as Lucretia Coffin Mott, Martha Coffin Wright, Phebe Hanaford, and Maria Mitchell. But their mothers and grandmothers have largely faded into obscurity, their individual features blurred in the composite portraits left by off-islanders like J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. After visiting Nantucket in the 1770s, Crevecoeur wrote that the "wives of Sherborn" were "justly entitle[ d) to a rank superior to that of other wives."

His enthusiastic endorsement, though, probably tells us more about Crevecoeur than about the real women behind the idealized image.

One female individual mentioned by name in Crevecoeur' s Letters was "Aunt Kesiah," Kezia Folger Coffin. The Frenchman claimed: ... the richest person [John Coffin] now in the island owes all his present prosperity and success to the ingenuity of his wife . .. for while he was performing his first cruises, she traded with pins and needles and kept a school.

Afterward she purchased more considerable articles, which she sold with so much judgement [sic] that she laid the foundation of a system of business that she has ever since prosecuted with equal dexterity and success .. .. [She and her husband) have the best country seat on the island ... where they live with hospitality and in perfect union.

Crevecoeur's reference was not without irony, as literary scholar Nathaniel Philbrick has pointed out in an unpublished monograph, for Kezia Folger Coffin was a figure of some controversy on the island. She left the Society of Friends in 1773, after being disciplined for "keeping a Spinnet in Her house & Teaching her Daughter or Causing her to Bee Taught to Play Thereon Contrary to the advice of Friends." Kezia is since remembered as being one of the most successful colonial "she-merchants," and also for her active Loyalist sympathies and alleged smuggling and profiteering during the Revolution. Along with four men (but, interestingly, not her husband), Kezia was prosecuted for treason after the war.

Though she was cleared of the charges, acrimony and litigation marked the rest of

her life, which ended when she fell down a staircase in 1798. She was later memorialized in a rather one-sided caricature as "Miriam Coffin," the title character and villainess of Joseph Hart's 1835 novel.

Neither Crevecoeur nor Hart mentioned Kezia Coffin's sister, Judith Macy.

But it is through Judith and her daybook, rather than Kezia, that we can catch a glimpse of ths lives of most real wt omehn in etigh- Halfhouse on Sunset Hill, where Judith Folger lived as the bride of her first eent -cen ury . husband, James Gardner, m 1746. Shown are members of the Carpenter N an tu ck et . fi .1 J u d i t h amz y, owners at the turn o1,, the century.

Folger Gardner Macy was born in 1729, fourth of the seven James Gardner, died of consumption in children of Daniel and Abigail Folger. Her 1748, just two years after their marriage. In two elder brothers and her father were lost 1749, Judith married a second time, taking at sea (brother Elisha in 1740, father and as her husband Caleb Macy. Acquiring brother Peter in 1744), a tragic but not Judith as a partner seemed to be a turnuncommon occurrence as the islanders around for Caleb, who had earlier moved turned increasingly to the risky but prof- fitfully between several occupations.

After first abandoning his father's itable whalefishery. According to her son Obed, Judith lived in her parents' home line of work (farming and milling) because, in son Obed's words, it was "in until she married James Gardner in 1746.

At the time of her first marriage, nowise congenial to his feelings, neither Judith was seventeen-young but not did it accord with his genius," and then unusually so. Crevecoeur had noted that trying a second occupation (shoemaking), "every man takes a wife as soon as he Caleb finally "concluded to follow the chooses, and that is generally very early," Sea." He went on several short whaling an observation verified by more recent voyages and a few coastal trading trips but demographic studies. Between 1740 and (again, according to Obed) "found his 1780 the average age at marriage of native- health incompetent to the hardships of a born, white Nantucket men was just under seafaring life, [and] therefore determined 23 years, and the average for women about never to cross the ocean again."

21, both significantly younger than their Caleb's career pattern typified that mainland peers. Crevecoeur attributed the of the Nantucket men we hear less about, youthful marriages to Nantucketers' love the unsuccessful whalemen. Crevecoeur of family life, while more recent historians had described how island boys, after a few have stressed the opportunity afforded years of schooling, were first apprenticed young men by whaling to acquire enough to a landsman's craft and then, in their money to marry early. It is also possible to midteens, sent to sea to "learn the great conclude, it seems to me, that Nantucket and useful art of working a ship in all the men married young not only because they different situations which the sea and could afford to but also because they wind so often require .... They then go wanted to, because they valued wives' gradually through every station of rowers, contributions to maintaining family and steersmen, and harpooners ... and after community while so many men were at having performed several such voyages sea. and perfected themselves in this business, Judith Macy's contributions were certainly they are fit either for the counting house or key to her husband's success, at least that the chase." Caleb never quite "perfected of her second husband. Her first husband, himself" in the business, apparently, and

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twenty persons.

"Notwithstanding this uncommon care & labour," Obed observed, ~ •!

Judith "was never •• . heard to repine, or frown, but was always patient, being an example of moderation through life."

Her life was long and, inevitably, in that era of random death and high mortality, punctuated by tragedy.

Of her ten children, seven survived to adult' hood, but Judith outlived all but four.

Three daughters died in infancy (including two named Kezia, perhaps after Judith's sister).

Judith Macy' s son Obed in front of his Pleasant Street home circa 1860.

Her first son, like the others who recognized that a posi- Elisha, like his father did not enjoy good tion of command lay beyond their ability, health nor a capacity for hard labor; he he returned to land where he took up died in midlife in 1806. Caleb, Jr., the fifth son, was feeble both of mind and body, again the cordwainer's trade.

Happily for Caleb and his numerous and required care and supervision his progeny to come, at age 30 (shortly after entire life. Another son, Barzillai, died of leaving the sea) he managed to meet consumption at age 30 in 1789, and Judith, after which his fortunes took a Judith's 22-year-old daughter, her namemarked tum for the better. His shoemak- sake, died just a few months later that ing enterprise prospered and he also same year. In 1818, Judith, by then a invested in land, at one point owning a widow for the second time, also saw her daughter Ruth lose a husband. There thirtieth of the island real estate.

