Signs of Nantucket’s Past in the Modern Day by Cara Godlesky
N
antucket homes are known for their weathered gray shingles, “lights” over interior doors, and roofwalks. However, there is another noticeable feature of island homes: many of the houses are named. Above the doorways or front windows of many homes is a quarterboard, a long narrow piece of pinewood with the name of the house carved into it. With a strong historic background, quarterboards are a reminder of Nantucket’s whaling era and nautical past.
Quarterboards in this gallery of the Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum are from vessels that were either active in the waters around Nantucket or wrecked on its shores.
Quarterboards, sometimes called sternboards, were once placed on either side of the bow and the back of a ship. The quarterboards were used to identify and trace ships. This was especially important in the times of pirates and looters. Ships on the open waters could see the names on the quarterboards of incoming vessels and determine if they were friend or foe. Quarterboards were also important if the ships ever wrecked or were going down. If a ship did not have a quarterboard, its legacy could have easily been lost to the sea and forgotten. Quarterboards on a ship have also been compared to racing stripes on a racecar. The greater the decorative design on a ship, the faster it would sell in the market. How quarterboards evolved from a ship’s identification to a common house trend is slightly unclear. Some tales say whaling captains would take the ship’s quarterboard with them once the ship retired from the sea. However, the signs would not always be placed on the outsides of homes as they are today.
Edouard A. Stackpole, a Nantucket historian and previous director of Peter Folger Museum, wrote one of the first articles on quarterboards history on the island in the 1930s. He wrote that he could only see six quarterboards decorating outsides of homes and barns, while the other 65 he studied were placed in the interiors of houses. One of the most famous quarterboards Stackpole studied was from the 1851 ship, British Queen. The British Queen was a ship sailing from Dublin to New York with 226 Irish immigrants aboard seeking refuge from the Potato Famine. The ship wrecked in ice off the coast of Muskeget, and all but two passengers were rescued. Some time later, the quarterboard of the ship washed ashore. It was given to passengers Robert and Julia Mooney, who remained on the island after the shipwreck, vowing to never step foot on a boat again. The quarterboard was once displayed outside until it was moved indoors for preservation. Generations later, the Mooney family still resides on Nantucket with the historic quarterboard passed down through generations. It wasn’t until the 1970s and 80s that this trend of naming houses and hanging quarterboards on the exterior of homes really took off. During this time period, Nantucket’s population grew. According to the U.S Department of Commerce and Bureau of the Census, the island’s official year-round population of 3,774 in 1970 almost doubled in size by 1990. Local estimates put the island’s current year-round population at 18,000. As the population grew, so did the popularity of naming homes with quarterboards. Many of the more recent quarterboards display house names that are tongue-in-cheek, double entendres, have special meaning, or simply express the owners’ love for Nantucket.
A few favorites include: “Orange U Glad” for a house on Orange Street, “The Good Tern,” “Contentment,” “Frantic Atlantic,” “Baggywrinkle,” and “Come Hither” (on Hither Creek, of course). Share your favorite Nantucket house name with us and you’ll be Continued on page 12
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