Historic Nantucket Spring 2021

SPRING 2021 VOLUME 71, NO. 1

The Nantucket Historical Association presents

nantucket by design August 5–7, 2021 Presenting Sponsor

NANTUCKET REAL ESTATE • MORTGAGE • INSURANCE

Join us for an unforgettable VIRTUAL experience, including two keynote lectures, engaging panel discussions, antiques show preview, and house tours!

Kelly Williams, Nantucket by Design Chair 2021

Nate Berkus

Alexa Hampton

Corey Damen Jenkins

Steele Marcoux

Pietro Cicognani

Isabella Rossellini

Lead image design by Pietro Cicognani.

Learn more at NHA.org | Follow us @NantucketbyDesign #NANTUCKETBYDESIGN

“SO SABI” “So Sabi” translates from Cape Verdean creole to “it’s so good.”

In the pandemic riddled year of 2020 you might not expect anyone to feel good about the year. However, the NHA community has much to be thankful for as we report that the Association ended 2020 in a financially positive position. The true champions were our staff and members and supporters like you. And we thank the board of the Nantucket Atheneum for converting their loan of over 200 artifacts into a permanent gift.

As we look forward we also say so sabi. This summer we celebrate the Cape Verdean legacy in a special exhibition. This, along with exhibitions at Hadwen House, a retrospective on artist Anne Ramsdell Congdon, a celebration of the Inky’s 200th anniversary, plus an expanded look at Rights and Race on the Island, is just a sampling of the visual feast in store for you this summer.

The 2021 Nantucket by Design summer fundraiser creatively curates a host of virtual programs that will inspire and entertain. Our on-line programming continues unabated. Importantly, we remind our year-round community that the NHA has eliminated its admission charge in 2021 for your pleasure and enjoyment.

We thank our writers and researchers who have constructed this fascinating issue of Historic Nantucket packed with insightful articles. Finally, we acknowledge those who stepped forward thus far to support our programmatic slate for 2021.

Sincerely,

Chip Carver President, Board of Trustees

James Russell Gosnell Executive Director

Board of Trustees 2020–21 Chip Carver, President Susan Blount, Vice President David Worth, Vice President John Flannery, Treasurer Sarah Alger, Clerk Nancy Abbey Patricia S. Anathan Lucinda Ballard William Boardman Friends of the NHA President Olivia Charney

Wylie A. Collins Amanda Cross Annabelle Fowlkes Cam Gammill Graham Goldsmith Wendy Hudson Carl Jelleme Carla McDonald Victoria McManus Ashley Gosnell Mody Britt Newhouse Valerie Paley

Marla Sanford Janet Sherlund Trustee Emerita Carter Stewart Melinda Sullivan Jason Tilroe Finn X. Wentworth Kelly Williams Alisa A. Wood Ex Officio James Russell, Gosnell Executive Director

Editor: Ashley Santos, Associate Director of Marketing Designer: Amanda Quintin Design HISTORIC NANTUCKET (ISSN 0439-2248) is published by the Nantucket Historical Association, 15 Broad Street, Nantucket, Massachusetts. Periodical postage paid at Nantucket, MA, and additional entry offices.

For information visit nha.org. ©2019 by the Nantucket Historical Association. all photos by nha staff unless otherwise noted.

Cover image: New Ireland tatunua dancing mask, 1870-85. Gift of the Nantucket Atheneum, 2020.26.21

Serving the Year-Round Community This past year has shown that we can push beyond our place of comfort and create anew.

Much will be long lasting. Creating meaningful ways to reach Island students and the community has extended our capabilities to reach beyond our shores. The depth of our online resources are being shared with larger audiences, and hopefully strengthening the connection to our seasonal community.

Visitor Services: The Whaling Museum is open with free admission to the Nantucket community. Live interpretation was not possible in 2020 but history was still brought to life for visitors with new recorded audio tours in English and Spanish. In 2021, a partnership with the White Heron Theatre brings live interpretation back this summer, with the signature programs of The Hunt and the Essex Gam. Hadwen House and Thomas Macy House will open this summer with new exhibits and presentations. Small-group walking tours, audio tours of historic properties, and self-guided activities will enhance the visitor experience.

Discovery Center: This new and exciting interactive play space is proving to be a major attraction for families. Children spark their imaginations as they play on the Waterfront set, Sarg’s Curiosity Shop, the Harbormaster’s office, and Tilton’s Scallop Shanty, all engage kids with hands-on activity. Opening this summer is the Discovery Park, sponsored by Alisa and Alastair Wood. A catboat, lighthouse, and bathymetric and topographic Nantucket map (where kids can sail a balsawood boat), are just a few features to enjoy.

Public Programs: Virtual programs are keeping us connected with members and new friends with NHA University, webinars, and Food for Thought. Topics include Black and women’s history, archaeology and historic properties, plus genealogy and heritage, to name a few. Programs continue to be available on the NHA’s YouTube Channel, as well as C-Span American History Channel. Media sponsorship for NHA webinars is generously provided by Novation Media.

Winter Discovery Days during February school vacation week.

Museum In My School: The MIMS program began its ninth year of in-classroom education for grades kindergarten-7th grade. This program connects students with the Island history. Virtual sessions and pod-sized in-person visits to sites are a highlight. Each year the third grade visits the Old Mill to see a simple machine in action, and 2020 was no exception when 130 third graders kept a long standing tradition alive with their visit to the oldest operating mill in America.

High School Internship: This program will double in size in 2021 as we introduce a vocational track for students. The objective is to mentor students as they prepare for college and career with sessions lead by NHA staff and community professionals. Returning intern Anna Popnikolova was named runner up in the New York Times Personal Narrative Writing Contest. Congratulations Anna! The High School Internship program is generously supported in part by Kathryn P. Salmanowitz.

Private Schools: Nantucket’s private schools visit the museum with increasing regularity. Every visit includes time in the Discovery Center, where students engage in hands-on activities.

Left: Absalom Boston: A One-Man Portrayal by Neville Richen held in February.

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SPRING 2021 | VOLUME 71, NO. 1

Hands-on Workshops: The number of craft programs will increase in 2021 and take place both at Greater Light and in the Discovery Center. Craft classes will be offered year-round with a new focus on engaging island youth. This winter in person workshops continue weekly in the Discovery Center. Participants tell us that this creative outlet is welcomed and needed. These workshops are sponsored in part by Diane Pitt.

Nantucket Community: The Bulgarian School, a licensed school program by the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, has been holding its weekly school program in two of the NHA’s historic properties, Hadwen House and Greater Light.

Each Saturday 40 students rotate class time to study Bulgarian language, culture, and traditions. This ongoing community partnership is beneficial, as students and families help the NHA reinvent how to use our portfolio of properties.

NHA Scholarships: The NHA awards annual scholarship to deserving Nantucket High School graduating seniors who are pursuing a four-year college degree.

In 2020, scholarships were awarded to Tori Dixon, Caleb Mailloux, Maria Silva Marchi, and Jarret O’Connor, who demonstrated extraordinary achievement and commitment to the Nantucket community through volunteer time and initiatives during their high school years. Support for these scholarships comes from Julie & Cam Gammill, Carl Jelleme, Sarah Alger & Bruce Malenfant, Mary & Al Novissimo, and Delia & James Russell.

Virtual College Internships: Last fall, the Worcester Polytech Institute and the NHA continued their long partnership with a semester-long virtual program engaging four students. The NHA values its developing partnership with Hobart Williams Smith as three students participate in virtual curatorial projects, thanks to support from Anne Delaney & Chip Carver. Our partnership with Kean University, which began in 2020, continues into 2021 with further involvement in digital media and marketing projects under the supervision of Novation Media.

Table of Contents: The Atheneum Museum

by Michael R. Harrison, pg. 4 Sorosis by Barbara Ann White, pg. 10 A Look at Off-Island Marriage Among The Nantucket Quakers by Michael R. Harrison, pg. 14 The First Organized Vaccine Program on Nantucket by Malcolm W. McNab MD, Ph.D., pg. 20 Memorable Exhibitions

by Memorial Day, pg 24 Writing the First Draft of Island History by Joshua Balling and John Stanton, pg. 28 Thomas Macy Warehouse Renovation, pg. 30 Protecting Nantucket’s Historical and Archaeological Record

by Mary Lynne Rainey, pg. 35

Year-round youth programming is generously supported by:

2021 High School interns, back row (left to right): Sara Gazille, Eliza Brown, Cameron Christie, Elliott Corry. Front row (left to right) Emily Dussault, Sophie Phelps, and Julia Swietlik.

NHA.org | Nantucket Historical Association

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The Atheneum Museum

By Michael R. Harrison, Obed Macy Research Chair

The Nantucket Atheneum is celebrated today as Nantucket Island’s free public library, a community hub for learning, recreation, and cultural programming. From 1834 to 1905, it was also the island’s chief caretaker of historic, cultural, and scientific artifacts, and its dedicated museum room was a leading island attraction. The Atheneum lent the majority of its collection to the Nantucket Historical Association in 1905, and in 2020 the two organizations agreed to convert this 115-year-old loan to a gift. To mark this occasion, we look back at the history of the Atheneum Museum.

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n 1827, two small private library associations on Nantucket, the Nantucket Mechanics Social Library, formed in 1820, and the Columbian Library Association, formed in 1823, combined to become the United Library Association, dedicated to collecting and lending books and to building up a cabinet of curiosities for the education and entertainment of the membership. The United Library rented rooms in the Phoenix Insurance Company offices at the corner of Main and Centre streets, which after a few years proved inadequate. In 1833, local merchants Charles G. Coffin and David Joy provided the seed money and a gift of land to encourage the creation of a permanent home for the library. A fundraising effort resulted in the purchase of the disused Universalist Church on Federal Street at Pearl Street (now India), which was renovated during 1834 into a library, museum, and lecture hall. In early 1834, the library association formally incorporated as the Nantucket Atheneum, devoted to “scientific and literary purposes.” The organization was set up as a subscription library, with each subscriber, or proprietor, having a vote in the library’s annual meeting. The first annual meeting was held January 5, 1835, coinciding with the opening of the renovated building, and, in 1836, the Atheneum hired its first librarian, the 18-year-old Maria Mitchell, who held the position for twenty years.1

The Union Library cabinet of curiosities filled the new museum at the Atheneum. The exact size of this early collection is unknown. It is described in period reports as containing items “principally from the Pacific Seas, which have been several years collecting.” In 1839, Josiah Hussey described the collection as “rich in specimens of artificial and natural curiosities.” Among its treasures was an 18-foot canoe from “one of the islands in the Pacific,” brought to Nantucket in 1831 in the ship Fame under Captain John S. Ramsdell and given by merchant Philip H. Folger. The collection also included a substantial coin cabinet, including many ancient coins, donated by Henry C. Worth, Charles G. Coffin, Daniel Jones Jr., James Tallant, and others, and a handful of Roman antiquities purchased by Paul Mitchell Jr. during his 1841–43 European Grand Tour.2

1 “United Library Association,” Nantucket Journal, Aug. 17, 1827, 2; “The Atheneum,” Nantucket Inquirer, Jan. 21, 1848, 2; “An Act to incorporate the Nantucket Atheneum” (Feb. 28, 1834), Massachusetts General Laws chapter 38 (1834); Sarah F. Barnard, “The Nantucket Atheneum,” Inquirer and Mirror, Apr. 21, 1900, 4.

2 Nantucket Inquirer, June 4, 1831, 2; “Opening of the Atheneum,” Nantucket Inquirer, Jan. 10, 1835, 2; “Domestic Institutions,” Nantucket Inquirer, Aug. 3, 1839, 1.

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The collection was a source of local pride. Governor Edward Everett was escorted through it especially during an 1836 island visit. When a Boston wag suggested in 1845 that a squirrel which had recently caused a stir on Straight Wharf be stuffed and placed in the “Atheneum Museum as a monumental trophy, by which [the islanders’] children’s children shall learn the valorous deeds of their ancestors,” the editor of the Nantucket Weekly Mirror replied indignantly, “Prithee, brother,

Tiles replicating the Cave Canem mosaic from Pompeii, ca. 1843. 2020.26.7

do you not know better than for a moment to suppose that we are so ‘hard up’ for trophies of prowess as to be under the necessity of placing a Squirrel skin in our Museum?”3 In 1845 or 1846, Maria Mitchell, as Atheneum librarian, undertook to rearrange the displays in the museum and to compile a complete catalog of donors and “concise historical information” on each item. She had about half the catalog, amounting to 120 handwritten folio pages, completed when the Great Fire of July 13– 14, 1846, destroyed the Atheneum and much of the rest of central Nantucket. During the fire, heroic efforts by townsfolk and the officers and crew of the Coast Survey schooners Gallatin and Wave successfully removed 3 “Edward Everett,” Nantucket Inquirer, July 30, 1836, 2; “Brother Lovell,” Nantucket Weekly Mirror, Oct. 25, 1845, 2.

the books and museum collections from the building, only to have the fire overtake the place to which everything had been moved. The commanding officer of the Wave later recalled that “we moved the most valuable” of the museum collections at least three times before they were finally lost. The only artifacts to survive were a painting of the chemist Benjamin Silliman by Samuel F. B. Morse, about 150 coins, a Javanese kris or daggar, and “a few relics from the ruined cities of Europe”: two ancient glass lachrymatories (tear bottles), and an ancient Roman lamp from the tombs near Corinth, from Paul Mitchell Jr.’s Grand Tour.4

4 “The Trustees of the Nantucket Atheneum,” Nantucket Warder, July 18, 1846, 1; “North Conway,” Inquirer and Mirror, Oct. 3, 1874, 4; “The Nantucket Atheneum,” Inquirer and Mirror, Apr. 21, 1900, 4. The objects that survived the fire are listed in “Curator’s Report,” Jan. 3, 1848, in Nantucket Atheneum Proprietors and Trustees Meeting Records, 1846–1963, Nantucket Atheneum.

