Connie Cigarran, Friends of the NHA Representative
Amanda Cross
Cam Gammill
Lexi Gibbs
Graham Goldsmith
Ashley Gosnell Mody
Robert Greenspon
Connie Anne Harris
Ayesha Khan
Valerie Paley
Mary Read
Bill Richards
Marla Sanford
Roberto Santamaria
Denise Saul, Friends of the NHA Representative
Janet Sherlund, Trustee Emerita
Carter Stewart
Melinda Sullivan
Michael Sweeney
Jason Tilroe
Ex Officio
Niles D. Parker, Gosnell Executive Director
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.
Cover: Jennifer Nieling works on mounting Amelia Sanford’s 1870 wedding dress.
Photograph by Amanda Amaral
Year End Reflections
FROM THE BOARD PRESIDENT AND GOSNELL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
As we approach the end of the year, we want to share our gratitude for your continued support and generosity. It has been a year to celebrate, as we have accomplished many of our goals and—in the spirit of Tony Sarg— had a lot of fun while doing so!
We are ending 2024 on a high note with several exciting, new program offerings which are highlighted later in this issue, including Mindful History: Sensory Saturdays, NHA on the Road Overseas, our Sarg Celebration, and new Decorative Arts Workshops. Our staff has been working hard to develop and test new program offerings to engage with a broader audience and fulfill the interests of the community. We will continue this creative exploration and outreach into 2025.
A highlight from November was our work with a remarkable group of international professionals from around the world for a four-week program on Climate Action for Sustainable Built Heritage Conservation and Management. In this issue we share more about this month-long program with our partners from the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and Integrated Conservation Resources, Inc. (ICR). This work produced critically important insights into several of our historic properties. We look forward to future collaborations as we grow this initiative and safeguard the island’s cultural heritage from climate and disaster risks.
As we look ahead to the new year, we are excited to let you in on a preview of Behind the Seams: Clothing and Textiles on Nantucket, our 2025 featured exhibition. Sure to be a popular installation, this wide-ranging exhibition will open at the Whaling Museum on Memorial Day weekend. It will be a theme our staff weaves into many of our programs, educational, and event offerings throughout the year.
Finally, we encourage you to enjoy Tony Sarg: Genius at Play at the Whaling Museum one last time before it closes for the season on December 31. Along with the magical display of the Festival of Trees, the museum offers a fun and festive setting at this time of year. Thank you once again for your unwavering support of the Nantucket Historical Association and participation in our programs and events. We look forward to another very exciting year ahead.
Warmest Holiday Wishes to you all,
Annabelle Fowlkes President, Board of Trustees
Niles Parker Gosnell Executive Director
Behind the Seams Preview
Work is currently well underway on the NHA’s featured exhibition for 2025, Behind the Seams: Clothing and Textiles on Nantucket, which will open Memorial Day weekend. This exhibit will present over 150 objects from the NHA’s costume and textile collections to tell stories of making, meaning, and island identity from across Nantucket history.
IWedding dresses worn by Amelia Sanford (1870) and Patricia Anathan (1971)
Gift of Gladys S. Mann & Phyllis Anderson, 1966.18.1a-c; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Anathan, 2005.29.7
Textiles associated with significant life moments are some of the most highly valued and sentimental objects in peoples’ lives, often saved and passed down through generations. These wedding dresses from 100 years apart represent a long history of Nantucket brides and the special gowns they wore.
n 2016, the association received a significant grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services to inventory, catalog, and rehouse its 2,000-piece collection of clothing, household textiles, and accessories. Carried out across eighteen months, this work improved the care and preservation of these objects while unlocking their potential for research and display. We began planning toward the end of the inventory project for an exhibition based on our new insights, and that show is now being realized. Behind the Seams will explore more than two centuries of textile production, trade, and use on island and share new perspectives on what textiles reveal about Nantucketers’ relationships, communities, and identities. It will present Nantucket clothing brands that reflect the summer resort and explore the island’s twentieth-century craft revival. The guest curator for the exhibition is Jennifer Nieling, an independent costume and textile specialist whose association with the NHA goes back to 2015 when she inventoried the menswear collection and mounted the first of many costumes for NHA exhibition projects. In 2017, she led the IMLS-funded collection inventory with the help of interns Meg Pierson and Ariana Bishop and volunteer Robin Campbell. A graduate of Boston University and the Fashion & Textile Studies masters program at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Nieling now specializes in costume mounting and display through her business, JLN Costume Mounting LLC. She has continued to pursue research interests that include clothing as art and the twentieth-century craft revival on Nantucket, and has published on the history of Nantucket Looms and weaver Andy Oates. Nieling was recently on island working with objects in the collection. “I am thrilled to be back at the NHA to work on Behind the Seams, a concept that I first conceived back in 2017 when I had the privilege of getting to know the NHA’s clothing and textile collections intimately through inventorying them. I look forward to sharing the many stories that Nantucket’s clothing and textiles can tell and showcasing some wonderful objects, from humble household textiles to show-stopping gowns. It is my hope that this celebration of clothing and textiles in all their richness, diversity, and complexity helps people to value and appreciate these items in a new way. We can’t wait to share them with you in May!”