Obed described his mother as "gen- were perils as well as pleasures in mothererally healthy and of a strong constitution hood and a large family.

Judith's trials and tribulations did & remarkably industrious." She must have been. Caleb was, Obed wrote, "a weakly not shake her religious faith; perhaps with man" who "often called for [Judith's] her experiences it only deepened. In conassistance, not only in administering to his trast to her sister Kezia, Judith remained a comfort in sickness but frequently in coun- devout Quaker throughout her life: "a true seling together respecting his business." devoted Christian," one of her grandchilMoreover, between 1751 and 1771, Judith dren remembered. Obed reported, "she bore ten children: a family somewhat larg- was careful in the attendance of religious er than the Nantucket average, probably meetings when the circumstances of her because Judith and Caleb married and family would admit," and "the last 15 began having children after Caleb retired years of her life was mostly spent in knitting & reading the Bible & other religious from sea.

As if her husband's and children's books." Indeed, in the portrait her children care were not enough to keep her busy, commissioned less than a year before her Judith also looked after several men who, death, Judith is pictured with a religious in typical preindustrial craft tradition, not book in her lap. only worked for Caleb but also lived with Judging by her frequent appearance his family. Obed remembered that in the Quaker records, Judith was active throughout his youth there were "fre- and well respected among the Society of quently from ten to twelve workmen, Friends. Particularly later in her life, when besides the children & servants," which her domestic cares and responsibilities had added up to a household of some fifteen to subsided, Judith served in numerous

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capacities and on several committees for the Nantucket Women's Monthly Meeting.

Between 1787 and 1796, Judith was appointed Clerk of the Meeting and an Overseer of the Poor; she examined the preparednsss of prospective brides and attended marriages; and she represented the Nantucket Women 's Meeting at the Quarterly Meeting at Sandwich.

Historians have suggested that the same elements of Quaker theology and organization that enabled Nantucket men to excel in whaling also enabled Nantucket women to develop an independence unusual for the period. The Society of Friends advocated self-control, restraint, and a spiritual egalitarianism based on their understanding of salvation and the "inner light." Their insistence on women's spiritual equality with men was given concrete form in the separate women's meetings, an organizational autonomy which further contributed to women's sense of authority and self-reliance. According to the accounts of her children, Judith Macy seemed to exemplify (and undoubtedly benefited from) these same qualities of strength and self-possession.

Judith's family life, household responsibilities, and religious culture provided the framework for the activities documented in her daybook. She began keeping the surviving record later in her life, in 1783 when she was 54; she continued it erratically to 1807. The exchanges she recorded demonstrate that, while her husband and sons were prominent merchants active in the Nantucket whalefishery and other enterprises, she was dealing on her own account in a wide range of activities with many other women and some men in the community. Judith employed several women in spinning and weaving on a casual basis, in tum selling the yarn or cloth to other merchants. She also listed other transactions involving the production and provision of foodstuffs, especially milk, and she occasionally kept boarders (perhaps Caleb's workmen).

Most of the activities listed in Judith's daybook represent traditional female housewifery functions, but here they appear on a scale considerably beyond family maintenance. Yet neither the scope or the scale of Judith's entrepreneurship seemed remarkable or disturbing to her family or peers, unlike the dealings of her sister Kezia. According to Obed (perhaps somewhat of a biased observer, of course), Judith "attended to her domestic concerns with that economy & exactness as becomes the oman1ent of her sex."

Further, she was "strictly honest & upwright [sic] in aU her dealings, kind and obliging to her neighbours . . .. She lived in peace with all mankind, careful to mind her own proper business, and did not con-

cern herself with other peoples matters."

How could such extensive enterprise be considered "her own proper business" in an era when married women generally had severely limited rights to property ownership and their legal identity was subordinate to their husbands'? In order to understand the forms of Judith's industriousness, we must look to the broader context of married women's work in colonial New England and to the specific ways in which it was extended on Nantucket.

Colonial wives were cast as "goodwives" or "helpmeets," a role that stressed the wife's subordination to her husband but allowed some flexibility. Though mainly concerned with domestic duties, the "goodwife" could also take on tasks outside the home or beyond the care of her families. When a husband was absent, for instance, his wife could and often did serve as a "deputy husband," performing tasks he normally would have, such as settling accounts with creditors or debtors, paying taxes, and supervising or performing agricultural work.

As Crevecoeur observed, this organization of fa m ily a nd community life dovetailed neatly with the demands of the whalefishery. When their husbands were at sea, Nantucket "wives a re necessarily obliged to transact b u siness, to settle accounts, and, in short, to rule and provide for their families," Crevecoeur wrote.

"These circumstances, being often repeated, give w omen the abilities as well as a taste for that kind of superintendency, to which, by their prudence and good management, they seem to be in general very equal." Indeed, the Frenchman wondered, " What would the men do without the agency of [their] fai thful mates?"

Crevecoeur no ted an apparent danger in the married women's authority, but insisted:

two distinct family economies, one male and one female, within the typical rural household. In her scrupulous analysis of a Maine midwife's diary, what Ulrich found "most striking ... [was] the independence of men's and women's labors, not only in production but in management and utilization of resources." Ulrich explains, "female trade was interwoven with the [primarily male] mercantile economy and with the [sex-integrated] family economies, of particular households, but it was not subsumed by either."

Judith's daybook suggests that in Nantucket, too, there may have existed a similar pattern of male and female economies, semi-autonomous but integrated at particular points of overlap, operating within and between households.

Judith's sons Sylvanus, Obed, and Brazillai operated as partners in several ventures.

At the same time but in different enterprises, Judith's unmarried daughters were serving as junior partners to their mother.

For instance, in 1792 Judith kept a running account with a George Freeborn in which "3 Days Work by Ruth" were exchanged for lengths of "pershon" and sewing silk.

In contrast, Judith carefully recorded formal transactions with her sons, listing their full names: e.g. "Obed Macy to 4 lb of tallow for the Brig Polly."