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The Camels model. 2020.26.2

A new building for the Atheneum was swiftly built in late 1846; it included a dedicated room on the ground floor for the museum. Throughout 1847, the institution ran newspaper advertisements calling on the public to donate items to form a “new collection of rare things, such as coins, minerals, shells, Polynesian implements, &c.” The ads specifically solicited donations from whalemen in the Pacific, “as many opportunities may be presented to them, in course of their long and widely extended voyages, for the procurement of many articles of peculiar fitness for a Museum.” Donations could be left at the Atheneum, or, ironically, at the Main Street hat store of William H. Geary, in whose previous store the Great Fire had started.5 By the end of the 1847, 55 donors had contributed several hundred objects to the new museum. These fell generally into four categories: sea shells; minerals; other natural history specimens; and South Pacific tools, weapons, and ceremonial objects. Among this first year’s donations were a banana-fiber sash from Ascension Island given by Captain Joseph Allen (NHA no. 2020.26.50), ornamented whales’ teeth (Captain William Baxter), butterflies from Dayton, Ohio (Mrs. Charles Mitchell), a terrapin shell (Mrs. Spooner), several hundred sea shells (Captain Robert M. Joy, 2020.26.97), lava and sulfur from Mauna Loa (Captain Jethro Brooks), and a spectacular 10-foot-long model of a Maori waka taua or war canoe from New Zealand (Captain George Rule, 2020.26.75). The large number of Fijian spears, Marquesan clubs, Kiribati daggers, and Hawaiian ornaments donated out of island homes 5 “Atheneum Notice,” Nantucket Weekly Mirror, Aug. 21, 1847, 4.

attests to the reach of the island’s whalers during the half century that Nantucket ships had been whaling the Pacific.6 Citizens continued to donate items to the museum over the coming years. An expedition to Coatue by high school students in 1857 gathered Nantucket shells for the museum. Charles Chadwick shot a white flamingo on island in 1859 and presented it to the museum.

The natural history holdings eventually included an eagle, gannets, sea fowl of various kinds, birds’ eggs, and what was reputed to be Nantucket’s last raccoon, stuffed by local fruit-grower Samuel King.7 As the Nantucket whale fishery collapsed in the 1850s and 1860s, islanders worked to reinvent the island as a tourist destination. Local boosters promoted the Atheneum Museum as one of the island’s tourist draws.

Edward M. Gardner, editor of the Inquirer newspaper, wrote in 1863 that the Atheneum’s “Cabinet of curiosities and museum are valuable, and of much interest to many persons who visit us from abroad. The Atheneum is one of the first places to which intelligent strangers resort. It is an ornament and a credit to the Island.”8 A visitor from Worcester, Massachusetts, wrote that he “spent a pleasant and profitable hour in [the] well-filled museum of natural curiosities, gathered by the old sailors, from all parts of the globe; shells, Indian curiosities, and many relics from the South Sea and Pacific Islands.” He noted in particular the museum’s specimen 6 “Curator’s Report,” Jan. 3, 1848.

7 “The Week at Home,” Nantucket Weekly Mirror, June 6, 1857, 2; “Flamingo Shot,” Nantucket Inquirer, Apr. 8, 1859, 2; “Atheneum Museum,” Island Review, July 22, 1875. 1; “Eggs-traordinary Donation,” Nantucket Journal, Nov. 29, 1883, 2.

8 Nantucket Inquirer, Jan. 21, 1863, 2.

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THE ATHENEUM MUSEUM

The Atheneum Museum, ca. 1881. Many South Pacific objects hang on the wall; seashells fill the far cabinet. The Camels, the Maori waka taua, and the stern of Captain Gardner’s whaleship model appear in the foreground. P3032

of the coco de mer (2020.26.73), a giant nut from a species of palm tree native to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.9 Locals, promoting quaintness and whaling history as part of the island’s attraction, increasingly cultivated a distinct nostalgia for the past, which was reflected in the increased donation of historical artifacts to the Atheneum. A reorganization of the museum in 1870 highlighted a number of these acquisitions, the most significant of which was the original builders’ model of the Camels, the floating dry dock used between 1842 and 1849 to lift ships over the sandbar at the entrance to Nantucket Harbor. Boatbuilders John G. Thurber and Jesse Crosby built the model (2020.26.2), complete with a sample ship (2020.26.3), in 1841 to demonstrate the concept and attract investors. The Atheneum also borrowed from local families a number of portraits of notable Nantucketers of the past. This display inspired one summer visitor, a former island resident, to note how “the old people, looking so peacefully down upon us, bring back our younger days, when these individuals 9 “Pennaris,” Inquirer and Mirror, Sept. 7, 1867, 2.

Joseph S. Swain, 1878. GPN1259

were actively moving in our midst, teaching us lessons by their upright examples.” Other island-history objects followed, including an old wood plow (2020.26.17), a cannonball associated with the War of 1812 privateer Prince de Neufchatel (2020.16.12), a chair washed ashore in 1813 from the wreck of the Queen (2020.26.6), a small balance “used in Nantucket in 1796” (2020.0026.109), and Walter Folger Jr.’s surveyor’s chain (2020.26.107).

Paul Mitchell Jr. gave additional items from his European travels, including the costume of his Greek guide and a replica of a Pompeiian floor mosaic (2020.26.7).

William H. Chase II even made the museum a miniature whaling-scene diorama, which went on view in 1876.10 The Atheneum heavily promoted the Camels in advertisements for the museum. But the true star of the “Cabinet of Wonders” was acquired in 1871: the massive jawbone of a sperm whale, 15 feet long—but claimed to be 17 feet—and “in perfect condition, with all the teeth in place.” This supreme relic of Nantuck10 “Museum,” Island Fairie, Aug. 1, 1870, 4; “Miniature Whaling Scene,” Inquirer and Mirror, Nov. 18, 1876, 2.

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Franklin B. Murphey in the Atheneum Museum, ca. 1882. From left to right can be seen Walter Folger Jr.’s 5-inch telescope, the wood plow, the chair from the Queen (hanging on the rear wall), the great jawbone, the Greek guide’s costume, and a corner of the Camels (lower right corner). GPN499

et whaling had been carried to Nantucket in 1865 by Captain William Cash in the bark Islander. There was hope it would immediately be deposited in the museum; instead, Cash kept it in his stable on Orange Street. Local children used it as a slide, and, tiring of “the many curious it drew,” he sold it to third parties in spring 1871. They briefly displayed it for profit before the Atheneum purchased it.11

curiosity that greets your eye as you pass the threshold of the room where this strange collection is arranged . . . . Captain Swain is admirably adapted to be the exhibitor of these curiosities, for he has good conversational powers . . . and so he explains his marvels in quaint language, but intelligently and with interest to the visitor.” He took care of the collection until his death in 1882 at age 78.12

In autumn 1871, a group in Bangor, Maine, borrowed a substantial portion of the collection for display in their town, including all the South Seas artifacts and the giant sperm-whale jaw. The shipment and display of the objects was coordinated by Joseph S. Swain (1805– 1882). Swain was the Atheneum’s janitor, and, as such, was assigned responsibility for the museum. A former whaleman, Swain was frequently honored as “Captain Swain,” although he is not known to have held a command. His “eloquence in describing the various articles in his charge cannot be surpassed,” one newspaper editor reported. An 1875 visitor called Swain “the first

After Swain’s death, Franklin B. Murphey (1827–1919), a retired printer, was appointed janitor and took over care of the collection. He served from summer 1882 until fall 1893, when ill health forced him to resign. Henry Plaskett Clapp (1837–1907), a retired sailor, succeeded him. Clapp served until 1902 and was himself replaced

by George F. Folger (1833–1917), a former keeper of the Sankaty Head Lighthouse.13

11 “Some Jaw,” Inquirer and Mirror, July 22, 1865, 2; “The Museum,” Inquirer and Mirror, Sept. 2, 1871, 2; “Opening of the Museum,” Nantucket Journal, July 2, 1879, 3; Ronald L. Poole, “Brockton Man is Kin to Wife in Snow Book,” Inquirer and Mirror, Dec. 28, 1962, 2.

12 “The Atheneum Cabinet,” Inquirer and Mirror, Sept. 23, 1871, 3.

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The Atheneum routinely accepted items into the museum on loan. The descendants of Walter Folger Jr. lent his five-inch reflecting telescope (1901.34.1). The

13 “Atheneum Museum,” Island Review, July 22, 1875, 1; “Obituary,” Nantucket Journal, July 6, 1882, 2; “Resigned,” Nantucket Journal, Sept. 28, 1893, 2; “Obituary,” Inquirer and Mirror, Dec. 22, 1917, 5.

THE ATHENEUM MUSEUM

Fish family lent a butter churn that had belonged to Abram Quary (1895.90.1). Isaac H. Folger lent a 1795 copper plate used to print bank notes for the Phoenix Bank (2012.1038.1). A model of a whaleship cutting-in a whale, made by Captain John Gardner in about 1859, was lent by Gardner’s heirs in 1881 (1921.25-1a-b). The Atheneum eventually returned all these items to their owners, but all were donated in later years to the NHA. In 1900, the Atheneum proprietors approved the idea of opening the Atheneum as a free public library. By 1905, an acute need for more library space had developed, and the proprietors voted to disperse the museum to free up the needed room. For seventy years, the Atheneum had been the primary repository for historic and scientific artifacts on island, although Eliza McCleave’s personal museum on Main Street, open from 1842 to 1895, and the private collection at the Pacific Club, amassed starting in the 1860s, also preserved items of interest. Now, the island had other organizations specifically dedicated to history and science: the Nantucket Historical Association, founded in 1894, and the Maria Mitchell Association, founded in 1902. The Atheneum no longer needed to fill this role. A small committee appointed to look into “the disposition of the curios and minerals” from the museum reported back in April 1905 that the Maria Mitchell Association had agreed to take the mineral collections. The Nantucket Historical Association agreed to take the balance of collections as a loan. Any articles that were themselves on loan to the Atheneum were returned to their owners.14 The collections were boxed up and transported to the NHA’s museum on Fair Street. Susan Brock, the NHA’s curator, wrote in July 1905, “Our collection has been enlarged . . . [by] the unexpected acquisition of the valuable and interesting collection of the Atheneum, with its many marine curiosities, its rare South Sea Island articles, the great whale’s jaw, the models of ships and the ‘Camels,’ etc.” The items Brock felt most interesting were placed on exhibit, the rest were stored in the basement. When the Whaling Museum opened in 1930, many items from the Atheneum loan were in-

corporated into its exhibits, including the jawbone and the Camels. Eventually, a “South Seas Room” was set up to showcase the South Pacific collections, in particular to celebrate that they had been brought to Nantucket “by the whalemen.” Over time, the Atheneum items have served key roles in NHA’s exhibits, with the jawbone and Camels having pride of place. Many Atheneum items are currently featured in the Neptune’s Grotto and Nantucket and the World exhibitions, open throughout 2021.15 15 Proceedings of the Nantucket Historical Association, July 18, 1905 (Waltham: Waltham Publishing Co., 1905), 16; W. Ripley Nelson, The Nantucket Whaling Museum and a Summary of Nantucket Whaling History (Nantucket: NHA, 1971), 34.

FAMILY SCAVENGER HUNT

In partnership with the Nantucket Atheneum, a family-friendly scavenger hunt is now available at the Whaling Museum.

Families can search for many of the historic artifacts, natural history specimens, and ethnographic objects from around the world on display during their visit!

U’u club from the Marquesas Islands.

Gift of the Nantucket Atheneum, 2020.26.45.

14 Minutes of Atheneum Trustees for 1905, 120, 122, in Nantucket Atheneum Proprietors and Trustees Meeting Records, 1846–1963, Nantucket Atheneum.

NHA.org | Nantucket Historical Association

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Seating chart for reception after a suffrage lecture hosted by the Nantucket Sorosis Club on January 26, 1874. Gift of Kay and William H. Barney. MS526.

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e ry a g le N HE uffr Gal AR T to S yth LE E IN tion Fors li OR o ms M m Ab illia o Fr e W ad th Ro it in b hi ex

Sorosis

By Barbara Ann White

Sorosis is considered the earliest professional women’s club in the United States, although the New England Woman’s Club was also organized in 1869.