Silk handkerchief, ca. 1838, made by the Atlantic Silk Company, printed by the Boston & Lynn Silk Printing Co., Lynn, Mass.
Gift of Mrs. William C. Nicholson, 1898.138.1
The Atlantic Silk Company, established on Nantucket in 1835, was one of several textile ventures on the island. This manufacturer of silk cloth won awards for the quality of its product but closed in 1842 following a harsh winter that killed the mulberry trees on which silk worms feed.
Marie Marden’s sewing notebook from the Coffin School, 1913
Gift of Ann Coffin, 2000.38.7
Starting in 1905, Nantucket’s Coffin School (1827–1898; 1903–1968) offered sewing instruction for girls grades 8–12, teaching skills for constructing and caring for clothing and textiles including darning, sewing on patches, and making various types of seams and finishes. Students compiled their practice samples in sewing notebooks like this one.
Wilburite-style Quaker bonnet, 1840s
Gift of Mrs. Henry Hallam Saunderson, 1964.28.1
Clothing can be a powerful tool for visually expressing identity and community. Beginning in the nineteenth century, women of Nantucket’s Quaker communities indicated the sect they belonged to through their style of bonnet, with differences in gathers or pleats and nuances in size.
Braided rug, 1980s, by Mary F. Marcelino (1901–1991)
Gift of Patti Clinton, 2004.10.1
Sustainable practices including alteration, upcycling, and waste reduction appear throughout the history of Nantucket clothing and textiles. This rug by Mary Marcelino, a Nantucketer of Azorean descent, is made of scraps from her mending and alterations business.
Printed shirts and fabric yardage designed by Leslie and D. D. Tillett for the Cloth Company of Nantucket, ca. 1966
Gifts of Julie Beinecke Stackpole and the Estate of Mary Ann Beinecke
The Cloth Company of Nantucket operated from 1966 to 1968 and featured prints by modernist textile designers Leslie and D.D. Tillett that drew upon Nantucket flora, fauna, and history.
Willcox & Gibbs chainstitch treadle sewing machine, ca. 1900
Gift of Jean Satler Williams, HA105
Before the invention of the sewing machine in the mid-19th century, all stitching was done by hand. Nantucketers embraced this new technology, which saved time for home sewers and dressmakers and became a cornerstone of factory work by the end of the century.
Mohair shawl, ca. 1968, designed by Andy Oates and made by Nantucket Looms, Inc.
Gift of Julie Beinecke Stackpole and the Estate of Mary Ann Beinecke, 2018.11.15
One of Nantucket’s iconic brands, Nantucket Looms started as a project to produce historic reproduction textiles. It became a modern hand weaving company that continues today. Andy Oates, founder and head weaver until 1991, designed his signature mohair shawl with velvet ribbon accents.
The wind is a potent force throughout Nantucket history, represented here by the island's windmills in an imagined view painted by James Walter Folger in 1908.". NHA purchase, 1909.35.1
Wreck of Sloop William THE
By Judy Frank
Merab Hayden’s life was ever buffeted by the strong winds of Nantucket. As the daughter of one of Nantucket’s millers, she grew up in the shadow of the wind-driven arms of Shubael Pinkham’s mill northwest of town. The same wind that powered the mill carried the island’s fishing, whaling, and trading vessels across the sea and fueled islanders’ fears for the safety of their kin on the water. The winds took the life of Merab’s brother, when he died in Havana during a sailing voyage. And the winds carried away her young man, Abishai Hayden, on whaling voyages in the Atlantic. But when he returned in 1783, Merab was 18, and they married.1 Their marriage lasted 43 years, and most of those years her husband was on the water. He appears to have made his living predominantly as a merchant captain, commanding the William Rotch–owned Mary and Eliza on a voyage to Dunkirk in 1789–90 and the Boston merchant ship Cleopatra in the mid-1790s. Later, in 1803–06, he was master of the Nantucket-owned cargo and passenger ship Columbia, which sailed between England, France, and American East Coast ports.2
1 Period documents show Merah’s husband’s name as both Abisha Haden and Abishai Hayden. The latter has been adopted for consistency. Shubael Pinkham’s mill ownership is mentioned in “For Sale,” Nantucket Inquirer, Oct. 11, 1828, 4.
2 Alexander Starbuck, The History of Nantucket County, Island and Town (Boston: C. E. Goodspeed & Co., 1924), 396; Ship Registers and Enrollments of Boston and Charlestown (Boston: Works Progress Administration, 1942), 33; Lorenzo Da Ponte, Memoirs, ed. by Arthur Livingston (New York: New York Review Books, 2000), 337–38.
Judy Frank is a descendant of merchant captain Zenas Hamblin, who sailed in the 1830s on the sloop Leader and the schooner Enterprise. His friend and fellow packet-master Captain Obed B. Swain was a witness at Hamblin’s 1829 marriage.