What was singular about the Nantucket case was the way in which the female economy expanded along with the whaling industry. Perhaps the so-called "Petticoat Row" of shops owned by women on Centre Street and the other female mercantile activities on the island represented one aspect of a virtually com-

munitywide, collective female assumption of the "deputy husband" role, which enabled the men to concentrate effort, attention, and capital on the fishery. Such an assertion clearly requires more research to substantiate, but the implications raised

by Judith Macy and her daybook are intriguing . We have much more to learn about the women's lives in eighteenth-century Nantucket.

According to both her son Obed and her granddaughter Eliza Ann Chase McCleave, Judith Macy's considerable and life-long exertions enabled her to leave, on her death, numerous and devoted descendants: four children, twenty-one grandchildren, and twenty-two great grandchildren. She also left a substantial estate, valued at over $4000, to be distributed among them. Shortly before she died, Judith "had as many silver dollars counted out, as she had grandchildren and great grandchildren, for each one to have a Dessert Spoon made in memory of her." Judith Macy wanted to be remembered. It is up to us to continue recovering her story.

Lisa Norling received her doctorate in history from Rutgers University. Her dissertation , entitled "Captain Ahab Had a Wife: Ideology and Experience in the Lives of New England Maritime Women, 1760-1870," is available at the Research Center. Ms. Norling is currently an assistant professor of history at the University of Minnesota.

You must not imagine . .. that the Nantucket wives are turbulent, of high temper, and difficult to be ruled; on the contrary, the wives of Sherborn, in so doing, comply only with the prevailing custom of the island; the husbands, equally submissive to the ancient and respectable manners of their country, submit, without ever suspecting that there can be any impropriety . . . both parties are perfectly satisfied.

Apparently Caleb and Judith were content, for Judith began her extensive business dealings while her husband was still alive, resident on the island, and active with his own affairs.

Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has described, in late eighteenth-century northern New England, the existence of

Portrait of Judith Macy reading by the fire circa 1799.

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On December 9, 1848, Ann Johnson, disguised as a man, climbed aboard and joined the crew of the Nantucket whaling ship Christopher Mitchell.

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Captain, the Lad's a Girl!"

By Jacqueline Kolle Haring

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f the Friends of the NHA had not discovered and purchased a particular 1849 letter, the amazing story of Rebecca Ann Johnson on board the whaleship Christopher Mitchell might have remained a possible myth. Even with corroboration, it seems almost impossible.

There is still more to discover about her, but as far as we know, Rebecca Ann Johnson, most often called "Ann," grew up in the vicinity of Rochester, New York. As she matured, she fell in love, and undoubtedly her dreams included a rose-covered cottage and all the protection such visions connoted for an expectant bride. But this was not to be for Ann: her lover chose the life of the sea over marriage.

Ann's reaction was apparently almost immediate .

Whether driven by a desire to find the man and perhaps rekindle his love, or by fury or the wish to destroy him, she took what to her must have seemed the obvious course. With appar- 'The Lookout," from a whaling panorama by Thomas F. ently little grasp of the size of the Davidson.

Courtesy of the Peabody Museum of Salem. whalers' world and the number of vessels traversing it, Ann decided to go to sea to catch up with the the island or whom she saw, but it is man who had deserted her. reported that she sailed as "George Executing a carefully thought-out Johnson" on December 9, 1848, aboard the plan, she sewed a canvas garment for her- Nantucket ship Christopher Mitchell, under self to conceal her female figure, cut her the command of Captain Thomas Sullivan. hair, and borrowed men's clothing. She As the ship sailed south, the sailors then went to a New York City shipping may have wondered why one new crew office, which was the nearest point to sign member never removed his shirt, blushed aboard a ship, and presented herself as a on occasion, and showed such modesty, ready greenhorn. Her disguise was appar- but it was attributed to the shyness of a ently convincing, for she was signed on. young farm lad. Although slight of build, However, the immediate need for seamen Johnson was courageous and always eager at the New York port had slackened, and to do as well as or better than expected. she was sent to New Bedford and across to He was among the first to climb the rigNantucket, where whaling was flourish- ging no matter how hard the wind was ing and crews were sought. There is no blowing. When chasing a whale, George record, unfortunately, of how she got to pulled his oar with the stoutest men and

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showed no fear. He ap p a rently earned the respect of the ro ugh and ready cre w a nd was never teased about his slightly feminine appearance or voice.

The s to r y of the voyag e of the Christopher Mitclle/1 around Cape Horn wa s told b y Captain Su llivan to Nelson Cole Haley, a harpooner on the ship Charles W. Morgan, when the two ships me t a nd sailed toge th e r near French Rock o n the New Zealand ground. Sullivan described Johnson's courage while the sh ip was struggling to round the Horn. Haley wro te about it some time la ter in a narrative of his whaling ad vent u res that was published as a book ca lled Whale Hunt .

The orig inal of th is account of George 's time a t sea, wh ich can be seen in the G.W. Blunt White Library of the Mystic Seaport Museum, states: The ship was forced over so hard on her side that her lee rail was und e r w a ter an d decks almost at right angles. The officer on the deck s ung out to all hands, "Let go the topsail halyards! Hard up the wheel! " The wheel was put hard up, the office rs and boats teerers let go the main and mi zzi n topsail halyards, also the spanker sheet, but the men forward were too frightened to do anything else but cling on the weather rigging .... Th is young man, who had th e w atch below, came struggling out of the forecastle scuttle half as leep an d hea rd the order. Catching hold of the fife rail around the foremast with his hands and getting a brace with his feet on the combings of the mast, he sprung backwards toward the s tarboard side of the tryworks, catching the cooler with both hands, hauled himself up the inclined deck far enough to get his feet braced firmly against the side of the tryworks and cooler,

and brought his hands within reach of the halyards and main tacks, which he instantly pulled off from their pins. The ship quickly righted and got before the wind. The Captain said, "No other man for ward tried to do anything but hold on to save h imself, except this one."

After the Christopher Mitchell reached the Pacific, the voyage passed, as did most, with weeks spent criss-crossing the ocean in search of whales. Some days were successful, many were not. Then one night about eight months after the ship had sailed from Nantucket, George Johnson's charade was finally discovered.