Sorosis may seem a puzzling name today, but it was carefully chosen. In botany, sorosis is “an aggregation of flowers that bear fruit,” and the founders intended its members to be a fellowship of women who would make a visible impact on American culture. It was not intended to be a group of women sipping tea.

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he club was founded by journalist Jane C. Croly because she and other women journalists were excluded from a dinner given in honor of Charles Dickens by the New York Press Club.

Sorosis was meant to be a nonpolitical association to “promote agreeable and useful relations among women of literary and artistic tastes.” They hoped to attract a small group of influential women, deliberately keeping the membership small. The original chapter in New York City had only 83 members by the end of its first year, and, at its height, Sorosis never had more than 438 members nationally. Prospective women had to be invited by current members and then the candidate was judged as to her worthiness.

Members were ambitious career women who banded together in mutual support at a time when the majority of women did not have professional careers. Each member was required to take an oath of loyalty and pay a five-dollar initiation fee. It decided early in its history to deny admission to black women and never sought members from the working class.

Symbolically, the New York chapter chose to meet at the swanky Delmonico’s restaurant in Manhattan where the Dickens banquet had taken place.

Sorosis provided intellectual women with a club to discuss cultural topics. Meetings invariably involved lavish luncheons complete with elaborate floral arrangements. Members read original poems and essays and sometimes performed music. Generally, there was a lengthy essay given by a member on a topic that was opened for discussion. But some political topics were deliberately excluded. One such topic was suffrage,

Maria Mitchell reading, circa 1870s. P14549.

which was viewed as too radical and even a threat to the advancement of professional women.

On the practical side, Sorosis encouraged dress reform and focused on issues impacting women’s health.

Members championed each other by reviewing each other’s books and buying each other’s paintings.

An early member was Nantucket-born astronomer Maria Mitchell, then teaching at Vassar north of New

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“at first the world looked on derisively” at the club, but proudly defended the intellectual role the club played in women’s lives despite “jarring voices of the world,” those who “are hoarsely set against the tide which ushers in the new.”

Portrait of Sarah M. Gardner Cathcart, circa 1860s. P160.

York City. She attended the bi-monthly meetings when she could. Mitchell was instrumental in organizing the Nantucket chapter of Sorosis in 1872 while summering on the island. The first meeting was held at the home of Sarah Gardner Cathcart, sister of abolitionist, suffragist, and teacher Anna Gardner.

Like the original chapter, meetings usually involved a meal followed by presentations. The Nantucket women, however, were seldom ambitious career women.

Meetings were held in members’ homes. During the summer, the local chapter was swelled by women who were members of Sorosis chapters off island. These wealthier women often hosted the summer gatherings. Typical was a meeting in June 1886 when local members took the train from town to Siasconset to the “new summer cottage” of Mrs. Benjamin Sharp, where they enjoyed a mid-day “feast” followed by “the mental feast.” Sharp’s husband was a world-famous zoologist who later went on Robert Perry’s first trip to Greenland.

Unlike most chapters, the Nantucket club frequently included men at their meetings. Alexander Macy, Jr., for example, contributed speeches and poems on numerous occasions.

It is not clear if the men were full members, but it is unlikely. Certainly, none appear as officers. There is no indication that any black women were members. None are mentioned in any account of the group.

The Nantucket chapter differed from the national organization in several The exclusivity of Sorosis needs to be ways. For one, suffrage was promiput into perspective, which is not to nent in the discussions as many of its excuse it from being all white. Nanmembers had been active abolitiontucket’s population had dwindled to ists and early suffragists. The group just over 3,000 people by 1875 as the noted in 1874 that “our constitution island’s economy provided few opallows the introduction of any and portunities for the young. William all subjects….Woman suffrage has F. Macy wrote that the island had often formed a prominent feature become a place of “women and old in our discussions.” Anna Gardner, men.” The black population had deHarriet Coffin Peirce, and Eliza Starclined precipitously. In the 1880 cenbuck Barney, all original members, Eliza Starbuck Barney, circa 1860s. P111. sus, there were only 76 residents classihad extensive histories of activism fied as Black, Colored or Mulatto. and were elected as officers almost every year.

In 1875, then serving as its president, Anna Gardner wrote a poem in the club’s honor, one of several that she wrote over the years. In this one, she recalled that

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Sorosis was one of several groups active in the community. These included the Nantucket Suffrage Club, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the G.A.R.

Portrait of Anna Gardner, circa 1870s. GPN1319.

Portrait of Alexander Macy, October 1883. GPN240.

(Grand Army of the Republic) and its auxiliary, the Women’s Relief Corps. The Sherburne Lyceum met weekly for years to debate topics. Most of these groups were integrated and included members of Sorosis. In 1880, when Massachusetts granted women the right to vote in school committee elections, the thirteen women to vote that year were predominantly women old enough to have been abolitionists before the Civil War.

Family Papers at the NHA Research Library include many deeply researched papers penned by Gardner.

One, titled Should Women Study Politics? is one hundred pages long. Others include Spinoza, William the Silent, The French Revolution, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Mind Care. The speech on mind care focuses on the importance of keeping the mind active during the process of aging, reflecting the growing age of Nantucket’s members. There is no doubt that the club provided an important intellectual outlet for its members.

In 1885, when Frederick Douglass and his second wife, Helen Pitts Douglass, visited the island, they were invited guests at a Sorosis luncheon given in their honor.

Two years later, in response to a letter from Douglass, Anna Gardner wrote to him that she had once again been elected as an officer of Sorosis and thanked him for his interest in the club. She noted that the group, which had grown in number, was “still a salient feature of our society.”

Anna Gardner wrote a history of the club in 1897 for the club’s “silver quarter of a century.” In 1891, she wrote, the members had “adopted a more systematic course of study by preparing and issuing in advance” topics for discussion. For example, in 1895, the group studied the lives and works of twelve “celebrated” women poets and authors.

Gardner noted that many topics required “a vast amount of intellectual and critical research.” The Gardner

As the generation who founded Sorosis began to die, membership dwindled and meetings became less regular. It is not clear when the group held its last meeting. Notices about meetings become scarce, although that does not mean that the group had ceased to meet.

However, the last notices that appear in the local paper were in 1909 and 1914.

The last news article about Nantucket Sororis was printed in February 1924, in a report about fund raising efforts for the Nantucket Relief Association. It was noted that “having dwindled by the lapse of years to one lone member, the latter had thought it best to pass over the remaining fifteen dollars of the Sorosis Fund” to the relief association. Unfortunately, the “lone member” was not identified. Nationally, a few chapters remained in existence as late as 2001.

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A LOOK AT OFF-ISLAND MARRIAGE AMONG THE

Nantucket Quakers

By Michael R. Harrison, Obed Macy Research Chair

A

museum supporter who descends from several prominent Philadelphia Quaker families recently asked the NHA about intermarriage between the Quakers of Nantucket and those of Philadelphia and Newport during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He wondered why his family’s genealogies never contained Nantucket or Newport Quaker surnames. Since these were all key centers of Quakerism in colonial America, would not the wider community of Friends have been strengthened by the joining of individuals from these places? This query prompted an investigation of available records, the results of which we present below.

The main sources that summarize historic marriages on Nantucket are the Barney Genealogical Record, held by the NHA, and the Vital Records of Nantucket, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, published in the 1920s by the New England Historic Genealogical Society and based on church records, private family papers, and manuscripts held by the NHA. These sources are not without their shortcomings—in particular they do not adequately represent the island’s Wampanoag and Black residents—but they are relatively complete for Quaker families. What they reveal is that there was very little intermarriage between Nantucket Friends and Friends “from away” during the period in question. Of the more then 40,000 individuals and upwards of 16,000 marriages listed in these sources, just 31 marriages can be identified between someone living on Nantucket and someone living in Philadelphia between 1700 and 1850. Only eight of these predate 1800; the other 23 fall between 1800 and 1850. Between Nantucket and Newport individuals, 73 marriages can be identified, 43 before 1800 and 30 between 1800 and 1850. Of the total 73, 36 can positively be said to involve Friends married within the faith, 30 before 1800 and six after.

Indeed, even if these numbers do not capture every Philadelphia or Newport pairing, it is clear there was very little intermarriage between Nantucket and the mainland, both within the Quaker community and without. Why should this have been the case?

The island’s remoteness is certainly part of the answer. It was simply easier to find a partner locally. This is not to say that Nantucket was cut off from the mainland. Regular sea traffic by both island and off-island vessels connected Nantucket to many places in the coastal colonies, providing markets for the island’s goods and supplying food, cloth, fuel, building materials, news, and most other necessities. Passengers regularly travelled on these vessels. Yet, it was between a half- and a whole-day’s sail to Newport in good weather, and two days to Boston. New York passages are documented as short as two days and as long as sixteen in bad weather. A typical trading voyage by the sloop Hapziba to Philadelphia in 1776 took 17 days to reach the city from Nantucket. Such passages were routine for mariners and merchants, but only the occasional fare of the island’s farmers, shopkeepers, and housewives.

Although the island’s limited population size certainly restricted the choice of partners, it did not correspondingly incentivize finding off-island partners, particularly in the eighteenth century. Once the island developed into a center of whaling, with the economy

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Marriage certificate of Peter Barnard (1713–1775) and Anna Starbuck (1716–1785), who were married before a Friends meeting on Nantucket on January 10, 1733/34. The document declares the couple “clear of al others” and notes the “consent of Parents & others concerned.”

Gift of Mrs. Joseph B. Macy. MS15, folder 8.

Dorcas Gardner (1798–1877) of Nantucket married Paul Swift (1788–1866) of Sandwich in one of Nantucket’s Quaker meeting houses in 1821.

The family eventually relocated to Philadelphia, where Paul practiced medicine before taking up a professorship at Haverford College in 1856.

Their four daughters, all born on Nantucket, married local Philadelphia men in the 1840s and 1850s. Photograph by Frederick Gutekunst, Philadelphia, taken between 1856 and 1864. CDV1497.

The limited intermarriage that did happen among the Quaker communities of Nantucket, Newport, and Dartmouth often reinforced commercial ties between these whaling centers. William Rotch Sr. (1734–1828), one of the best known early American whale-oil merchants, and his wife Elizabeth married three of their six children into the seafaring and mercantile Rodman family of Newport between 1780 and 1790. Copy of an anonymous painting, after an original by E. D. Marchant, in the New Bedford Whaling Museum, P737.

dependent on continued success in one narrow activity, there were important reasons for islanders to protect the island’s wealth and business interests by keeping things local and marrying on island. Not the least of these was that women in colonial America generally lost control of their own lands and money when they married. The small amount of intermarriage seen between Nantucket and Newport is in part attributable to the whaling connections between the two ports, with Newport having a leading role in whale-oil refining and candle making starting in the 1750s. No similar ties of whaling finance or oil processing existed between Nantucket and Philadelphia, and therefore no whaling-based incentives to intermarriage existed between those places. To take another example, 87 intermarriages have been identified between Nantucket and Dartmouth and Nantucket and New Bedford (part of Dartmouth until 1787), 27 before 1800 and 60 more before 1850. The whaling connections between Nantucket and New Bedford were strong, and

many island whalers moved to New Bedford beginning in the 1830s as the Nantucket fishery declined, creating family ties between these places that resulted in increased intermarriage.

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Above all, however, it was Quakerism that maintained the insular family networks that bound whaling-dependent Nantucket tightly together. The Quaker meetings tightly regulated marriage among island Friends, and the religion’s social and cultural hegemony on island, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century, reinforced the protective closeness, even tribalism, of the island’s population as a whole, where being related by blood and marriage was a point of pride, community identity, and economic survival.

The roots of the Religious Society of Friends on Nantucket trace to the conversion of respected community elder Mary Starbuck and her family following visits to the island by Friends Thomas Chalkley in 1698, John

NANTUCKET QUAKERS

“Quaker marital discipline could often be stricter than that found within Puritan or other Protestant denominations.

Quakers as a whole were more restrictive when it came to marriage choice, for men and women alike . . . ” Richardson in 1702, and Thomas Story in 1704. The first regular weekly Friends meetings on island met in Mary’s son Nathaniel’s house in 1704. The Nantucket Monthly Meeting, started in 1708, meet in her living room, and her sons were instrumental in the construction of the first purpose-built Friends meeting house on island in 1711. By the time this meeting house opened in 1714, the meeting numbered perhaps 200 members, out of an English population on the island of about 700. The building was expanded in 1716 to accommodate 325.

A second meeting house, with room for 1,500, opened in 1736 to serve perhaps 700 members, by which time the island’s white population numbered somewhere between 1,250 and 1,500. In the formulation of historian Alison Garvin, the religion spread rapidly through the English population because it “unified a spiritually seeking, politically shaky, economically challenged community.”1

colony of Massachusetts and other Protestant groups in the British world in the eighteenth century were.”2

The meetings governed Quaker life. On Nantucket, the monthly men’s and women’s meetings guided worship, established schools, took care of the poor, set and enforced codes of behaviour, and arbitrated disputes among Friends. Marriage in particular was closely regulated by the meetings. Historian Jeffrey D. Kovach, the 2016 E. Geoffrey and Elizabeth Thayer Verney Fellow at the NHA, has closely studied the Nantucket women’s monthly meeting and its role in the marriage process.