Certainly Merab had always been well aware of the dangers of the wind and the sea. So, we can imagine what her feelings must have been when, as a widow late in life, she found herself at sea in a howling gale, a passenger in a coasting sloop from Nantucket. At the age of 64, there was nothing she could do but go below into the cabin and pray.
Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, small coastal trading vessels were the lifelines of Nantucket. These sloops and schooners carried the products of Nantucket’s whaling industry, oil and candles, to urban markets on the mainland and brought back food, fuel, building materials, textiles, mail—everything the people of the island needed. They also provided vital passenger service onto and off the island. Many coastal traders sailed wherever needed, to Charleston on one voyage but Philadelphia the next, while others, called packets, traded regularly between the island and a single mainland port. In the 1830s, coastal packets connected
Nantucket to Boston, New Bedford, Hyannis, New York, Philadelphia, and elsewhere.
In 1824, one of the packets making regular runs to New York, Hudson, and Albany was the “good sloop William,” suitable for “freight or passage, having superior accommodations; apply to the master on board, lying at Straight Wharf.”3 The master was Abishai Swain, the eldest of three living sons of Tristram Swain, a sailmaker, and Rachel (Bunker) Swain. He and his brothers,
3 “For New York, &c.,” Nantucket Inquirer, Mar. 15, 1824, 3.
A sloop in Nantucket harbor. Detail from Thomas Birch’s ca. 1811 painting View of the Town of Nantucket. Gift of Robert M. Waggaman, 1974.21.1
Advertisement for the sloop William, Nantucket Inquirer, March 15, 1824.
Elihu and Obed, worked together, using the sloop to import a variety of off-island products. In 1826, when Abishai died, sailing the sloop William became the responsibility of youngest brother Captain Obed B. Swain, who decided to employ it between Nantucket and Boston. Obed was 32 at the time; he and his wife Eunice had three young boys. He and a small crew took the sloop William to Boston regularly, carrying whaling products and the occasional passenger. Often they returned as soon as two days later, with whatever freight was available: groceries, such as butter, lard, molasses, and beef; or sometimes furniture, paint, or potash. By 1829, he was making more than 25 trips a year, mostly during the nine months of the year when winter storms and ice did not interfere with commerce.
By mid-March 1830, Obed was ready to resume service to Boston for another year. During the fourth week of the month the temperature was moderate and the weather mostly fair, although it snowed overnight on Tuesday, March 23. He planned his trip for Thursday,
March 25, and took aboard a cargo of candles and oil. He also agreed to take a passenger, Mrs. Merab Hayden. Widowed a few years previous, Merab was headed to Boston to visit family. Her daughter Susan Cartwright had died four years earlier, but Susan’s husband, Charles, was still in Boston raising their eight children alone. Another daughter, Eliza Haskell, was expecting a fifth baby momentarily.
As the William set sail on Thursday, the temperature was 44 degrees and the weather fair. But as the sloop headed to Boston, the temperature began dropping, and, more importantly, so did the barometric pressure.
The Nantucket Inquirer’s “Meteorological Journal” reported, “there was a very great fall of the mercury in the barometer on the 25th of March, at noon it stood at 30 17; on the 26th at 10 P.M. it was 28 52.”4 By midnight, a raging winter gale was upon the good sloop William. As Captain Swain and his crew struggled with the nighttime storm, Merab, “a respectable lady of 64” stayed below in the cabin.
4 Nantucket Inquirer, Apr. 3, 1830, 3.
Two sloops plying a harbor amid larger shipping. Detail from a scrimshaw tooth. Gift of the Estate of Lillian DeBlois Fox, 1979.57.2
Merab Hayden was no doubt frightened, but she was also no stranger to the unpredictability of the sea. Besides tales from her husband Abishai, she had received many letters from her daughter Mary, who was married to a successful whaling master, Laban Russell, and had accompanied him on several three-year voyages. (In fact, Mary was one of the first women to go whaling with her husband.) And, in spite of occasionally perilous weather, Merab’s husband’s seafaring life had been successful. By the time of his retirement, Abishai Hayden had acquired considerable property, including two houses, a store on the Main Street Square, two buildings on the Old North Wharf, and several lots of mowing land. However, when he died at age 67, his cash estate was insufficient to meet all his outstanding debts. So, two years before Merab’s trip to visit her daughter
in Boston, most of the property had been sold, except her own house.5
While this uncomplaining lady was below deck, above, the gale and snow increased. The Boston Commercial Gazette later reported “Early yesterday [i.e. Friday] morning we were visited by one of the most violent storms that has been experienced here since the destructive hurricane of September 1815. The wind blew a gale from the N.E. accompanied with snow . . . . The storm continued to rage with great violence until noon, when it subsided. The tide rose to an unprecedented height . . . . ”6 The strength of the storm was so great that it blew the sloop William far off its course, beyond Boston and up the coast of Cape Ann. In that area, the Gloucester Telegraph reported “The storm and flood on
5
6
“Valuable Real Estate,” Nantucket Inquirer, Nov. 25, 1825, 4; Nantucket Probate Records for 1826.