Harpooner Haley tells how it happened: When cruising off Peru, the weather was very hot and young Johnson had been sick for two or three days.

One night in the middle watch, the man at the wheel went below to light his pipe and then came bounding up the forecastle ste ps and yelled in a voice loud enough for most of the men on deck to hear, "Captain, the lad's a girl! That young fellow who is sick is a woman!" The officer on deck was so startled he shouted to the man, "Come and show me what you mean!" Together, they went below and stood quietly beside the sailor's berth. One of the lamps shone into the berth and revealed a beautifully formed unconscious woman. She was wakened quietly, told that her secret had been discovered and taken to the Captain, who gave her a spare bed in the after cabin. Captain Sullivan reported that, before he left Ann/George Johnson, she put her arms around him and said, "You have been good to me and I know you will be hereafter." The Captain declared her his "sister" as long as she remained on the ship.

They set course immediately for Payta, Peru, which was a port used regularly by the whaleships in the South Pacific. Here the captain planned to put Ann into the hands of the American consul, who would send her home. She was given some calico, which they had on board for trading with the natives. With this she made an appropriate outfit to wear during the two weeks she still remained on the ship. Haley reports that she was described the captain as a "pretty girl, even if her hands and face were rough and sunburnt." When the Christopher Mitchell arrived in port, Ann was taken to

the home of the consul, where she stayed until she could take ship to Panama, cross the Isthmus, and board another vessel for home.

Even with such a vivid description of the voyage, this might have been the end of the story and there could be some doubt about whether it really happened.

Historians might be tempted to chalk up the whole tale to a mariner's vivid imagination or desire to be the center of attention were it not for the letter purchased by the Friends, which has put a stop to the uncertainty. On July 16, 1849, a so-farunidentified man by the name of A. Bathurst, who may have been the American consul (we have not been able to confirm this), wrote from Payta to Charles and Henry Coffin in Nantucket: The "Christopher Mitchell" returned on the 6th having discovered a few days ago that George Johnson who shipped in Nantucket as a greenhand was one of the opposite sex.

As Captain Sullivan did not think it prudent to keep the female sailor on board, he very wisely returned and gave "Miss Ann" Johnson up to the care of the American Consul. "Miss J. is now a guest in my family- a very fine young woman about 19, extremely well bred and has not yet acquired any of the conversation so frequently practiced by sailors. I have promised her paternal care for which she appears very grateful.

My daughter takes great pleasure in making her comfortable and I am happy to say they are like sisters.

She will be conducted to the US first opportunity.

A postscript adds, "Miss Johnson belongs to Rochester, state NY." There seems to be no doubt that the disguise actually happened, that a more or less sheltered girl actually managed to carry off the escapade she planned.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, she did not find the man she was seeking. Of course the story mustn't end here, and there is much research still to be done.

What ship brought Ann Johnson home?

Where did she land? Where did she go?

Were there newspaper accounts of the event at the time? We haven't been able to find them. Did others write letters about the girl who sailed for nine months undiscovered by the crew? How did the remainder of her life unfold?

It would be a fascinating trail to discover and follow . We in the Research Center are still trying to learn more about Rebecca Ann Johnson of Rochester, New York. So far, inquiries to historical societies in the vicinity for any information about her have brought no positive replies.

It's always tempting to researchers to go to the area where something they are studying occurred; this is one reason why so many scholars and authors visit us on Nantucket.

If Rebecca Ann Johnson's voyage aboard the Christopher Mitchell has aroused sufficient curiosity in any of our readers, please let us know if you would like to continue the search for more material about this courageous and creative young woman.

Jacqueline Kolle Haring is the Curator of Research Materials at the Nantucket Historiad Association.

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Painting of the Nantucket ship Christopher Mitchell, which "George Johnson" sailed on December 9, 1848.

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Maria Mitchell Association circa 1908

As pioneers of a new Nantucket community, nineteenth-century black women became role models for other freed slaves to follow.

African-American Women in NineteenthCentury Nantucket: Wives, Mothers, Modistes, and Visionaries

By Gloria Davis Goode

A

frican-American women in nineteenth-century Nantucket were born and bred into a domestic sphere.

Throughout their lives their domestic orientation became their strength, their prominence, and their authority as they faced challenging yet restrictive prospects for advancement in society. Slavery, the preoccupation with survival, and the absence of sufficient rewards for their labors helped to shape their identities.

Drawing from their past experiences they were able as a community of women to bond with each other, to mature, and to emerge as models of exemplary esteem within their own cultural group as well as in mainstream society.

Maria Boston, the "ancestral matriarch" of Nantucket's African-American women, was a part of a small, close-knit community of manumitted slave families.

Sometime before the Revolution, William Swain offered freedom to Maria and her husband Boston. But it was not until1760 that Maria, Boston, and their youngest son, Peter, were manumitted, "For and in consideration of the many good & faithful services.... " The couple's six other children were to remain in slavery until they reached twenty-eight years of age, with the exception of Tobias, an adult, who was to be freed at the age of twenty-five. By the 1790s, all of the children had been freed through the process of gradual manumission. Destined for success by virtue of strong family ties, perseverance, and hard work, the Boston freedmen became

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Gravestone in the "Nantucket Black Cemetery" of escaped slave, and later minister, Arthur Cooper.

Photo: Diane Ucd

mariners, merchants, and craftsmen. As pioneers of a new community, they took the lead in setting examples for other freed slaves to follow. They purchased land in the West Monomoy shares near the Old Mill; during the first half of the next century they married and with their wives built their homes, raised their children, and amassed their fortunes. After the death of

Boston, Maria remarried into the Pompey family and in her declining years was cared for by her sons.