In his words, “Quaker marital discipline could often be stricter than that found within Puritan or other Protestant denominations. Quakers as a whole were more restrictive when it came to marriage choice, for men and women alike, than Puritans on the mainland of the

The marriage practices of American Quakers originated in England and came to the colonies largely unaltered. Men and women were free to select their own partners without prearrangement or coercion, but they were expected to choose based on the advice and approval of their parents and other elders in the meeting.

Marriages were to be based on Truth and holy love, with personal gain, family advancement, and economic considerations set aside (although we can infer that these were likely considerations in many cases). The couple announced their intention to marry in front of their local women’s and men’s meetings. Although most Quakers in colonial America married for the first time in their early twenties, when they were already of age, parental consent before the meeting was essential and nearly universally required. Parents ideally gave their permission in person but could give it in writing if necessary. Each meeting next appointed a committee to investigate the “clearness” of the partners to marry, the women’s meeting investigating the woman, the men’s meeting the man. When couples from different meetings sought to marry, each was investigated by his or her local meeting, and each had to present a certificate of clearness to the other meeting. The committees reported back at the next monthly meetings, and, if all was found to be “agreeable to Truth,” a wedding date was set. The marriage itself was conducted like any Friends worship meeting, with an exchange of vows added.

When husband and wife were from different meetings, representatives from the distant meeting would attend

1 Alison M. Gavin, “Quaker Revivals as an Organizing Process In Nantucket, Massachusetts 1698–1708” Quaker History 79, no. 2 (fall 1990): 57, 66–68.

2 Jeffrey D. Kovach, “‘Nantucket Women’: Public Authority and Education in the Eighteenth Century Nantucket Quaker Women’s Meeting and the Foundation for Female Activism” (PhD diss., University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2015), 7.

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NANTUCKET QUAKERS practice across Quakerism, the details varied between meetings, particularly regarding the degrees of consanguinity that were acceptable for marriage. Nantucket, Dartmouth, and Newport were all under the New England Yearly Meeting. Intermarriage between island Friends and off-island Friends, to the limited extent it happened, was facilitated by the umbrella of the New England Yearly Meeting but discouraged by Philadelphia being under a different yearly meeting.

Portraits of Thomas Coffin and Anna Folger Coffin, Unknown artist. Gift of Mrs. Mary Hallowell Lund. 1907.23.1.

to witness the wedding and be sure it followed proper form. There were no prescribed vows or liturgy, since Quakers did not countenance “vain formalities.”3 This process placed Quaker marriage intentions under very public scrutiny, with the elders of the meeting keeping a powerful eye on who married whom. Marriage outside of meeting—that is, outside the faith—was forbidden and was punished by disownment by the monthly meetings; in fact, as William Frost observed in his important study of Quakers families in Colonial America, “Throughout the colonial period marriage out of unity was the most frequent offense for which Quakers were disowned.” Restricting Friends from marrying outside of meeting worked to perpetuate the faith, ensure children were reared in accordance with Truth, and preserve the meeting from outside influences.4 The wider structure of Quakerism was pyramidal, with local monthly meetings reporting to and being subordinate to quarterly meetings and regional yearly meetings. The two largest of the six yearly meetings in colonial America were the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Yearly Meeting and the New England Yearly Meeting, based respectively in Philadelphia and Newport.

The yearly meetings ultimately had the final say on the rules for marriage. While there was great unity of 3 J. William Frost, The Quaker Family in Colonial America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973), 155, 172–73; Kovach, “Nantucket Women,” 52.

4 Frost, Quaker Family, 159.

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Quakerism grew to encompass a majority of white Nantucketers by the 1750s, then declined beginning in the 1770s. Quakers dominated the oldest families from which sprang the seafaring and merchant elite, and Quaker culture came to thoroughly influence all aspects of island society; in the words of Edward Byers, “both Friends and non-Friends accepted a system of values centered on Quaker attitudes toward economic, political, social, and family life.” Where the Quakers avoided marrying off island, so did the non-Quakers, at least until schisms among the Friends and the decline of whaling in the second quarter of the nineteenth century altered the situation.5 One footnote to this story: While there are virtually no marriages recorded between individuals living on Nantucket and individuals living in Philadelphia in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there was a circumstance where intermarriage of a sort did happen, and this was among the children of Nantucket couples who moved to Philadelphia. At least eleven couples have been identified who, being from Nantucket, married on Nantucket, started families, then moved to Philadelphia for economic reasons. Their children commonly married individuals living in Philadelphia, since they themselves were now also living in Philadelphia. The most familiar example of this involves the family of Thomas and Anna (Folger) Coffin, parents of the prominent activists Lucretia Coffin Mott and Martha Coffin Wright. The Coffins were a Quaker couple, both born on Nantucket and married there in 1789.

They had five daughters and one son between 1790 and 1806, then moved to Philadelphia in 1809. All four of their children who married did so in Philadelphia, two to native-born Philadelphians, one to a man from Kentucky, and Lucretia to a man from New York.

5 Edward Byers, The Nation of Nantucket: Society and Politics in an Early American Commercial Center, 1660–1820 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1987), 173, 265; quote from 171.

CHARTING QUAKER MARRIAGES

Newport–Nantucket marriages, 1700–1850

These charts show the number of intermarriages between Nantucket individuals and persons from Newport, Rhode Island; Philadelphia; and Dartmouth / New Bedford, Massachusetts, between 1700 and 1850, as identified through the Vital Records of Nantucket (1925) and the NHA’s Barney Genealogical Database. For Newport, the number of marriages which can be confirmed to have been within the Society of Friends are shown in orange.

Philadelphia–Nantucket marriages, 1700–1850

Dartmouth/New Bedford–Nantucket marriages, 1700–1850

A Promised Gift “ Tom and I were married here 50 years ago. May 29, 1971. Nantucket has always been the home of our hearts and the center of our family life for three generations.

Our long-time commitment to the Nantucket Historical Association stems from our love of the island and it’s unique history. No one tells the story of Nantucket better than the NHA. Including the NHA in our estate planning is our way of helping to ensure that the invaluable work the museum does will continue for generations to come.”

— Patricia and Tom Anathan

For information about how you can become a member of the Heritage Society, and include the NHA in your estate plan, please contact the Development Department at (508) 228-1894 or email plannedgiving@nha.org

The First Organized Vaccine Program on Nantucket No, not Covid-19, but Smallpox.

How has Nantucket managed epidemics in the past.

By Malcolm W. MacNab MD, PhD

T

he Covid-19 pandemic has changed our lives.1 There have been pandemics throughout history.

The deadliest in the last century was the 1918 influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus - improperly named, at the time, the “Spanish Flu.” Somewhere between 17 million and 100 million people died in this 1918 world-wide outbreak of influenza. On Nantucket, there were 337 cases with nine deaths out of a population of slightly under 3,000. Other recent notable pandemics include the Asian flu (1957–58), Hong Kong flu (1968–69), AIDS (1981–present), another H1N1 pandemic in 2009, and the Zika virus (2015–16). None of these pandemics achieved the death rate of the 1918 pandemic, and the death rate of the present Covid-19 pandemic remains to be determined.

Epidemics were common until the development of vaccines and implementation of public health measures.

There was no effective vaccine available for the 1918

1 Pandemic and epidemic are sometimes used interchangeably to describe disease. Specifically, the term epidemic refers to an outbreak of a disease affecting a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time. Pandemic is used when a disease occurs over a wide geographic area such as multiple countries or continents.

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pandemic, but government health recommendations at the time were similar to those issued today for Covid-19.

The 1918 recommendations included avoiding crowds, covering coughs and sneezes, washing hands, not sharing eating utensils, and getting lots of fresh air.

There were multiple epidemics documented in the United States in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries including measles, smallpox, influenza, yellow fever, cholera, typhoid fever, diphtheria, malaria, and tuberculosis.

On Nantucket, the native Wampanoags were devastated by an epidemic of unknown cause, possibly epidemic louse-borne typhus, during 1763 and 1764, and there were at least two documented smallpox epidemics on island in the nineteenth century.

Fortunately, today we have more than one vaccine available for the Covid-19 virus. There are three potenAbove: Rev. Cotton Mather (Son of Increase) Using his Powerful Influence to Overcome the Prejudice against Innoculation for Smallpox in Boston, 1721.

Unknown Artist. The Art Institute of Chicago.

tial problems with the new Covid-19 vaccines: manufacturing, distribution, and acceptance. The manufacturing process is more complicated than methods used in previous vaccines. The present limitation of supplies and shipping requirements are creating problems in distribution. The anti-vaccination movement did not start in recent years by vocal celebrities and politicians.

There has always been resistance to vaccination including on Nantucket. The Nantucket Quakers objected to the introduction of an effective smallpox vaccine-type treatment on religious grounds and the town shut down a facility offering the treatment. In a recent Inquirer and Mirror “Voices of Nantucket” article, only two of six people interviewed said they would definitely take the new COVID-19 vaccine. The percent of medical or religious exemptions for school immunization on Nantucket is 2.9%, while the state average is 1.3%.

Smallpox is an infectious disease caused by a virus called variola. The early method for smallpox vaccination, termed “variolation,” involved deliberate infection with smallpox. Dried smallpox scabs were blown into the nose or administered through a puncture in the skin. The procedure produced a mild form of the disease and subsequent immunity. Because the person undergoing inoculation has an active infection, isolation during the process was necessary. The technique did have a 1.0 to 2.0% mortality rate. The mortality of smallpox without vaccination ranges up to 30%.

The first clear reference to smallpox inoculation was a Chinese publication in 1549. Variolation was also practiced throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century by physicians in Turkey, Persia, and Africa.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, is widely credited with introducing the process to Great Britain in 1721. Before it was widely used in Britain a clinical trial was conducted on prisoners in Newgate Prison. Did the prisoners give “informed consent” as required for human experiments today?

Stimulated by a severe epidemic, smallpox inoculation was first employed in North America in 1721. The practice had been known in Boston since 1706, when Cotton

Mather, the Puritan minister, discovered that Onesimus, an enslaved man he owned, had been inoculated while still in Africa. At first there was resistance including the firebombing of Mather’s house and the banning of inoculations by the Boston selectmen. However, the results of its limited use in the Boston epidemic showed that a mortality rate of 2.5% occurred among inoculated persons compared with 14.1% among people who had contracted “natural” smallpox. This led to its wide adoption in the colonies. Nevertheless, there was continued concern about the risk of inoculated persons spreading smallpox.

In 1771, the Nantucket selectmen gave permission to Dr. Samuel Gelston, an off islander who had previously established a smallpox inoculation facility on Martha

Notice printed in the Nantucket Inquirer, October 17, 1840.

Vineyard, to establish an inoculation station on Gravelly Island, an island between Tuckernuck and Muskeget that has since washed away. Nantucket’s Quakers believed that inoculation was contrary to God’s will and disciplined Friends who went to Gravelly Island for the process. Nantucket residents, in part from fear of spreading the disease and bound by religious beliefs, attempted to have Commonwealth officials prohibit all inoculations on Gravelly Island. The Governor refused to act. As a result, Town Meeting voted simply to buy out Dr. Gelston and his facility was closed in 1772.

After his facility was closed, Dr. Gelston settled on Nantucket. During the Revolution he was arrested,

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An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolae vaccinae: a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire, and known by the name of the cow pox / By Edward Jenner. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

escaped, rearrested and jailed by Commonwealth authorities because he was a Tory. He was released after his supporters petitioned the legislature and he again returned to Nantucket where he served as a physician until his death in 1782.

Edward Jenner, an English physician, observed that people who caught cowpox while working with cattle were known not to catch smallpox. Cowpox is similar to but much milder than the highly contagious and often deadly smallpox disease. In 1797, Sarah Nelms, a milkmaid, contracted cowpox. Jenner inoculated James Phipps, the eight-year-old son of his gardener, with material taken from the cowpox lesions of Sarah Nelms.

Two months later Jenner inoculated James on both arms with material from a case of smallpox. The experiment was a success; the boy was immune to smallpox.

The word “vaccination,” coined by Jenner, is derived from the Latin adjective vaccinus, meaning “of or from the cow.” The mortality from the vaccine was close to zero, and it was soon in use all over Europe and the United States. Unlike today, its manufacture and distribution were not issues—all one needed were some infected cows and a milkmaid or two from your local farm.

With only one vaccine available, the threat of communicable diseases remained in the nineteenth century.

People arrived at Nantucket on vessels from elsewhere,

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already sick with smallpox, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases. To isolate them, a “pest house” was built on the Shimmo shore of Nantucket Harbor. People who arrived sick were taken there.

A report from the Nantucket Inquirer in 1840 stated: “Five persons, natives of the South Sea Islands, were taken to the Pest House with smallpox, where they died soon after arriving.” We still have a problem with arriving visitors. The Covid-19 surges on the island after Thanksgiving and Christmas were the result of travel to Nantucket. Maybe we should reinstitute a pest house for island visitors. During the 1918 pandemic the Board of Health assigned Dr. George Arthur Folger to examine all travelers from New Bedford on the steamboat before they were allowed to disembark. Travelers also had the option of presenting a clean bill of health from a mainland doctor. Today we ask all visitors to quarantine for 14 days or have a negative COVID-19 test before coming from out of state. Refusing entrance to the island is not now legally permissible.