“Severe Storm,” Boston Commercial Gazette, Mar. 29, 1830, 4.
Invoice for the shipment of 20 casks of summer strained sperm oil from Charles G. and Henry Coffin of Nantucket to Josiah Bradlee & Co. of Boston in the sloop William, Obed B. Swain, master, October 1, 1828. MS334, Git of Henry C. and Miles Carlisle.
Friday last seem to have been extended along the whole eastern sea board. In Boston . . . the water . . . did a great deal of injury to the Rope Walks and dwelling houses. . . . In Salem, the waves rolled several feet above the wharves and of course swept away from them every thing movable. Several houses and 110 cords of wood were carried away. . . . [Schooner] John Howard, Post, from Boston . . . was ashore on Salisbury Point, Thursday night, with loss of main-mast, main-sail, &c. and the next day [was] driven up and completely wrecked. We understand she was split asunder . . . .”7
Unfortunately, at the same time and not too far away, Captain Swain and the sloop William were meeting the same fate. The Boston Commercial Gazette reported, “sloop William, Swain, from Nantucket for Boston, with
cargo [of] oil and candles, was driven ashore on Friday, in the storm, at Sandy Bay, and totally lost. The passengers and crew were saved. Mrs. Hayden, a passenger, was taken from a state room some time after the vessel struck with life nearly extinct, but hopes were entertained on Friday evening of her restoration.”8
Sandy Bay was the settlement at the northern tip of Cape Ann, north and east of Gloucester, now part of Rockport. In the midst of the storm, the community offered great assistance to the shipwrecked sailors. Josiah Haskell and his wife Susan had a house and tavern there, close to the bay. They opened their inn to the crew, and Susan nursed Mrs. Hayden tenderly. The men in the town helped recover some of the casks of oil which floated about the wreck. In the weeks that
7 “Severe Storm,” Boston Commercial Gazette, Mar. 29, 1830, 4.
8 “The Late Storm,” Gloucester Telegraph, Apr. 3, 1830, 2.
Schooner Sacramento of Boston in a storm, 1850. Bequest of Margaret H. Crosby in 1963, 1992.371.1
“With the main sail torn in pieces…it was impossible to escape being driven to shore, he had no alternative but to run her on shore for better chance of saving the lives of those on board.”
followed the storm, Captain Swain printed two public thank-yous in the Gloucester and Nantucket newspapers. The first “respectfully tender[ed] his thanks to the inhabitants of that place, for their kindness and humanity, and the assistance they rendered him when in distress.” The second, a week later, offered “his grateful thanks to Capt. J. Haskell and others in the vicinity of his disasters, for their prompt and humane assistance and relief extended to himself and the other unfortunate persons attached to his vessel.”9
The next week, the Merchants’ Hall Books in Boston was able to print the full story, which was quickly picked up and repeated by other newspapers:
We have before reported the loss of the sloop William, Swain, of Nantucket, at Sandy Bay, and the rescue of Mrs. Haden, when life was almost extinct; and we now give the following particulars obtained from Capt. Swain, in a conversation this morning. He states that finding himself embayed in the late gale, with the main sail torn in pieces, and that it was impossible to escape being driven on shore, he had no alternative but to run her on shore for the better chance of saving the lives of those on board.
As soon as she struck, the sea rolled over her, and each sought his own safety on the beach.
Capt. S. was the last who remained on deck, and then sprang to the cabin to make an effort to save Mrs. Haden, who was in a berth in the state room; but no sooner had he reached the cabin floor, than a sea knocked off the skylight hatch, and the water poured down so rapidly that he was obliged to seek his own safety by an immediate retreat to the deck, and thence with difficulty to the shore, abandoning Mrs. H. to her fate. The sloop quickly beat out her bottom up to the wales, and the cargo floated to the shore.
As soon as the tide had ebbed sufficiently, the crew boarded the wreck to save what effects they could; but Capt. S. first ordered them to get out the corpse of Mrs. H., as all thought she must have perished; but on reaching the quarter deck, they heard groans. A faint hope of saving her life now animated every one, and they forthwith began cutting a hole through the deck; but on getting to the ceiling, and fearing an accidental blow from the axe might extinguish what little of life remained; they desisted. And the tide by that time having partly ebbed from the cabin, they descended through the
skylight and took thence to the deck the cold and senseless body of Mrs. H., who had remained in that perilous situation nearly three hours. She was taken to a neighboring house; medical assistance was promptly obtained, and her restoration effected. The bed and berth board on which she lay were buoyed up by the water, so that she was pressed close to the ceiling of the cabin, and how it was possible for her to survive in that situation for such a length of time, with the sea continually overflowing the wreck, must excite the astonishment and wonder of all. Mrs. Haden is a respectable lady of Nantucket, 64 years of age, and was coming to this city on a visit to her daughter. She arrived here this morning quite recovered.10
Thus Merab Hayden was reunited with her daughter’s family five days after the wreck. And five days after that, her granddaughter was born. The baby was named Susan Cartwright Haskell, after her mother’s sister who had died. Merab Hayden fully recovered, and she lived several more years until her death at the age of 69.