About the time that Maria Boston's children began to receive their freedom papers, an event occurred that helped to change the composition of the island forever. A few years before he was to be granted freedom papers, Maria's son, Prince Boston, signed on as a crew member of the sloop Friendship, owned by the Quaker, William Rotch. When Captain Elisha Folger paid Prince Boston for his wages, an heir of his owner, John Swain, sued Boston to recover the money. The Court of Common Pleas gra nted Boston his freedom three years ahead of his scheduled manumission. Thus, the island became known as a haven for fugitive slaves who came by way of the Underground Railroad and slave mariners rescued by Quaker captains visiting southern ports. By the 1820s, a unique AfricanAmerican settlement composed of native Nantucketers, southern-born newcomers, and a few South Sea Island mariners began to emerge, most of whom made their livelihoods from the whaling industry.

The settlement, known as "Guinea," or "New Guinea," after the territory of the same name in West Africa, was a cluster of residences, gardens, and pastures physically separated from the white community

by Newtown Gate, a sheep barrier at the end of Pleasant Street. There were stores, shops, churches, a school, and later on an abolition society. Within this community,

women played an important role. intended husband, Arthur Cooper, In 1830, black women, almost on a Nantucket sloop. Soon after a quarter of the total Africantheir arrival in 1820, the couple was American population of 282 persons, married and received by the Guinea were listed in the Nantucket census community. They took up residence of "Colored Persons," as wives and on Angola Street, and Arthur mothers. How the society recognized Cooper became minister of the Zion socia l d ifferences can be gleaned African Methodist Episcopal Church on West York Street. The story of from a record of deaths from 1832 to 1834. A destitute woman in the poor the attempted capture of the fugitive hou se known only by a ge and sex couple by an agent from Virginia is was identified in this report, which well known in Nantucket. The capstates "August of 1832. . .. A Negro ture was thwarted because of the Woman Slave died at Quaise Asylum anti-slavery efforts of many black . .. age 47." In a similar record no families and a plan engineered by surn ame is used and the circumabolitionists on the island. Mary stances surrounding the death are Cooper died at an early age, leaving om itted; thus, "Mary died at New behind her husband and five chilGuinea, Nantucket very suddenly . . . dren.

Age 30." Those entries can be conLucy Cooper, Arthur Cooper ' s second wife, had also experienced trasted with one for a minister's wife, "September 9, 1832 .. . Sophia the pain of slavery. Brought from Cooper, a Coloured Woman wife of Africa as a young girl, she was sold John Cooper, d ied sud d enly at New at the age of eighteen to the owners Guinea .. . age 27;" and the one for of a rice plantation in South Maria Boston's granddaughter, "July Carolina. Sometime in the 1830s 4, 1834 .. . Mary Douglas w ife of she came to Nantucket, married Michael a Co loured Wo man and Arthur Cooper, and lived with him daug hter of Tobias Boston a until his death in 1853. Lucy Cooper Resp e ctable Woman .. . age 66. " was respected by her own people as What made a woman " respectable" well as the members of the white can be ascertained by examining the community. According to Mary life of a woman who lived on Guinea Starbuck and her friend Eliza, Hill.

"There was a little bunch of grapes One so-called re spectable branded on her forehead just above woman became prominent by virtue the eyebrows. She wore a turban, of mar riage into the es tablished and she had a lovely soft voice, and Boston family. She took on a great was gentle in her ways, and she and number of responsibilities and obligher little house were immaculately ations as the third wife of Absalom F. clean ." The two women were so Boston. Born in the whaling town of close to Lucy Cooper that after her New Bedford, Hannah Cook came to death in 1866 they raised money to Nantucket in 1827 to marry the suepurchase her tombstone, so that she cessful mariner, who at that time was Silhouettes of Rachel Lynch's in-laws, circa 1860. could rest beside her husband in the captain of his own whaling ship and black cemetery. An observer articuemployer of an all-black crew. His - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - lated the reasons why Lucy Cooper first and second wives had died at young suit filed on behalf of his daughter to may have lived on the island when he statages, leaving two sets of children. Taking attend the high school. For women like ed, " ... Her years passed at Nantucket her place as the "first lady" of Nantucket's Hannah, living in a large family with were so quiet and tranquil that the expericommunity of color, Hannah Boston inter- many friends had advantages. Isolation ence ... mellowed and softened the recolacted with her extended family and man- and alienation were rare and burdens lections of her early life." In an obituary, aged a household that included four shared by kinfolk, community, and church Lucy Cooper was remembered as a pious stepchildren, two brothers -in-law, and family were bearable. In 1858, upon the woman. several boarders, one a foreigner. In her death of her husband, Hannah Boston was Lucy Cooper is representative of way, she added to the financial success of named executor of his estate, valued at a spiritual woman of the early African her family, for servicing boarders provid- over $1,300. As a widow she managed her Methodist Episcopal Church. She probaed obvious economic advantages. Hannah property and her personal assets. bly attended a weekly class, an extension In contrast to the women of the of her Methodist congregation called the Boston, no doubt, was a strong woman; she had experienced grief over the loss of older established black families, the first Women's Band Society. In 1840, the bands her five children, none of whom lived to and second Wives of Arthur Cooper repre- of "true believers who have confidence in adulthood. Yet, she bore her responsibili- sent those who were liberated from south- each other," in addition to Lucy Cooper, ties well. She supported her husband in ern slave culture to live in a community may have included Sarah Wright, his activities as a trustee of the African where they could be respected, regardless Elizabeth Cooper, Cecelia Scott Robinson, Baptist Church, as a candidate for local of their color. Mary, a fugitive slave from Mary Clark Berry, and Rebecca Pierce. offices, as a member of the African Virginia, was guided through the They prayed, testified, rejoiced at one Abolition Society, and as a plaintiff in a Underground Railroad along with her another's successes, and shared their burdens .

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Artist Richard J. Watson 's conception of pen and ink sketch of Zilpha ÂŁlaw circa 1846, taken from her memoirs.