On Nantucket we depend upon contact tracing to manage the present pandemic. In the late nineteenth century, when bacteriology was a new science, the U.K. was known as the leader in the beginning of disease surveillance with the creation of a large workforce of “sanitation” inspectors. Contact tracing was by gentle

FIRST VACCINE PROGRAM NANTUCKET

persuasion, but one health officer in London admitted that his local authorities “bribed them,” arguing that the money saved hundreds of pounds that would have had to be spent on patients. Scotland established “Reception Houses” for people who were exposed to infectious diseases and were living in overcrowded conditions. The people were given free room, board, and medical care. In some cases, in the U.K., quarantined individuals were given a stipend to make up for lost wages. The U.S. also established sanitation inspectors, most often organized by women doctors and nurses.

In the 1918 influenza epidemic most U.S. public health measures were also carried out by women volunteers.

Smallpox “surged” on the island in the 1840s and again in 1854–55, killing a number of Nantucketers. The selectmen and the Board of Health managed it by the quarantine of infected people within their homes, even going to the extent of erecting a barrier fence around one house and requiring a red flag to be displayed there. Of those who died in the 1850s, most were elderly people who apparently had not been vaccinated.

The long voyages of the whaleships provided a virtual quarantine for the whalers. Even in close quarters, the common infectious diseases of the whaling period such as smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid, measles, and cholera would not spread if diseases did not enter the shipboard environment. There are very few references in the Nantucket Historical Association collection of whaleship logs of communicable diseases that were present in the United States at the time of whaling.

The last natural outbreak of smallpox in the United States occurred in 1949. In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated, and no cases of naturally occurring smallpox have happened since.

The smallpox vaccine was no longer recommended for use after 1972 because of successful eradication efforts.

After the development of smallpox inoculation and vaccination, the next “breakthrough” occurred in the 1880s when Louis Pasteur developed vaccines for rabies and anthrax. He used a weakened or “attenuated” form of the infectious organism to produce the immunity. An

anti-toxin for diphtheria—not antibodies against the bacteria but antibodies that neutralize the toxin produced by the bacteria—was developed in 1890. In the twentieth century, several successful vaccines were introduced, including those against pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, rubella, and polio. As we move on in the twenty-first century, there are over 40 vaccines available.

Today there is no need to go to another island for our Covid vaccine. You will not be sent to a pest house and fences will not be put around your home. Neither the Select Board, Town Meeting, nor the Board of Health will stop the ongoing vaccine program. The health officials in 1918 had a difficult time but their advice, translated in today’s terms, remains relevant. They got it without all of our sophisticated science of the twenty-first century: social distance, wear your mask, and wash your hands.

The author wishes to acknowledge the excellent research done by Fran Karttunen, NHA Research Fellow, that was used in this article.

Dr. MacNab is Vice-Chair of the Nantucket Board of Health and an interpreter for the NHA.

REFERENCES: Barry, J. The Great Influenza. New York: Viking Penguin Group, 2005.

Fenner, F, et al. Smallpox and its Eradication. World Health Organization, 1988.

Retrieved from http://whqlibdoc.who.int/smallpox/9241561106.pdf Karttunen, F. What was the pest house and what became of it? Nantucket Historical Association. Retrieved from https://nha.org/ Karttunen, F. How did Nantucket fare in the 1918 flu pandemic? Nantucket Historical Association. Retrieved from https://nha.org/ Klass, P. A Good Time to be Born – How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2020.

Lepore, T. Personal communication, 2021.

Mooney, G. “A Menace to Public Health” – Contact Tracing and the Limits of Persuasion. New England Journal of Medicine 2020; 383:1806-1808.

Offit, P. Vaccine History: Developments by Year. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, 2019. Retrieved from Vaccine History: Developments by Year | Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (chop.edu) School Immunizations. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 2020. Retrieved from School Immunizations | Mass.gov

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Portrait of Anne Ramsdell Congdon, ca. 1920s Maud Stumm (ca. 1870–1935). Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Congdon.

ANNE RAMSDELL CONGDON’S NANTUCKET RENAISSANCE

“I begin my art career again!”

Presented by William Raveis Real Estate With generous support from Ritchie, Westray & Katie Battle The McCausland Gallery will feature a major exhibition of the work of island artist Anne Ramsdell Congdon.

In 1925, when Congdon was 52 and her two boys were grown, she re-dedicated herself to art and launched a remarkably successful thirty-year career in painting—becoming the best known and most talented member of the Island’s Art Colony. The exhibit will feature approximately forty paintings from the NHA and private collections on island, many of the latter have been rarely if ever seen by the public.

In 2019, the Congdon family loaned Congdon’s diaries to the NHA, which were digitized and transcribed. The show will include many quotations from the artist giving her paintings a new biographical and interpretive depth. Also, a computer screen in the gallery will, for the first time, give scholars ready access to Congdon’s words, thoughts, and daily activities.

The exhibit will be curated by Anne Classen Knutson, Ph.D with assistance from Steve Langer and research by Claire Jensen.

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2021 Exhibitions GIFTS FROM FRIENDS An exhibition highlighting 35 years of collecting important art and artifacts by the Friends of the NHA. Their visionary work ensures that such objects return to or stay on Nantucket for posterity.

SHOULDERS UPON WHICH WE STAND, THE CAPE VERDEAN NANTUCKET CONNECTION This community-curated exhibition is in partnership with the Cape Verdean Diaspora. Highlighting the rich cultural heritage of Cape Verde and their contributions to this Island from as early as 1750s. The community Advisory Group for this exhibition will be present via heirlooms and artifacts they loan to be on display. The exhibit will be mounted in the Sherlund Conference Room.

WRITING THE FIRST DRAFT OF ISLAND HISTORY Celebrating 200 years, the “The Inky” is the weekly newspaper of record.

Continuously in publication since 1821, one year after the Essex disaster, this exhibit will chronicle island life over time. See page 28 for details.

BEAM PRESS INTERPRETATION In the Candle Factory, the original 1846 beam press is the last surviving whale-oil press in the world. Although a simple machine, this beam press can be hard to imagine in action, since several key components are missing. To improve the interpretation, historian Mark Foster and master woodworker Ben Moore designed and constructed the missing post and beams.

Augusto “Augie” Ramos astride his horse, Golden Boy, circa 1960s. SC92.

3-D rendering of beam press with missing components of the beam press included.

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2021 Exhibitions THE ROAD FROM ABOLITION TO SUFFRAGE This exhibition in the Williams Forsyth Gallery examines the centuries-long road of social activism on Nantucket.

Starting with some of the earliest public statements on denunciation of slavery through to Nantucket women’s leading roles in agitating for the right to vote, this exhibition is steeped in cultural and civic relevance, with echoes of the past playing out today. Researchers Fran Karttunan and Barbara White and staff unpack gender and racial inequities that existed not so long ago. New research and acquisitions will inform this important Nantucket history. This exhibition is generously supported by the Theodore Cross Family Charitable Foundation, Amanda Cross, Anne Delaney & Chip Carver, and Kelly Williams & Andrew Forsyth.

THE BATTLE OF NANTUCKET WAR OF 1812 In partnership with the Egan Maritime Institute and Lynx Educational Foundation, an exhibit on the War of 1812 will explore the significant economic impact of the conflict on island. The Battle of Nantucket on October 11, 1814, at Tom Nevers Head will be explained via art and artifacts.

WHALING MUSEUM UPDATES Continuing its iterative approach to upgrading its permanent exhibits, expect to see improvements to the Timeline and Gosnell Hall, and changes in the Scrimshaw Gallery and Candle Factory. Working with guest curator Prof. Mary K. Bercaw Edwards, UConn and pre-eminent Melville scholar, the NHA will expand its interpretation of Moby-Dick and the novels deeply embedded relationship to Nantucket.

Above: NHA-commissioned bronze bust of island educator and noted activist, Anna Gardner, from Rhode Island sculptor Victoria Guerina, will be on display in The Road from Abolition to Suffrage this season.

Below: The NHA has commissioned a bronze bust of Frederick Douglass from the family of the late Lloyd Lillie, sponsored by Christy and Bill Camp. This bust is from the same mold used for his Seneca Falls NPS sculpture.

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HADWEN HOUSE AND THOMAS MACY HOUSE REOPENING Hadwen House reopens with a continued focus on the decorative arts.

Visitors will find a nineteenth-century whale captain’s study brought to life by guest curator Jack Fritsch, of the Antiques Depot. A cartography exhibit titled Charting Nantucket, with exceptional maps on loan from a private collection, will be curated by Michael Buehler of Boston Rare Maps. A presentation on the importance of Upper Main Street is accompanied by displays of notable pieces of furniture and ceramics from the collection. An eclectic display of curiously carved objects, including decoys, billets, jagging wheels, canes and more will round out the exhibits.

As part of the Hadwen House experience, visitors will also be able to tour the Thomas Macy House across the street. Visitors to the house will learn about Thomas Macy and his family, as well as twentieth century owners Jacqueline Harris and Oswald and Sallie Harris Tupancy.

Above: Pascaerte vande Soute Eylanden oftge Ilhas de Cabo Verde. Johannes van Loon, 1660.

Gift of Anne Delaney and Chip Carver.

2021 EXHIBITION SUPPORT As of March 16 Ritchie, Westray, & Katie Battle The H.L Brown Jr. Family Foundation Charina Endowment Fund Bill & Christy Camp Amanda Cross Theodore Cross Family Charitable Foundation John DeCiccio Barbara Jones Memorial Fund Art & Diane Kelly William Raveis Real Estate Melinda & Paul Sullivan Janet & Rick Sherlund, in memory of L. Dennis Shapiro Kelly Williams & Andrew Forsyth

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Writing the First Draft of Island History CELEBRATING THE INQUIRER AND MIRROR’S 200 TH ANNIVERSARY

By Joshua Balling and John Stanton

On June 23, 1821, the first issue of The Nantucket Inquirer was printed in a small office above the post office. The newspaper’s masthead listed the publisher as Joseph Melcher. A little over a year later, in November of 1822, Samuel H. Jenks was added to the masthead.

O

ver the next 200 years, the paper would chronicle the island, and provide a connection to the mainland. The newspaper recorded the highs and lows, the joy and heartbreak, that make up the daily fabric of everyday life.

On Saturday, April 1, 1865, the Inquirer merged with the Nantucket Weekly Mirror, to take on the name it still carries today – The Inquirer and Mirror.

The Inquirer and Mirror was the first weekly paper in New England to have its own website, in 1995. It continues to ride the ever-evolving digital-media wave. In recent years it introduced text alerts of breaking news, its own Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter accounts, a replica online edition that is translatable into multiple languages and the bi-weekly digital newsletter called Above the Fold.

It was once touted as the “largest Over two centuries the pages of this newspaper in the world” for its jumnewspaper carried news from whalbo-broadsheet pages that stretched Marianne Stanton, Editor since 1985 and Editor ing voyages in the 19th century and and Publisher since 1993. a grown-man’s arm span. The size the rise of tourism in the 20th cenof the paper has gotten smaller over tury, presidential visits and high-school graduations, the years, but what didn’t change was a commitment to landmark preservation efforts and racial-equity issues. covering the news, to being the mirror that accurately Marianne Stanton, whose family owned the paper from and fairly reflects the community of Nantucket.

1970-1990, is the latest in a long line of editors and pubIt has received countless regional and national honors, lishers to run Nantucket’s paper of record. She is the including eight Newspaper of the Year awards longest-serving editor, since 1985, and publisher, since since 2005.

1993, in the 200-year history of the newspaper.

In the beginning, the paper was printed on a press turned with a hand-crank. Today you can stop by the newspaper office to buy a paper, the same way people did two centuries ago, or find the work of The Inquirer and Mirror’s journalists in the digital world.

That march into the digital age began in 1887, when the newspapers bought a one-horsepower kerosene engine to power the press. In 1902 the first typesetting machine on the island was installed. A Linotype machine followed in 1916. Computer pagination, page layout, was introduced in 1992.

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NEWSPAPER OF RECORD Jenks was not shy about taking a political stand in the pages of the newspaper he edited. Historian and author W.H. Macy wrote of his tenure, “The Inquirer grew rapidly and acquired more than a local reputation. Mr. Jenks was a live editor, a ready and vigorous writer, and an earnest and fearless advocate for what he believed to be the right side of each current issue.”

In 1845, John Morrissey began publishing The Weekly Mirror. It was well-received, and a bitter rivalry devel-

oped between the papers. Morrissey eventually sold the Mirror to Samuel Hussey and Henry Robinson. In 1865, they purchased The Inquirer and merged it with their publication.

Hussey retired in 1877, passing his share of the paper to his son, Roland B. Hussey. He was succeeded in 1907

by Arthur Cook and Harry B. Turner, who operated the I&M until Turner took over both the editing and publishing duties in 1925. Turner died in 1948, still at the helm of the newspaper.