On March 31, 1830, the schooner John Brooks carried into Boston oil casks, rigging, and other items salvaged
The stone from Commercial Wharf bearing Obed B. Swain’s initials and the date 1850, when he purchased the wharf. Slide from July 1969, S5246
from the William wreck. The oil, variously reported as 40 or 50 barrels worth, was sold by Charles W. Cartwright and Company, the firm of Merab’s son-in-law.11
On April 3, the John Brooks cleared Boston for Nantucket, where it arrived the next day, carrying Obed B. Swain and the crew of the William.
By then the treacherous windy weather of the winter was diminishing, and packet boats again streamed in and out of Nantucket as usual. Although the Boston Patriot reported that the John Brooks “is to take the place of the William, in the Nantucket line of packets, to be commanded by Capt. Swain,” this did not happen. Although Captain Swain occasionally continued to sail someone else’s packet boat on a short run, he soon set himself up in the mercantile business, importing corn, potash, bricks, and other items to the island. In 1850, he acquired Commercial Wharf from Gilbert and Zenas Coffin. At the time of his retirement in 1865, Obed Swain was operating out of a three-story building at the head of the wharf, now called “Swain’s Wharf.” Obed B. Swain died on Nantucket in 1872, but on the steadfast granite-based wharf, his name remained.
10 “Miraculous Escape,” Boston Daily Advertiser, Apr. 1, 1830, 3. 11 “Spring Strained Oil,” Boston Courier, Apr. 1, 1830, 2; “Port of Boston. Arrived,” Boston Patriot and Commercial Advertiser, Apr. 1, 1830, 2; Nantucket Inquirer, Apr. 10, 1830.
Ship Spermo Trying With Boats Among Whales On California, 1821, by J.
Gift of the Friends of the NHA, 2008.31.1
Fisher.
THE FINANCIAL RETURNS FROM U.S. WHALING VOYAGES
By Barbara L. Coffey
This year, the NHA has joined Mystic Seaport Museum and the New Bedford Whaling Museum as full partner in a major web-based initiative that documents historic whaling. Presented online at WhalingHistory.org, the project brings together voyage data, catch totals, crew lists, digitized logbooks, and maps of whale sightings for researchers to use to better understand worldwide whaling in the past. The site aggregates data from a wide variety of American, British, and French sources, with Australia data planned to be added in the near future.
A core part of WhalingHistory.org is American Offshore Whaling Voyages (AOWV), a dataset by Judith N. Lund, Elizabeth A. Josephson, Randall R. Reeves, and Tim D. Smith that was published in book form by the New Bedford
Whaling Museum in 2010 and made available online by Mystic Seaport. AOWV documents whaling voyages that originated in Colonial British North America and the United States. Drawing from more than 780 sources, the dataset is updated and corrected periodically as new information is discovered. As of the end of 2024, it documents 15,686 voyages made between 1667 and 1927. About 2,350 of these sailed from Nantucket.1
WhalingHistory.org is opening new possibilities in whaling scholarship. In the following article, Barbara L. Coffey draws from the AOWV data and other sources to analyze financial returns from U.S. whaling voyages and calculate the risk premium for the investors who participated in nineteenth-century whaling.
1 In order to account for voyages that had multiple captains, the AOWV dataset contains 17,102 entries but represents 15,686 voyages. The total number of whaling voyages ever made from Nantucket is actually higher than the 2,350 listed in AOWV, but no records survive for a great many eighteenth-century voyages.
— HERMAN MELVILLE, MOBY-DICK , CHAPTER 16 f
“People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in good interest.”
Barbara L. Coffey is a librarian at Monmouth University. Previously, she was a research analyst on Wall Street.
The publication of increasing amounts of data about American whaling has created new opportunities for quantitative analysis of this core nineteenth-century industry. The financial analysis that follows draws from vessel, voyage, and catch data in the American Offshore Whaling Voyages dataset on WhalingHistory.org, supplemented by other sources. Chief among these are the economic reports published in the Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchant Transcript (published in New Bedford between 1843 and 1914), which were first scanned and posted online by Mystic Seaport Museum in 2009. In 2013, the Baker Library at Harvard posted scans of Joseph Dias’s New Bedford Whaling Ships, 1783–1906, another of many key resources made available online in the past twenty years.
My financial analysis draws from AOWV as it stood in October 2021, representing 15,613 voyages.2 I made several adjustments to this master dataset:
• Only voyages that ended between 1800 and 1899 were included.
• Voyages for which there was insufficient data for analysis were excluded.
• Unidentified vessels and voyages from unidentified harbors were excluded.
• Voyages from foreign ports were excluded.
• Voyages with zeros or blanks in the catch were reviewed. If the information was zero in a print resource it was updated and kept. If the catch was “not recorded” the voyage was excluded. If the voyage returned clean (no whales yet caught) and it was stated as such, it was kept.
• Catch data was augmented to include ambergris.