Photo: Michael Galvin

While the number of Methodist women grew smaller due to the decline of the Zion Methodist Episcopal Church, a group of twenty-one women widened their circle of influence as founders of the Pleasant Street Baptist Church under the leadership of a new minister. James E. Crawford, a former Methodist missionary, was a gifted leader and orator who was affiliated with both white and black Baptist congregations. His first wife, Ann Williams Crawford, came from a wellknown black family in Charleston, South Carolina. One of her sisters had married H. H. Gamet, a missionary to England and the West Indies. When it was learned that his wife's sister and niece had been sold into slavery, Crawford began a campaign to raise money for the ransom. After his sister-in-law, Dianna Williams, was liberated with funds collected by the islanders, he elicited the help of people from many denominations to purchase freedom for his niece, Cornelia Read. In a newspaper article, the Crawford family expressed deeply felt obligations to all of the ministers and churches of the coalition that had contributed to the cause. When his wife died, James E. Crawford married her sister and cared for his niece.

None of the Methodist or Baptist women became prominent ministers; however, one woman did change the course of the island's religious history.

After Zilpha Elaw had placed her daughter with a family in New York to

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learn the skills of a modiste, or dressmaker, Elaw continued on a religious tour to Nantucket in 1832. She contracted a severe illness and was compelled to remain on the island with little hope of recovery. She sent for her daughter, who with the aid of Sarah Coffin and two other women, an elderly Baptist and a Quaker preacher, prayed for Zilpha Elaw's recovery. At the end of an eight-month illness, Elaw regained her strength; she and her daughter decided to make the island their new home. She preached at two chapels of the Methodist Society, one situated in the upper part of town where she spoke on "the Lord's day afternoon," and the other in the lower part of town, a large chapel where she assisted her "beloved minister."

Zilpha Elaw's daughter Rebecca married a mariner, Thomas Pierce (Pearce) in 1833; the Pierces purchased property in "Newtown," or "Guiney," where they resided with their three sons and provided a home for Zilpha Elaw to relax in between her ministerial tours. In the 1830s Zilpha Elaw was approached by the African Baptist congregation to preach at their services as they were "destitute of a minister ." With the consent of her Methodist minister and friend, Reverend Thomas C. Pierce, she did so successfully.

Rebecca Elaw Pierce was widowed in the 1850s and continued to live with her sons until they reached maturity. In 1868, when she was a middle-aged woman, Rebecca Pierce married her neighbor, a

widower, Jame s E. Crawfo rd. She retained her Methodi st affi liation but worked beside her husband in the Baptist Church. The last kno wn mention of the evangelist Zilpha Elaw is recorded in an obituary for her daughter in 1883.

Although Rebecca Elaw Crawford left no will, she probably communicated to her husband that, after his death, her closest and dearest companion, Rachel Cooper Lynch, widow of Edward Lynch, was to inherit some of her personal effects. These included, "one brilliant Breast pin, one Shawl pin, one .. . . Gold Heart, ... [a) kitchen clock .. . Cook Stove and Stove furniture, clothes horse .. . Washing machine ... and Wringing Machine . . . also the motto hanging in ... [the) front parlor which is a 'Shall We Gather at the River,' and one picture and any other picture of ... Rebecca."

With the death of Rachel Cooper Lynch in 1899, recollections of the life of Zilpha Elaw might have vanished, except for a most important document written by this African-American woman who Jived in Nantucket. This is a spiritual autobiography, Memoirs of the Life, Religious Experience, Ministerial Travels and Labours of Mrs. Zilpha ÂŁlaw, An American Female of Colour, . . . published in London in 1846.

The gift that Zilpha Elaw b rought to Nantucket was the possibility fo r a woman to reach her greatest spiritual and intellectual heights.

By th e turn of th e ce ntury, the "Guinea" or " Newtown" community had virtually disappeared. Mahala Pierce was the only black woman living alone-on Dover Street in her famil y's homesteadand Cornelia Read Gould had moved with her husband to Dedham, Massachusetts.

Today, Nantucket's Black Cemetery, with its unmarked graves and eroding stones, stand s as a memorial to th e AfricanAmerican women of the nineteenth century. Their legacy is best exe mplified in a 1904 tribute to Susan B. Pompey, descendant of the Kelley famil y and wife of Sampson D. Pompey: Mrs. Pompey was an honored representative of a respected colored family on Nantucket, intelligent, industrious, active in good word and work from girlhood to womanhood.

Gloria D. Goode received her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in American civilization, with an emphasis on the history of African-American women. She has been awarded the 1993 Pennsylvania Secondary Teacher of the Year award.

WE COULDN'T DO

Behind the Scenes IT WITHOUT YOU . ..

Candlesticks from Canton, purcluzsed by the Friends of the NHA.

Friends Bring China Trade to Light ~ is fall a pair of candlesticks brought to Nantucket from Canton, China, on the Rose in 1804, was given to the NHA by the Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association. Local antiques appraiser and auctioneer Rafael Osona assisted the Friends with their purchase from a collector of these important Nantucket artifacts.

Nantucket began trading with China in the early 1800s, and James Cary, sailing on the Rose, was the first islander to do so.

He traded sealskins for chinese silks, furniture, and other pieces. Cary's ship went

on to be one of the first American ships to trade in Australia as well.

The candlesticks brought over on the Rose are extremely rare and thus an important addition to the Historical Association's collections. They will be a significant exhibit in the show the NHA is putting together for 1994 that will feature items from the China Trade. Again, the generosity and active support of the Friends have allowed us to expand our interpretation of Nantucket's diverse history to the public.

Volu es of Gold

keeper, Charles Murphy, recorded the voyage twice-once in the usual manner and then again completely in poetry. The carefully hand-drawn charts of the ship's course, which are found throughout the log, make it not only valuable history but an artistic treasure as well.

When Miss Miriam Bunker of Wellesley Hills, Massachusetts, donated nine cartons of books to the Research Center we had no idea what a treasure trove they would turn out to be! As we opened box after box to list and catalogue the volumes, we found rare books on Nantucket that were in excellent condition. The books were collected by Laurence Eliot Bunker, Miss Bunker's brother. They are magnificent additions to our library and will receive the special attention such jewels as these deserve-both by the staff at the Research Center and the scholars who come to study here.