Following his death, his children, Merle Turner Orleans and Gordon B. Turner, carried on in his footsteps and ran the newspaper until 1958.

In June 1962, the paper was purchased by George W. Morgan, who moved the office from downtown to its current location in the middle of the island. Coinciding with Morgan’s purchase of the paper was the employment of Marie Giffin, who started as a receptionist.

The newspaper business was very different then. It was a man’s profession, with 95 percent of the work taking place in the back shop where Linotype operators, composers and pressmen put together the paper and printed it.

Morgan, however, eventually named her the first woman general manager in the newspaper’s history. When Morgan died, Giffin and her husband Tom bought the newspaper with investors Albert “Bud” Egan and George Snell, who ultimately sold their shares to the Giffins.

Socially progressive, the newspaper was an early advocate of zoning, land conservation and environmental protection. Giffin was an advocate of the public process. She took town officials to court in the 1970s for violating the Open Meeting Law, and won.

On March 14, 1990, Tom and Marie Giffin retired, selling the newspaper to Ottaway Newspapers, a subsidiary of Dow Jones. Over the next 30 years, The Inquirer and Mirror had a series of corporate owners, including NewsCorp, GateHouse Media and Gannett.

Portrait of Samuel Haynes Jenks, Dominic W. Boudet, 1839. Oil on canvas.

Gift of Mrs. Carrie Bartlett Nicholson and Mr. Robert E. Bartlett, 1901.58.1)

In November 2020, The Inquirer and Mirror returned to local and independent ownership, with the sale from Gannett to 41 North Media LLC, which was engineered by Marianne Stanton and longtime islander David Worth, who now serves as chair of the board of 41 North Media.

Operating as an independently-owned newspaper under the umbrella of Nantucket Media Group, The Inquirer and Mirror is committed to continuing to uphold high standards of community journalism and reinvesting in the newspaper and the island community.

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Thomas Macy Warehouse Renovation The Thomas Macy Warehouse, built in 1847, is one of the earliest historic landmarks on Straight Wharf. Thomas Macy, a prominent whale-oil merchant, built the warehouse after the Great Fire of 1846, which consumed the oil-laden wharves and commercial heart of town. The building is an impressive example of Greek revival industrial architecture constructed of brick, with granite sills and lintels defining the windows.

The 3-year project will be a model for other waterfront renovation projects. The exterior historic features remain unchanged and a minimally invasive approach respects the historic character and fabric of the interior.

RENOVATION GOALS: Goal #1: The first floor plan is designed with rising sea-level front of mind. Fortunately, the building’s structure is comprised of durable flood resistant building materials, which can be quickly cleaned and dried out after a flood. Flood waters enter the building from the fill area beneath the first floorboards.

It would be impractical, extremely expensive, and destroy significant historic fabric to attempt an engineering solution to prevent rising ground water from flooding the building. As such, a “wet flood proofing” design approach is the preferred flood resistance alternative. This design involves modifying the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems to allow floodwaters to enter it in such a way that damage to the structure and its contents is minimized.

Goal #2: On renovations, respect the original fabric at a premium, thus a minimally invasive approach is endorsed. Regardless, life-safety and American with Disabilities Act (ADA) access to the second floor must be addressed. Long overdue upgrades to plumbing and electrical, plus the installation of a heating and cooling system, and updated fire suppression system, will serve the structure long into the future. An elevator sits on (rather than penetrates) the original planking. The staircase (not original to the 1846 structure) is simplified. Electrical and other systems are elevated and mostly hidden high in between joists. None of the 18 windows are blocked from view. The result is a restoration that unapologetically embraces the magnificent post and beam structure, while providing flexibility in use as needs evolve over time.

and appreciate the open loft replete with original winch that hoisted oil barrels 150 years ago. The piping for fire suppression is cleverly installed on the 3rd floor, with only heads penetrating to minimize visual interruption. A third floor attic is accessible to staff. It accommodates the new heating and cooling system while providing necessary insulation to reduce the carbon footprint. An unexpected, but most welcomed outcome, is the expansive courtyard at the back of the building.

The Nantucket Community Preservation Committee (NCPC) spearheaded this renovation, and in superlative fashion. Three separate awards totaling $654,000 allowed for phased construction. Special thanks to Ken Beaugrand, Chairman NCPC, and fellow board members for this important support. Additional strong support came from the Massachusetts Cultural Council/ Cultural Facilities Fund, ReMain Nantucket, and the Massachusetts Historical Commission.

Goal #3: Reinstate mission-related programs on the second floor. This design maximizes space for programmatic purposes. Bathrooms, stairs, and elevator are nestled nicely to one side allowing for expansive views of both the interior and out onto the courtyard or Straight Wharf. Visitors can now look up Renovation in progress at the Thomas Macy Warehouse

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Scott Anderson is project manager and donates his time to lead this renovation over many years.

The NHA Board is most grateful. The NHA also thanks Chip Webster, Bob Miklos and the late Tom McGrath for their dedicated work on this project.

Appropriately the first exhibition in the second floor gallery space will focus on the historic waterfront and climate change. This is sponsored by ReMain Nantucket.

The revised timeline and goal is to have the building code compliant and publicly accessible

by May 2021.

Nantucket Community Preservation Committee investment tops $2 million The community benefits from the successful relationship between the Nantucket CPC and NHA. Project support began in FY2003 with the Hadwen & Barney Oil and Candle Factory (13 Broad Street), and includes these projects in alphabetical order: 1800 House (4 Mill Street) Digitizing the Nantucket Whaling Logbooks and Journals (NHA Conservation Project) Fire Hose Cart House (8 Gardner Street) Greater Light (8 Howard Street) Hadwen House Fence (96 Main Street) Preserving Nantucket’s Voices (NHA Research Project) Old Gaol (15R Vestal Street) Old Mill (50 Prospect Street) Quaker Meeting House (7 Fair Street) Research Library (7 Fair Street) Thomas Macy Warehouse (12 Straight Wharf)

REMAIN'S ENVISION RESILIENCE NANTUCKET CHALLENGE

By Claire Martin, Communications Specialist, ReMain Nantucket As a community that embraces change and is bold in the face of obstacles, it is no surprise that multiple projects on Nantucket in 2021 are focused on addressing the challenges of coastal resiliency.

By 2100, much of Nantucket’s historic downtown is projected to be flooded regularly. Last year, the Town of Nantucket adopted NOAA’s “High” Sea Level Rise Scenario for planning purposes. Under this projection, Nantucket will regularly see the waters surrounding the island rise by 4.13 feet above local mean sea level by 2060, 6.36 feet by 2080, and 9.25 feet by 2100.

How do we envision living with this rising water? Do we flee, or can we choose to embrace sea level rise as an opportunity? Can we meet the challenge creatively, even beautifully? ReMain Nantucket believes so and has launched the Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge with the goal of inspiring Nantucket and other coastal communities around the globe to envision innovative adaptations to sea level rise.

With coordination from ReMain Nantucket, an organization dedicated to the lasting economic, social and environmental vitality of the island, teams from five leading design schools around the country are collaborating to reimagine development and use along the Nantucket waterfront. The open-sourced studio launched in January 2021 and will use an iterative, design-driven approach focused on three study areas along the harbor.

Participating schools are University of Florida College of Design, Construction and Planning, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, University of Miami School of Architecture, the School of Architecture at Northeastern University, and Yale School of Architecture. The Nantucket community is invited to follow at: www.envisionresilience.org/speaker-series.

“If the Challenge is successful, the community will be inspired to be bold in the face of climate change, to be prepared and innovative with our properties and to come together to solve a critical problem,” said Cecil Barron Jensen, executive director of ReMain Nantucket.

On June 5th, ReMain Nantucket will host a public outdoor hybrid event where students will present their final design proposals to the community. These proposals will then be showcased in an exhibit at the NHA’s Thomas Macy Warehouse. The exhibit, being developed in partnership with the NHA and the Artists’ Association of Nantucket, will run from mid-June through December 2021.

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New Acquisitions James L. Dunlap, an avid student of both the island’s history and his family’s connections to it, has donated a group of Nantucket- and whaling-related objects. The gift includes family portraits, whaling paintings, and scrimshaw by the respected twentieth-century artist William Gilkerson. Notable among the paintings is an oil on canvas depiction of Brant Point and Nantucket Harbor, a study for his later painting Sailing Day in Nantucket, 1841. The family portraits include a poignant likeness of Elizabeth Green Doane (1832–1843), who died in an unfortunate accident at Low Beach in ‘Sconset at only 11 years old. To see these items and others in the gift, go to NHA.org, and under “Search the Collections,” type in “James Dunlap.” The Stobart painting is currently on display in the Whaling Museum.

William Rotch-owned Nantucket vessels Dartmouth and Beaver played a central role in the Boston Tea Party incident leading up to the American Revolution. Hezekiah Coffin, captain of the Beaver, had purchased six Chippendale-style side chairs in London, which made their way to the Colonies along with East India Company tea.

The NHA previously had one of the six chairs in its collection and now has a second one, thanks to a generous gift from John DeCiccio. Both chairs are now on view in the Whaling Museum.

Nantucket has long been recognized as an art colony, and the NHA strives to collect notable works from this creative output. This is frequently made possible with support from The Friends of the NHA, who gifted the association with two examples in late 2020.

Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921) was a prominent artist during his lifetime, known for his portraits, Tonalist landscapes, and studies of camouflage in nature.

His work is represented in many major American collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and now the Nantucket Historical Association.

Thayer’s Road at Nantucket was painted in 1881, and represents a typical Nantucket rural grassland landscape.

The painting may be familiar to some, due to its inclusion in the 2019 NHA exhibition Two Hundred Years of

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Chippendale-style side chair. Gift of John DeCiccio.

American Art on Nantucket, curated by Dr. Anne Classen Knutson.

Frank Swift Chase (1886–1959) was an American PostImpressionist landscape painter closely tied to the Nantucket Artists’ Colony that emerged in the early twentieth century. He first came to Nantucket in the summer of 1920 to paint and teach, returning almost every summer through 1955. His influence on the island’s artistic culture is undeniable, having taught such artists as Ruth Haviland Sutton, Elizabeth Saltonstall, Anne Ramsdell Congdon, and Isabelle Hollister Tuttle.

Beach at Cliffside, Frank Swift Chase (1886–1958). Gifts of the Friends of the NHA. 2020.30.1.

A more complete biography of Chase appears on NHA. org, in our Nantucket Art Colony digital exhibit.

Chase’s Beach at Cliffside (above) is a vibrant addition to the collection, with coastal grasses in the foreground, beach in the middle distance, and Nantucket Sound filling out the middle right of the canvas. The Cliff rises in the left distance, and swimmers are suggested in the water, with sunbathers gathered under colorful umbrellas on the beach.

Charles Green Shaw (1892–1974) was an American abstract painter and a frequent summer visitor to Nantucket, with the first exhibit of his work on island in 1957.

During his time on island, he was undoubtedly the most widely known member of the Nantucket Artists Colony.

His work is part of most major collections of American art, including the Whitney Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

The NHA has a few smaller works by Shaw, but now, thanks to a gift from Margaret Hallowell and Stephen P. Langer, is excited to add this significant work, titled Fishing Fleet, to its collection. Shaw developed this hard-edged, crisply defined form of cubism, which he

Fishing Fleet, 1955. Charles Green Shaw, (1892–1974).

Gift of Margaret Hallowell and Stephen P. Langer, 2020.31.1.

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NEW ACQUSITIONS

called “Manhattan Motifs” in the early 1930s. Although he frequently depicted cityscapes, here he has painted sailboats against a multicolor, watery background.

This acquisition has also prompted new research into Shaw and his Nantucket connections, with an article by Michael R. Harrison forthcoming in the summer issue of Historic Nantucket. Fishing Fleet (shown on pg. 33) to currently on display in the Whaling Museum.

The NHA commissioned a bronze bust of island educator and noted activist Anna Gardner from Rhode Island sculptor Victoria Guerina. Previously Guerina created the bronze bust of Lucretia Mott which was purchased in 2020 and is on display in The Road from Abolition to Suffrage exhibit. The Gardner bust will accompany it once cast at the foundry. Notably Guerina sculpted many of the life-sized figures that are in The First Wave, a 20-figure sculpture that represented the first women’s rights convention in 1848, and located at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Both busts are sponsored by trustee Amanda Cross and the Theodore Cross Family Charitable Foundation.

Most recently, the NHA purchased a first edition volume of Frederick Douglass’s 1855 volume My Bondage and My Freedom, thanks to a gift from Janet and Rick Sherlund, in memory of L. Dennis Shapiro. The second of Douglass’s four autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom significantly revises key portions of his original 1845 Narrative and extends the story of his life to include his experiences as a traveling lecturer. He also frames this autobiography differently, replacing the prefatory notes by white abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips with an introduction by the prominent black abolitionist Dr. James McCune Smith. He also replaces the original appendix with a letter to a former master, Thomas Auld—a ship captain—and various excerpts from Douglass’s abolitionist lectures. These prefaces and appendices provide the reader with a sense of the larger historical movements in which Douglass played an important part. This volume is on display in the Whaling Museum.