• Days at sea were calculated from the dates of leaving and returning to port. If the voyage date data was incomplete the voyage’s dates were reviewed. If the information was found in a print source, it was updated and kept. If the day was not specified, the 15th of the month was selected. If the month of leaving was not specified, July was selected and if the month returning was not specified, June was selected.
These adjustments yielded 11,578 voyages made by 2,002 vessels sailing from 68 ports between 1800 and 1899. The number of Nantucket voyages remaining after this filtering was 1,288, representing 319 vessels that made at least one whaling voyage from Nantucket.
This analysis started with 19 vessels in the fleet as of January 1, 1800, and concluded with 43 vessels in the fleet as of December 31, 1899. For Nantucket, the analysis started with 11 vessels at the start of 1800, and the last whaler returned to Nantucket in September 1872. (The last whaler to sail from Nantucket never returned but was sold in Peru in February 1873.) From 1800 to 1826, Nantucket’s whaling fleet was the largest in the country; in 1822, for example, Nantucket had a 101-vessel fleet while the total U.S. fleet was 248. The maximum U.S. whaling fleet size was 755 vessels in 1845.
2
1. The U.S. whaling fleet over time.
Table 1. How vessels left the whaling fleet. For 319 Nantucket vessels, 45 percent were withdrawn from the fleet for other service. Thirteen percent were lost at sea, while another 11 percent were condemned at foreign ports.
Figure
METHODOLOGY
To calculate the return on investment from whaling, I used the following financial return formula
Return to owner where the value to the owners was calculated as
Value to owner
= 0.7 • (Price whale oil per gallon • 31.5 • # of barrels whale oil)
+ (Price sperm oil per gallon • 31.5 • # of barrels sperm oil)
+ (Price per pound baleen • # pounds baleen)
+ (Price per ounce ambergris • ounces of ambergris)
This formula is a simplification of the actual costs, and required me to make a number of assumptions, outlined below, to fill in data that is missing from the historical record.
Vessel Ownership
Outside of a few instances of vessels being owned by companies, vessels were owned by syndicates of investors and were not financed. VC: An American History by Tom Nicholas confirms that voyages were not financed but were organized financially through interpersonal relationships between banks and vessel owners. Nicholas notes that many bank owners were also whaling agents.3 Often the whaling captains themselves had a stake in the vessel.
Vessel Value
American owners used a variety of vessels to hunt whales during the nineteenth century. The dataset identifies the vessels by general size. Sloops were the smallest vessels employed in the fishery and carried the smallest crews. Schooners and brigs were the next larger, while ships and barks were the largest and carried the largest crews. Steam whalers, of which few were employed and only after 1880, were assumed to carry large crews. My analysis used a valuation for ships and barks of $20,000, brigs and schooners of $6,000, sloops of $4,000, and $65,000 for the steamers. These set values were used for the
entire time period analyzed, as the vessel valuation data in period sources showed no trends.
There was no single definitive source for the value of vessels, so it was drawn from a mosaic of data points. The Massachusetts industrial censuses compiled between 1835 and 1875 were one valuable source. These censuses detailed the capital involved and number of vessels engaged in whaling. Table 2 shows the summary data by county. Assuming that outfits account for half of the value of the total capital committed, this would suggest a range of vessel values from $4,333 to $17,027.
Another key resource that discussed the industry was a published speech given in the U.S. House of Representatives by Joseph Grinnell on May 1, 1844.4 Grinnell was the congressman from the Massachusetts district that included New Bedford. He had been the head of the First National Bank of New Bedford. Grinnell’s speech included a presentation of statistical data on the American whale fishery. His data detailed that the estimated value at sailing was $38,000 per vessel for a 44-month voyage and $28,000 for a 27-month voyage and $14,000 for a 15-month Atlantic voyage. The cost of outfitting for a 44-month voyage was estimated at $19,905.75, $17,127.45 for a 27-month one, and $6,557.00 for a 15-month one. This implied an underlying vessel value of about $7,000 to $19,000.
The Whalemen’s Shipping List was a source of valuation data in several ways. In the February 8, 1859, issue, an article titled “The Importance of the Whale Fishery” mentioned that, in 1858, 65 whaleships sailed at an average cost of $30,000 with an estimated voyage length of three to three and a half years. The Shipping List often accounted for ships sold and lost. The median value of the 628 vessels sold was $5,200. When vessels were lost, the newspaper often mentioned how much they had been worth when they sailed. The median of the 136 mentions of “value when sailed” was $34,500. Figures 2 and 3 show the values. The Whalemen’s Shipping List started publication in March 1843, so the data accounts for 1843 to 1899.
In today’s dollars, the median whaling vessel going to sea in 1850 would cost about a million dollars.
3 Tom Nicholas, VC: An American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019), 23.
4 Joseph Grinnell, Speech of Mr. Grinnell, of Massachusetts on the tariff: with statistical tables of the whale fishery of the United States (Washington, 1844).
Table 2. Massachusetts whaling vessels by county. Author’s tabulation based on Statistical Information Related to Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, 1835–1875. Asterisks indicate two vessels from Lynn and one from Quincy that did not have capital listed and so were excluded.