Another gem that the Research Center, has acquired is the log of the Nantucket ship Maria under the command of Captain Alexander Macy. The log describes the ship's voyage in the Pacific Ocean from 1832 until 1835, and was generously donated by Ann Quirk of Nantucket. All logs are exciting to receive, but this one is unique in that the

Paul A. Wolf, Jr., NHA Acting President, and Jacqueline K. Haring, Curator of Research Materials, receiving the microfilm from Christine Tully Turentine and Lee Rand Burne of the Nantucket Atheneum.

Running a nonprofit organization that owns and maintains sixteen historic sites with a small staff could not be done without the generous assistance of our many volunteers. Our volunteer needs run the gamut from the mundane to the exhilarating. However, regardless of the nature of the job, it has to get done, and we are fortunate in finding those who will do it.

Historic Nantucket is mailed quarterly, and it takes many hands to apply labels, sort, and bag almost three-thousand copies. Coffee, muffins, and conversation fill the conference room in the Old Town Building as diligent volunteers tackle the task at hand. Helen Winslow Chase, NHA historian, and her husband Franklin have been known to stay for six hours at a time . Phyllis Macomber, secretary and assistant treasurer of the NHA's executive committee, lends a hand whenever her busy schedule allows. Dolly Noblit, Billy Barrows, Bobbie Jesser, Alexander Punnett, and Kathleen Chase are among many others who give us a hand as well.

Without them you probably wouldn't be reading this magazine right now!

Archival Exchange Four years ago the Nantucket Atheneum accepted the Historical Association's collection of both bound and unbound Nantucket newspapers dating back to 1821. This added to the Atheneum's already extensive collection. Working through the winters of 1989-91, Lee Rand Burne and Christine Tully Turentine of the Atheneum sorted, organized, tabulated, and archivally stored approximately 24,000 newspapers spanning 175 years of Nantucket history-a monumental feat and contribution to the community!

In September 1991 the Atheneum participated in the Massachusetts Newspaper Program, administered through the Boston Public Library, which funded the professional microfilming of the combined collection of unbound newspapers. The Atheneum generously had an extra copy of the Inquirer, Mirror, and the Inquirer and Mirror made for the NHA's Research Center. Now both facilities can accommodate visitors interested in researching island history. In addition to the three well-known papers, the Atheneum also has copies of others available.

Photo: Diane Ucd

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On the Trail of 2. Harriet Swain. 9 Gay Street. Like many of

Nantucket's whaling wives, Harriet went to sea with her husband. They sailed on Christmas Day, 1852. They were deeply attached to one another and Obed built her a little house on the deck so that she could sit out without getting sunburned.

1. First Congregational Church. North Centre Street.

Louise Southard Baker was an early and earnest worker in the temperance crusade of 1875, just after the Women's Christian Temperance Union was organized. Experience speaking and organizing in the WCTU enabled many women to become active in public life for the first time.

3.Atlantic Silk Company. 10,12 Gay Street.

Abolitionist women tried to use materials other than cotton raised by slave labor. Perhaps this was one of the reasons silk manufacturing was tried on Nantucket. It provided women with employment during its 8 years of operation but closed in 1844.

4. Delia Hussey's Cent School 8 Quince Street.

Many Nantucket women worked outside the home.

Every neighborhood had a cent school like Delia Hussey's. The children brought the penny charged each day in their lunchpails.

5. Maria Mitchell Birthplace 1 Vestal Street. Astronomer.

As the most important American woman scientist in the 1870s, she did much to encourage other women to enter the public sphere. Maria was born here in 1818, and learned astronomy on the roofwalk of this house, assisting her father in astronomical observations. Her father built a tiny study on the second floor where she could study apart from her eight siblings.

6. Paci ic National Bank. Maria Mitchell's family lived in an apartment here after her father took a job with the bank. It was on the roof of this building, on the night of Oct. 1, 1847, that Maria spotted and tracked the comet that made her famous.

8 Black Cemetery Behind the hospital. Buried here are Eunice Ross and Phoebe Ann Boston. Their appeals and '----- court action for education for black students finaUy led to integration in 1847.

7 Mary Coffin Starbuck, "Parliament House." 10 Pine Street. When John Richardson, a Quaker missionary, came to Nantucket in 1701, he was impressed that Mary Starbuck had" ... soundness of judgment, clearness of Understanding, and an elegant way of expressing herself." In fact, she was already a leader in the community before John converted her to the Society of Friends. Quaker meetings were first held in the Great Room of this house, and Mary was important in Nantucket's becoming substantially Quaker.

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Nantucket's Women's History 9."Petticoat Row." Centre Street between Main and Broad. In the early and middle years of the 19th century, the preponderance of women merchants, selling everything from daily necesssities to exotic goods, gave this street its name. Generally, in the 19th C., women's roles became increasingly confined to the home as the shortage of male labor was overcome. But on Nantucket, whaling husbands were away for long stretches -as long as five years--and the dangers of whaling often left women widows. The Quaker influence, which valued competence of all sorts in women, and hard work and thrift in everyone, was crucial as well.

10. Atheneum. Anna Gardner called the first Nantucket Anti-Slavery Convention here in 1841. Famous orators such as William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips spoke but Anna is said to have worried that the audience was not responding until 23-year-old Frederick Douglass, recently escaped from slavery, rose. He began this, his first public speech, nervously, but his real-life account roused the audience to cheers. Seven years later, by then editor of the Northstar in Rochester, he attended the first Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, and persuaded Elizabeth Cady Stanton that the Declaration of Sentiments must include a demand for women's suffrage.

11. Unitarian Church, 11 Orange Street. Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford, the first woman ordained in New England, was born a Quaker in Siasconset in 1829. She gravitated toward the more cheerful Unitarian doctrine, however, and became a member of this church. She was ordained a Universalist minister in 1868 and spent a long career pastoring, writing, and working for women's rights.

12. Lucretia Coffin Mott was born in a house no longer standing at 13 Fair Street. The epitome of the strong, spiritual Quaker woman, Lucretia was one of the foremost reformers of the 19th century and a mentor of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

13. The African School and the African Baptist Church.

York and Pleasant. This small building served many functions-school, church, and meeting. In 1834, both a black woman, Zilpha Elaw, and Salome Lincoln, who was white, preached sermons here.