The frontispiece, depicting Frederick Douglass in a first edition copy of Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom.

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With support from Christy and Bill Camp, the NHA has also commissioned a bronze bust portrait of Frederick Douglass by Lloyd Lillie, who is best known for his 20-figure sculpture The First Wave, located at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park. The third sculpture purchased in two years, the Douglass sculpture helps to tell the story of the island’s abolitionist movement and will go on display in The Road from Abolition to Suffrage, once completed this summer.

Protecting Nantucket’s HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

By Mary Lynne Rainey

In September 2020, the NHA was awarded a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to undertake a two-year project focused on the archaeological collection housed at the NHA Gosnold Collections Center.

T

he IMLS grant will result in raising public awareness about the archaeology collection, which includes thousands of artifacts from Native American archaeological sites across Nantucket, and to a lesser degree Colonial European and American sites, including the Jethro Coffin House. A central theme is to revive and build upon the groundbreaking historical research of the late Dr. Elizabeth Little, an accomplished physicist, archaeologist, and anthropologist who devoted decades of her life to the advancement of scholarly research on Nantucket. Anyone who has conducted archaeological research on Nantucket is familiar with Dr. Little’s prolific publications that inform local and regional research topics such as Nantucket whaleships and whaling, Indian personalities and oral histories, Indian deeds, houses, sachem territories, diets, and epidemics, among many others. To date, professional archaeologists have begun to address Native American research contexts for particular projects in unique island settings by first considering settlement models and theories she developed, in part through these collections. Expanding on the interpretations of data that currently rest in the volumes of typed paper artifact inventories, amateur excavation records, and crates of site assemblages and individual surface finds has not been approached since Dr. Little passed away in 2003.

An exciting outcome of the project looking forward will be renewed research and educational opportunities in cooperation with Wampanoag Indian Tribal leaders from the larger Cape and Islands region.

Historical contexts are derived from the source and date of the collection or object, which yields insights about

provenience and integrity, as well as cultural affiliation, classification in terms of functional and stylistic attributes, material type, age, and broad themes in history and prehistory. Thematic contexts on Nantucket span approximately 12,000 years of Native American traditional settlement with specific topics related to environmental change and cultural and technological adaptations. For example, the Native American diet and settlement patterns shifted in response to the formation of salt marshes approximately 3,500 years ago after sea level rise stabilized, which supported shellfish beds where mollusks and crustaceans thrived. These were important resources to Native Americans throughout coastal New England once they became available. An historical context could be limited to the material type that an object was made from, particularly if the source of the material is far away from Nantucket, or the age of the object if it was only made during a specific period of time. The Contact period historical context refers to the timeframe that Europeans interacted with indigenous people in a given place prior to actually moving in and forcing enculturation processes. For Nantucket that period is considered to be as early as the late fifteenth century when John and Sebastian Cabot claimed the island for England under King Henry VII, through the initial 1659 settlement at Capaum Pond. Associating historical contexts with specific objects is a particular challenge for those collections that represent decades of collecting Native American stone artifacts from the ground surface. While these objects may be broadly diagnostic to a particular period, the associated sites types they were collected from will never be known.

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A grouping of projectile points from the NHA collection that have been removed from previously disorganized storage bins and are now organized, properly stored, and labeled by catalog number.

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IM L S PROJECT UPDATE THE COLLECTION The archaeological collection includes a wide range of objects that were amassed by local artifact collectors, or excavated by members of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society (MAS), students participating in university-sponsored field schools (1965–78), members of the NHA Archaeology Division (1972–1995), and cultural resource management (CRM) companies (beginning in the late 1970s). It was during the 1970s that statewide standards for archaeology were established and adopted by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, in keeping with the principles outlined in the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. With a deep understanding of the non-renewable nature of archaeological sites, Betty Little’s drive and leadership as a member of the NHA during this time led to an increase in donated archaeological materials by local collectors and MAS members, and the cessation of site excavations by the NHA Archaeology Division and the MAS. Although artifact collecting remains a thriving pastime on Nantucket, most of the collection was formed in one way or another prior to or during the 1970s, and does not include assemblages resulting from CRM surveys carried out by qualified archaeologists under permit from the Massachusetts State Historic Preservation Office, State Archaeologist.

Artifact collectors as a group are responsible for the discovery of most documented prehistoric sites on Nantucket, and the donated collections represent the largest proportion of total artifacts. In the 1970s, significant personal collections were donated to the NHA

by Alfred and Alice Shurrocks, Mr. and Mrs. Olney Dunham, Irving Sandsbury, and Marcus Ramsdell. The Dunhams and Shurrocks documented their site locations and correlated them with the appropriate artifacts (Little 1980:76). These are almost entirely chipped or ground stone tools dominated by projectile points, bifacial knives, woodworking tools, pestles, plummets, and battered cobbles that would have been used as expedient, multi-purpose tools. Given the volume of items from just this category, it is hard to imagine how many similar collections are out there or off-island and long forgotten. In 1980, Robert Minshall donated his collection to the NHA representing 45 summers of

surface collecting and recording site locations (Little et al. 1981). In the 1990s, John Gilbert donated his MAS collections and field records to the NHA, and after his death in 2012, his wife Elizabeth contributed any remaining items related to archaeology from his work (Elizabeth Gilbert, personal communication, February 11, 2021). As a recreational activity, artifact collecting has been popular from at least the late nineteenth century to the present. The depletion of archaeological resources on Nantucket through the process of artifact collecting was formally recognized as early as 1916, by Harry B. Turner, a local journalist and member of the NHA (Turner 1916). Turner recognized that with time, information and artifacts from Nantucket sites have vanished and most owners of artifacts were unwilling to part with their specimens.

The first organized Massachusetts Archaeological Society (MAS) excavations conducted on Nantucket were directed by Ripley Bullen and Edward Brooks in 1939 (Little 1989:54). At least three sites were targeted during the early “digs” of Bullen and Brooks, including the Squam Pond, Herrecater Swamp, and Hughes Sites. Both men published articles in the MAS Bulletin on the work done there (Brooks 1939, 1941, 1942; Bullen and Brooks 1947, 1949), however the location of the artifacts excavated from these sites by MAS members is currently unknown. The MAS field notes for Herrecater Swamp were donated to the NHA’s Archaeology Division at some point, although there are no surviving field records for the Squam Pond Site. There was no MAS activity on Nantucket during the World War II years, (ca. 1941–45); however controlled excavations resumed when the Shawkemo Chapter of the MAS was formed in 1957 (Little 1989:54). Efforts were focused on several larger sites during the course of about eight years, beginning with the Top Gale, Ram Pasture I, and Pocomo Sites. Aspects of the work done at these significant sites were published by Stanley Roy (1958), Joseph Waters (1965) and Bernard Stockley (1964a, 1964b, and 1968); however for the Top Gale site there are no field records, and the artifacts were dispersed among at least five local collectors and Shawkemo Chapter members.

Bernard Stockley’s efforts at Ram Pasture I and Pocomo

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A scan of a typical inventory page from the late 70s /early 80s.

were undertaken in a more scientific manner, including some post-fieldwork analysis. He once stated, “ . . . the greatest amount of irreparable damage, and the most senseless, is the deliberate destruction of prehistoric sites by misguided or selfish people who dig them up in search of ‘Indian relics’” (Stockley 1964b:18). No other sites excavated by the Shawkemo Chapter were ever analyzed or published. Included are the large and complex Norcross Sites, a shell midden that was also investigated during a UMass field school in the 1970s, and the Eat Fire Spring Site, neither of which were published.

For the most part, information available about these sites is limited to artifact drawings or photographs on file at the NHA and MHC. Partial assemblages from Ram Pasture I and the Norcross Site are included in the NHA archaeology collection, and would be excellent future research projects for students in archaeology.

The Shawkemo Chapter of the MAS discontinued excavating sites in the mid to late 1960s.

In addition to the vast archaeological materials donated to the NHA by collectors and MAS members, there are three site collections and volumes of notebooks that developed as a direct result of the NHA Archaeology Division initiatives. In 1974, the NHA Archaeological Division began several years of excavations at the Quidnet Site, also referred to by Betty Little as Locus Q-6 (Morris 1976:61). Paul C. Morris, chairman of the archaeology division, reported that “more than 85 enthusiastic diggers” worked at the site through the entire second field season in 1975. Dr. Little, who was beginning to study archaeology by that time, became a field director at the site, and

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influenced the quality of excavation, the direction of subsequent analysis, and publication of results. A concurrent survey of the UMass field station by Dr. Barbara Luedtke was designed to consider the comparative results between the two different types of investigations.

In 1978, the NHA obtained a matching grant-in-aid from the Department of the Interior, Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service, through the MHC, to inventory Nantucket’s prehistoric archaeological sites (Little 1980:77). This work was coordinated by Dr. Little and Cynthia Young, chairperson of the archaeology division at the time, with Dr. Dena Dincauze of the UMass, Amherst, Anthropology Department serving as consultant. This team produced paper catalogues of 25 private collections, registered over 100 archaeological sites with the MHC, ground-truthed and photographed site locations, organized lectures, and developed an NHA exhibit. The typed catalogues link the expertise of the late Dr. Dena Dincauze, Dr. Little, and a crew of volunteers with individual artifacts in the collection.

Both the Quidnet Site and the UMass field station survey assemblages along with field records and these catalogues are housed at the Gosnold Center. For the Quidnet Site, there are even soil samples that were collected for a variety of potential analyses, and remain intact as another potential future research project for a student in paleobotany.

In 1984, the NHA was considering plans to construct a Colonial period garden at the ca. 1686 Jethro Coffin House. Dr. Little was the vice chairman of the NHA Archaeology Committee at that time, and in 1985 de-

IM L S PROJECT UPDATE veloped a proposal to conduct a multidisciplinary study of the entire property, including architectural history, documentary research, folklore, remote sensing, archaeological survey, and paleobotany (Ritchie 2010). The project involved many individuals and specialists including the Public Archaeology Laboratory, Inc., NHA researchers Helen Winslow Chase and Dr. Little, John Pretola from the Springfield Science Museum, and Richard Gumaer from UMass, Amherst.

The project received a grant from the Massachusetts Council on Arts and Humanities in 1986, and the surveys, analyses, and reporting followed. The artifact assemblage includes colonial domestic, architectural, and food remains dating to the period of occupation of the house, along with a few Native American-made items. The collection along with the field records and documentation is preserved at the Gosnold Center.

PROGRESS REPORT AND NEXT To date, the re-joining of volumes of typed paper catalogues with specific boxes of things and individual items has been accomplished. Rehousing of individual collections into archival-secure containers is underway. Plans for upcoming lectures, public education opportunities, and new exhibits in coordination with Wampanoag Tribal leaders are underway. These efforts will bring to the forefront public awareness of indigenous life on Nantucket during the past 12,000 years, and a consensus among island residents to preserve what is left of the archaeological record.

The views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

REFERENCES: Brooks, Edward 1939 “Our Nantucket Project”. Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. 1(1):12.

1941 “A Preliminary Report on the Second Season’s Work at Site M-52/3.” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. 2(2):15-16.

1942 “Progress Report on Site M-52/3, Nantucket, Massachusetts.” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. 3(3):34-35.

Bullen, Ripley and Edward Brooks 1947 “The Squam Pond Indian Site, Nantucket, Massachusetts.” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. 8(4):56-59.

1949 “The Herracater Swamp Site, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. 10(4):81-89.

Little, Elizabeth Alden 1980 “A Brief Historical Sketch of Archaeology on Nantucket.” Widening Horizons: Studies Presented to Dr. Maurice Robbins, edited by C. Hoffman, pp. 75-79. Massachusetts Archaeological Society, Attleboro, MA. 1989 “Shawkemo Chapter.” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. 50:54-55 Morris, Paul C. 1976 “Report of the Archaeology Committee.”

Historic Nantucket. 23(3):26-27.

Ritchie, Duncan 2010 The “Ancient Dwelling” on Sunset Hill.

In Nantucket and Other Native Places, the Legacy of Elizabeth Alden Little. ed. Elizabeth Chilton and Mary Lynne Rainey, 1-23. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY. Roy, Edward Stanley 1958 “Shawkemo Chapter of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society.” Historic Nantucket. 6(1): 28-30.

Stockley, Bernard H. 1964a “Archaeology and History.” Historic Nantucket. 12(2):13-19.

1964b “Some Unusual Artifacts from Ram Pasture I, Nantucket, Massachusetts.” Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society. 24(3-4):70-72.

1965 “Preliminary Report, Ram Pasture I, A Stratified Site on Nantucket Island, Massachusetts.” Eastern States Archaeological Federation Bulletin. 24:11.

1968 “An Introduction to the Prehistory of Nantucket.” Historic Nantucket. 15(3):5-16.

Turner, Harry B. 1916 Vanished Treasures. Proceedings: Nantucket Historical Association, pp. 44-53.

Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, Nantucket, MA. Waters, Joseph H. 1965 “Animal Remains from Some New England Sites.” Archaeological Society of Connecticut Bulletin. 33:5-11.