Figure 2. Records of sales. Author’s illustration from data published in the Whalemen’s Shipping List.
Crew Pay
Whaling crews were paid a percent of the total catch, called a lay, less the crew member’s cash advances and purchases from the ship’s slop chest. For this analysis, the owners were assumed to take 70 percent with the crew taking the remaining 30 percent.
Outfitting
The data used to estimate the value of the outfit comes from several sources. Grinnell’s statistical tables detail outfitting costs. The cost of outfitting excluding food and repair costs was calculated at $11,500 to $13,100 in 1844. The data from the Massachusetts Industrial Census pointed to the full cost of outfitting being $4,333 to $17,027. As food usually accounted for about 25 percent of the overall outfit this would reduce the range to $3,250 to $12,770 for the outfit without food. The cost for outfitting was estimated at $9,500 for ships and barks, $3,000 for brigs and schooners, $2,000 for sloops, and $9,500 for steamers.
For voyages that were shorter than one year, the outfitting costs where halved. This assumption was based on
the fact that many of the items purchased had a longer lifespan than a year and could be resold after a short voyage. For instance, sails usually lasted two years. This data was adjusted for inflation using the estate year of 1844 as the base year.
Food
Feeding sailors was a substantial expense. The food costs were calculated by estimating the number of crew, the cost of the food by month, and the number of days at sea. It was assumed that there were 30 men on a ship and bark, 22 on a brig, 18 on a schooner, 14 on a sloop, and 40 on a steamer. It was assumed that no voyage would leave without a six-month supply of food.
The food costs from Grinnell showed $4,617 for a 44-month voyage and $3,326 for a 27-month voyage. Grinnell shows 28 crew members on each of these types of whaling trips. This resulted in a range of $3.50 to $4.11 per man per month.
A business magazine of the time, De Bow’s Review, cited $1,200 a year for foreign provisioning in 1859 without mentioning the size of the crew. Historian David
Figure 3. Value at time of sailing. Author’s illustration from data published in the Whalemen’s Shipping List.
Moment cites a 50-month voyage ending in 1875 that had a $1,900 cost for foreign provisions.5 Adjusting this data for inflation, this created a range of $1.07 to $3.70 a month per man for food in 1844. Assuming the mid points of the Grinnell data and the fresh-food estimates resulted in a cost per month of $6.19 per man in 1844 or $74.28 a year per man for food.
Pricing
In addition to purchasing, fitting out, and provisioning their vessels, owners had the costs of provisioning, piloting, port fees, cargo handling, and advances to the crew. There were also interim cashflows during every voyage, such buying fresh provisions and paying for repairs at foreign ports. The dataset does not include this level of detail. Accordingly, all costs were assumed to occur at the start of each voyage and all profits were assumed to accrue at the end. The analysis used the annual published prices for whale oil, sperm oil, and baleen. The value of the ambergris was taken from the Whalemen’s Shipping List and other newspaper accounts of ambergris sales.
Depreciation and Maintenance
Vessels of the 1800s were each custom made and each was maintained differently. These vessels traveled the world for years at time and encountered a wide variety of climates and conditions. Establishing the average lifespan for such vessels and estimating their annual maintenance costs were imprecise, particularly given that many vessels transferred in and out of whaling service. As fifty-year lifespan was assumed, and a two-percent depreciation was used.
Maintenance was another substantial cost. For instance, as the century progressed, an increasing number of vessel bottoms were sheathed in copper to protect against ship worms and other sea life. This copper needed to be replaced every few years. Sails only lasted a couple years. The same was true of other parts of the rig and equipment. A six-percent annual maintenance rate was assumed. This may be modest given that even owners of today’s watercraft are guided to assume 10 percent of the boat’s value as annual maintenance.
Insurance
Insurance was optional. This analysis calculated the returns with and without insurance. Insurance was assumed to be 2.5 percent of the vessel’s value annually. If the vessel had insurance and was lost, abandoned, burned, seized, or condemned, the value of the vessel and any recorded catch was accounted for as if the ship had returned to harbor on the day of the vessel’s demise or condemnation.
The insurance return for vessels that did not return to harbor was calculated with this formula:
5 De Bow’s Review, May 1859, 590; David Moment, “The Business of Whaling in America in the 1850s,” Business History Review 31 (1957), 261–91.
Without insurance, there was no insurance charge. If the vessel did not have insurance and was lost, abandoned, burned, seized, or condemned, the value of the catch sent home was kept, and the value of any other catch and the vessel was zeroed.
The uninsured return used this formula:
RESULTS
These results underestimate the financial returns. As Alexander Starbuck noted in his History of the American Whale Fishery,
• Before about 1844/45, baleen imports were only occasionally recorded.
• Oil and baleen were often sold in foreign ports to pay for repairs and food; records of these sales were not reported.
• Oil and baleen often returned to the U.S. as freight in other vessels; these imports were not part of the record.