14. Anna Gardner. 40 Orange Street.

Anna was raised a Quaker here and remembered her abolitionist parents smuggling fugitive slaves as part of the Underground Railroad. She taught in the African School on York St. and after the Civil War went to the South to teach in the Freedmen's Aid Society schools of the Reconstruction Era.

Condensed from On the Trail of Women's History: New England and Upper New York State, by Barbara Westmoreland. In press, 1993.

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Preserving and Enhancing Our Island Treasures How You Can Participate Gifts of funds, securities, historic artifacts, and real estate can be accepted by the Nantucket Historical Association to help carry out its delicate mission of preserving the island's historic past.

Contributions may be made to the Nantucket Historical Association, designated a 501(c)(3) organization by the IRS. CONTRIBUTION OF FUNDS:

Cash contributions may be immediately applied to the pressing needs of structure maintenance, collections, and operating funds. Should you wish to contribute to the fixed endowment fund or a special category, contact the Executive Director. All inquiries will be held in the strictest confidence.

CONTRIBUTION OF SECURITIES:

Many members and friends find it advantageous to contribute securities to NHA .

We suggest you consult your lawyer or broker for advice on the tax advantages and procedures in all cases of planned giving.

FRIENDS OF THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION:

BEQUESTS:

The Friends are an organized group of active supporters who seek to acquire additional articles of historical value for the NHA's collections, as well as assist in funding restoration of existing pieces.

A number of distinguished citizens have left important family collections and significant financial gifts to the Association for its important work. We hope you too will consider this unique way of helping your community preserve its priceless history.

Please give some thought to how you might assure the Nantucket Historical Association's future. For further information, please contact the Executive Director at (508)228-1894.

Greater Light's garden is being maintained for a three-year period by Mrs. Gale H. Arnold as a generous gift to the NHA in loving memory of her mother and grandmother, both of whom were named Betty Palmer.

Photo: Diane Ucd

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ITEMS OF INTEREST at the Nantucket Community School, large group instruction room at 7 p.m.

March 1 Summer docent application deadline.

Vickie $anstead, director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, northeast region, speaking at the windmill designation ceremony.

March 8 Lecture on "Lucretia Coffin Mott: The Greatest American Who Ever Lived?" by Helen Seager at the Nantucket Community School, large group instruction room, at 7 p.m.

For details of up and coming events in late spring and early summer, continuing the celebration of Lucretia Coffin Matt's life, see our next issue.

Photo: Mike Jehle

Student Support Windmill Designation October 3, in a brisk wind, the Old Mill received her National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark designation from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Both the ASME and the Nantucket Historical Association were honored to have Vickie Sanstead, director of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, northeast region, as the guest speaker for this special event.

This year the NHA is fortunate to have a student intern from the University of New Hampshire's graduate program in education, acting as a liaison between the Nantucket school system and the Historical Association. Kris Kinsley, the intern, is working with Diane Ucci, director of education, to design and implement a more comprehensive educational outreach program with the local schools.

Diane and Kris met this fall with superintendent Alan Myers and principals Pam Culver and John Miller, all of whom were supportive about developing more historical programs.

Betsy Tyler, new Assistant Curator of Research Materials, has set her sights on cataloguing the Research Center's extensive book collection.

Photo: Diane Ucci

Faculty members were equally enthusiastic about the idea and began creating opportunities to expand their curricula to include some of the NHA's resources. They actively participated in our ed uca tiona! endeavors for the Christmas Stroll by baking molasses cookies and gingerbread and making period decorations for the Macy-Christian House tree and doors. Without their participation, our historical contribution to the Stroll just wouldn't have been the same.

This hands-on activity is just the beginning of the schools and the Historical Association sharing resources to enhance learning at both ends.

Corrigendum Mrs. John A. Lodge was inadvertently omitted from the list of NHA Advisors in the fall issue.

Dates to em ember January 3 Celebration of Lucretia Coffin Matt's 200th birthday to be held at the Nantucket Atheneum at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, with a film of her life produced by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, starring a descendant of Lucretia's family.

Sponsored by the Nantucket Historical Association, the Nantucket Atheneum, Friends of the African Meeting House, Nantucket Women's Bar Association, Society of Friends, and the Nantucket Chapter of the National Organization for Women. Caterer Tina Fournier will provide a birthday cake and Jennifer Shepherd, owner of Placesetters, will donate all serving materials.

February8 Lecture on "Black History on Nantucket"

More than 300 Coffin descendants gathered for a group photo at the Oldest House during their reunion weekend in October.

Photo: Cary Hazlegrove

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THE MUSEUM SHOP

Museum Shop manager Tom Dickson at the doorway greeting Pat Pullman.

1993 will usher in the tenth full season for the Museum Shop. The first decade has been considered an overwhelming success, thanks to the support of our most consistent patrons, the NHA membership. An average of $100,000 a year has been transferred from the Museum Shop to the NHA's general fund in both strong and weak economic times .

During these years the Museum Shop has been privileged to feature several of Nantucket's finest artists and craftspeople, including Gretchen Anderson, Emily Austin, Roy Bailey, Bobby Bushong, Marjorie and Roscoe Corey, Colin Gray, Michael and Susan Kinney, David l..azarus,Janet Ball McGlinn, Maggie Meredith, George Murphy, Reva and Mort Schlesinger, Harold Turner, Sheila Welch, Cynthia Young, and many others.

This coming year the shop will introduce commemorative gifts for both the Museum Shop's tenth anniversary and the upcoming NHA centennial in 1994.

A special gesture of thanks is extended to Grace Grossman for her founding insight, guidance, and dedication.

The Museum Shop Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century Reproductions and Adaptations Featuring Fine China, Furniture, Brass, and Silver Adjacent to the Whaling Museum, Nantucket

(508)-228-5785 Members of the Historical Association are entitled to a 10% discount upon presenting their membership card .