Dr. Elizabeth Little working at the Locus Q-6 Site, Quidnet ca. 1982. Photo courtesy of her son, Tom Little.

NHA.org | Nantucket Historical Association

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The Coinage USED TO BUY NANTUCKET

By Michael R. Harrison, Obed Macy Research Chair

The first English proprietors of Nantucket famously paid Thomas Mayhew of Martha’s Vineyard the sum of £30 and two beaver hats for Mayhew’s rights to the island in 1659. This event is commemorated in the seal of the Nantucket Historical Association, which depicts thirty coins, two hats, and the date 1659 (plus an arrow and a harpoon). This seal was designed in 1894, and its iconography creates the impression that the island was purchased using thirty one-pound coins. But was it?

T

homas Mayhew’s deed for Nantucket, dated July 2, 1659, specifies the price twice, first as “the sum of Thirty pounds of current pay . . . and also two Beaver hats, one for myself and one for my Wife”; later the deed repeats, “Thirty pounds in merchantable pay, in the Massachusetts, under which Government they now Inhabit, and two Beaver hats.” The deed does not record in what form the £30 was paid, only that it was paid in Massachusetts, where the purchasers resided, and not in New York, where the actual land was.

Above: The NHA seal was designed in 1894 by Alexander H. Seaverns, the NHA’s first treasurer, based on ideas from Roland B. Hussey.

40 Historic Nantucket | Spring 2021

At the time of the English settlement of Nantucket there were no banks in Massachusetts and no paper currency. A variety of English, Dutch, and Spanish coins circulated widely. The Spanish eight-reale piece (the “Spanish dollar” or “piece of eight”) was particularly common, brought to Massachusetts via regular trade with the West Indies. It was valued in Massachusetts in 1659 somewhere between 54d. and 72d. English coins were understandably common in the English colonies. In 1659, coins of the Commonwealth were in circulation, probably also still coins of Charles I and even of his predecessors. In addition to seven smaller denominations, the most common larger denominations of English coinage in use were the shilling (12d), half crown (2s. 6d.),

crown (5s.), double crown (10s.), and the broad (20s. or £1). Less commonly seen would have been certain obsolete types such as the angel (about 10s.), the half unite (10s.), and the unite (20s.).

In 1652, the Massachusetts General Court sought to solve a shortage of coin in the colony and established a mint. From that year, the colony minted a variety of silver coins until 1682. These were struck in denominations of three pence, six pence, and one shilling (12d), and the styles made prior to 1659 include the very plain “New England” silver coins, punched only with “NE” on one side and “XII” on the other, and the more elaborate “Willow Tree” silver coins. These are all

make up the price would have been 600 if only one-shilling coins were used, more if a combination of denominations was used.

The variety of coins likely used is suggested by the remains of a coin shipment made from New York in 1711, £33 13s. of which was recovered from the wreck of HMS Feversham in the 1980s. This amount comprised no gold coins, 8 silver English coins, 22 Dutch coins, 5 Spanish coins, 504 New World Spanish coins, and 126 Massachusetts silver pieces—665 coins in all.

It is worth noting, too, that the first purchasers actually paid more for the island than just £30 and two hats. We

Massachusetts silver pine-tree shilling, ca. 1652. Photo by Janny Baxter, National Museums Liverpool, courtesy of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (UK)

A New England shilling, reproduced in The New England Magazine, August 1903.

very rare and highly collectible today, going for tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars each on the market. Mid-nineteenth-century replicas also command high prices.

should not forget that they paid the Wampanoags for the Native rights to the island in a variety of transactions made during the first years of the colony. These included, at minimum, a payment of £26 to sachems Wanackmamack and Nickanoose in 1660 for the west end of the island and £40 paid to Wanackmamack in 1661 for his rights to the entire island. The first purchasers also paid additional sums to Mayhew and Wanackmamack for the rights to Tuckernuck, entirely separate from Nantucket. The number of coins exchanged in all these transactions is unknown.

We do not know the combination of coins used to pay Thomas Mayhew. The payment was likely a combination of English, Massachusetts, and foreign coins.

The minimum number of coins that could have been used would theoretically have been thirty broads, or a combination of thirty one-pound coins of various older types, but these were gold and it is not likely many of them formed part of this provincial transaction. If for some reason only Massachusetts coins had been used—also unlikely—the minimum number needed to

One final note: the actual coins depicted on the NHA seal are 1894 United States Liberty Head half dollars.

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41

Host your event in a historic setting with an unforgettable outdoor backdrop at one of our downtown properties

Contact Rentals@NHA.org for more information 42 Historic Nantucket | Fall Spring 2020 2021

Event photos courtesy of Zofia & Co. Photography.

1894 Founders Society Through this Society, the Board of Trustees recognizes the cumulative giving by individuals who assist with the NHA’s annual operating needs. 1894 Founders Society members contribute $3,000 and up toward the annual fund, membership, and fundraising events, as well as to exhibitions and collections, plus scholarship and educational programs. Their generous support is greatly appreciated and welcomed by the community. $50,000 and above President’s Circle Anne Delaney & Chip Carver Connie & Tom Cigarran Amanda Cross Franci Neely Diane & Britt Newhouse Melinda & Paul Sullivan Kim & Finn Wentworth $25,000 to $49,999 Susan Blount & Rick Bard Ritchie Battle Maureen & Edward Bousa Kelly Williams & Andrew Forsyth Carol† & Richard Lowry Laura & Bob Reynolds Kathy Salmanowitz Helen & Chuck Schwab Jason Tilroe $10,000 to $24,999 Anonymous (2) Nancy & Doug Abbey Patricia Nilles & Hunter Boll Anne Marie & Doug Bratton Christy & Bill Camp Mary Jane & Glenn Creamer John DeCiccio Deborah & Bruce Duncan Tracy & John Flannery Annabelle & Gregory Fowlkes Nancy & Chuck Geschke Shelley & Graham Goldsmith Mark Gottwald Susan Zises Green Susanne & Zenas Hutcheson Carl Jelleme Diane Pitt & Mitch Karlin

Adrienne & S. Dillard Kirby Helen & Will Little Sharon & Frank Lorenzo Helen Lynch Bonnie & Peter McCausland Victoria McManus & John McDermott Ashley Gosnell Mody Nancy & John Nichols Carter & Chris Norton Mary & Al Novissimo Liz & Jeff Peek Ella Prichard Candy & William Raveis Susan & Ken Richardson Margaret & John Ruttenberg Denise & Andrew Saul Janet & Rick Sherlund Mary Farland & Don Shockey Georgia Snell Kathleen & Bob Stansky Harriet & Warren Stephens Merrielou & Ned Symes Ann & Peter Taylor Phoebe & Bobby Tudor Louise Turner Liz & Geoff Verney Kirsten & Peter Zaffino $5,000 to $9,999 Susan Akers Patricia & Thomas Anathan Mary Randolph Ballinger Pamela & Max Berry Susan & Bill Boardman Richard Bressler Laura & Bill Buck Donald Burns

Drs. James Burruss & Mary Fontaine Laurie & Bob Champion Jenny & Wylie Collins Marvin Davidson Robyn & John Davis Lisa & Porter Dawson Elizabeth Miller & James Dinan Jennifer & Stephen Dolente Ana & Michael Ericksen Elizabeth & Michael Galvin Andrea & Ted Giletti Barbara & Ed Hajim Kaaren & Charles Hale Amy & Brett Harsch Gloria & Jeffrey Holtman Barbara & Amos Hostetter Wendy Hubbell Jill & Stephen Karp Diane & Art Kelly Anne & Todd Knutson Coco & Arie Kopelman Jean Doyen de Montaillou & Michael Kovner Paula & Bruce Lilly Debra & Vincent Maffeo Holly & Mark Maisto Carla & Jack McDonald Ronay & Richard Menschel Sarah & Jeff Newton Trisha Passaro Nancy Pfund & Phillip Polakoff Gary McBournie & William Richards Crystal & Rich Richardson

Sharon & Francis Robinson Linda Saligman Deirdre & Joseph Smialowski Garrett Thornburg Alisa & Alastair Wood Leslie Forbes & David Worth Carlyn & Jon Zehner $3,000 to $4,999 Gale Arnold Janet & Sam Bailey Linda Holliday & Bill Belichick Olivia & Felix Charney Marcia Weber & James Flaws Kathy & H. Crowell† Freeman Karyn Frist Ann & John Johnson Mary Ann & Paul Judy Kathryn Ketelsen Martha Dippell & Daniel Korengold Diane & David Lilly Alice & J. Thomas Macy Ann McCollum Judy & Stephan Newhouse Candace Platt Janet Robinson Nancy Romankiewicz Bonnie Sacerdote Nancy & Joe Serafini Melanie & Eric Silverman Kate Lubin & Glendon Sutton This list represents donations from January–December 2020. † deceased

To learn more or become a member of the Society, call (508) 228-1894 ext. 122 or email giving@nha.org NHA.org | Nantucket Historical Association

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Graduation of the first normal school class at the Jefferson School, in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1876. Five new teachers hold their diplomas in the back; Anna Gardner is seated in the front.

“Anna Gardner devoted her life to equal education, justice, and civil rights. Her commitment was genuine, consistent, and unwavering. Volunteering to live under difficult circumstances for years, she sacrificed a great deal for her principles, for example, her conviction that her black students were every bit as capable as white students.

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Most importantly, black teachers emerged from the normal schools where she taught. The graduates of the Jefferson Normal School and other normal schools in the South kept a modicum of education alive during the horrors of Jim Crow. Some teachers who studied with Anna and Philena continued to teach under hostile conditions into the next century, forming a cadre of important educators who impacted generations of students.” – Disturber of Tradition, chapter 14 $34.95 ISBN 978-1-882201-08-2

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Nantucket Historical Association

Michael R. Harrison

Her victories were real. Nantucket’s schools were integrated. Massachusetts passed a ground-breaking law to guarantee equal access to education for all citizens. Women gained the right to vote, at least for school committee elections, in Massachusetts.

By Barbara Ann White

Ruth Herron Smalt

Extraordinary Philanthropy The Board of Trustees recognizes the extraordinary philanthropy of benefactors whose cumulative giving over the past 25 years has allowed the NHA to advance its mission. $2,000,000 and above Georgia P. & Thomas H. Gosnell † Tupancy-Harris Foundation of 1986

Teresa Heinz & John F. Kerry Town of Nantucket/Community Preservation Committee

$1,000,000 – $1,999,999 Robyn B. & John H. Davis Barbara E. & Edmund A. Hajim Barbara W. & Amos B. Hostetter Karen M. & Roy E. Kirby

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Kaaren & Charles M. Hale Mary Ann & Paul R. Judy The Kresge Foundation Helen Y. & William E. Little Franci Neely Kimberly & James J. Pallotta Ann B. & Christopher C. Quick

Laura C. & Robert L. Reynolds Estate of Marjorie Schultz Jason A. Tilroe Elizabeth T. & E. Geoffrey Verney Karen C. & Edward G. Watkins Kim M. & Finn X. Wentworth

$250,000 – $499,999 Gale Arnold Patricia S. & Thomas J. Anathan Mary Randolph Ballinger Susan L. Blount & Richard A. Bard Pamela T. & Max N. Berry Maureen F. & Edward P. Bousa Anne Marie & Douglas K. Bratton Christy C. & William R. Camp Laurie S. & Robert L. Champion Cox Foundation Amanda B. Cross Eaton Vance Investment Counsel Julia & John A. Hilton

Institute of Museum & Library Services Daintry R. & Julius Jensen III † Barbara Jones † Jill E. & Stephen R. Karp Constance T. & Dennis J. Keller Jean Doyen de Montaillou & Michael A. Kovner Coco & Arie L. Kopelman Hampton S. Lynch Helen Lynch Carolyn B. & Ian R.† MacKenzie Victoria McManus & John McDermott Diane M. & Paul B. Newhouse

Elizabeth T. & Jeffrey M. Peek Everett R. Reith† Susan M. & Kennedy R. Richardson Charlotte A. & Gary L. Rogers Linda T. & Henry N.† Saligman Kathryn P. Salmanowitz Mary & Paul C. Schorr Wendy B. & Eric E. Schmidt Susan R. & L. Dennis† Shapiro The H.L. Brown Jr. Family Foundation Phoebe B. & Robert B. Tudor Stephanie & Jay M. Wilson

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BENEFITS FOR ALL MEMBERS Free Unlimited Admission to the Whaling Museum, Historic Properties, and Research Library Free Walking Tours throughout the season Virtual Access to Scholarly Content on the NHA website, weekly e-newsletters, and digital programming Free Subscription to Historic Nantucket, the NHA’s award-winning magazine 10% Discount at the NHA’s Museum Shop and Online Shop Special NHA Discounts: Enjoy discounts on NHA craft classes, programs, and special events Invitations to Exclusive Members-Only Events including major exhibit openings, member mornings, and behind-the-scenes tours Time Travelers Benefits at over 150 museums nationwide All NHA members have Voting Rights at the NHA Annual Meeting