Assuming no insurance, 6,457 of the 11,578 voyages (55.8 percent) came home with positive returns. Assuming insurance 6,035 of the 11,578 or 52.1% were positive. For Nantucket, out of 1,288 voyages, 646 (50.2 percent) had positive returns when we assume no insurance, 583 (45.3 percent) if we calculate with insurance. The
loss rate for the total fleet was 7.8 percent, with 907 vessels lost, abandoned, burned, condemned, or seized. Of the 319 vessels that sailed from Nantucket, 106 (8.2 percent) ended their whaling careers due to being abandoned, burned, condemned, or seized. This includes 21 Nantucket whalers lost during the War of 1812.
The returns were calculated in two ways. One was that the investor invested in every voyage. For that the returns were 5.8 percent for the total fleet and 1.8 percent for Nantucket. The second way was that the voyage data was aggregated by the year the voyages concluded. For each year, the maximum, median, and mean returns were calculated. To calculate the returns for the century
and decade, the annual maximum, median, and mean were used, and it was assumed that $100 was invested in each category and that the results from one year became the start of the second year and so on. Then the final number, after 100 or 10 years depending, was annualized. Because the median return for uninsured vessels was -100 percent in 1813, the 1814 return was calculated off of the 1812 return.
Table 3. Overall and by-decade returns. Author’s tabulations.
The accompanying distribution charts (Figures 4 and 5) clarify the range of returns seen by the whaling industry. The 10 percent number on the axis represents the number of voyages that were at 10 percent or below and above zero percent. This shows that 4.0 percent of voyages were total losses and 3.9 percent of uninsured voyages’ returns were greater than 100 percent. The cumulative chart details the outcomes showing 44.2 percent of voyages were negative. For Nantucket, 49.8 percent of voyages had negative returns.
RETURN DISTRIBUTION – ALL HARBORS
RETURN DISTRIBUTION – NANTUCKET
Figure 4. Distribution of returns. Author’s illustration.
RETURN DISTRIBUTION – ALL HARBORS
RETURN DISTRIBUTION – NANTUCKET
The discovery of petroleum in Pennsylvania in 1859 eventually decreased the demand for whale oil, but the returns for whaling actually increased after petroleum was found. Over time, baleen became a greater share of the returns even as sperm and whale oil declined. The price of baleen increased in the later quarter of the 1800s, as San Francisco became the country’s dominant whaling port.
As a comparison measure, looking at the 10-year U.S. government bond, the return would be 4.6 percent for
the century and 5.3 percent for the period when Nantucket’s whaling vessels were operating. The same century and decade methodology was followed for the U.S. 10-year bond. It is impossible to know what was told to the people to encourage them to invest in a whaling voyage rather than other potential investments including government bonds. Given the business writings of the time, it is likely that the expected returns of whaling voyages were overstated, and the risks were understated.
Figure 5. Cumulative distribution of returns for Nantucket. Author’s illustration.
CONCLUSION
On May 2, 1828, Daniel Webster gave a speech in the U.S. Senate in support of building a breakwater in Nantucket. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the amount of national wealth by the boldest and most preserving industry.6
In current investing parlance, a risk premium is associated with investing in an asset that has a risk profile above that of a non-risky asset, like a government bond, in essence to compensate for the risk assumed. Whaling voyages were known to be risky and to have a wide range of outcomes. These financial results do not show a risk premium over a government bond. This did occur in later years but not in the earlier years.
Many of the investors involved in the ownership or partial ownership of whaling vessels were also involved in other whaling supply-chain activities, such as banking, chandlery, candle making, or sailmaking. These owners often entered exclusive relationships with the vessel, such as the clothing outfitter for the voyage. An area of further research could be analyzing the related whaling industries to capture the associated economic activity. This might show that while whaling itself was not a consistently profitable venture being the outfitter was, for example. Depending on what business records survive, insight might be gained into how the investors discussed whaling as an industry overall and how they evaluated their associated investments in vessels and related business interests.
REFERENCES
Bigelow, John P. Statistical Tables, Exhibiting the Condition and Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending April 1 1837 Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, State Printers, 1838.
Cole, Arthur H., Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700–1861 Cambridge: Harvard University, 1938.
Davis, Lance E., Robert E Gallman, and Karin Gleiter. In Pursuit of Leviathan: Technology, Institutions, Productivity, and Profits In American Whaling, 1816–1906. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
Decker, R. Owen. Whaling Industry of New London. York, Penn.: Liberty Cap Books, 1974.
DeWitt, Francis. Statistical Information Relating to Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending June 1, 1855 Boston: William White, State Printer, 1856.
Dexter, Elisha Narrative of the loss of whaling brig William and Joseph, of Martha's Vineyard . . . with an appendix, containing some remarks on the whaling business . . . 2nd ed., Boston, 1848.
Dias, Joseph. New Bedford Whaling Ships, 1783–1906. Baker Library, Harvard Business School. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HBS.Baker.GEN:10873409-2013
Enderby, Charles. Proposal for Re-establishing the British Southern Whale Fishery: Through the Medium of a Chartered Company, and in Combination with the Colonisation of the Auckland Islands, as the Site of the Company's Whaling Station. London: Effingham Wilson, 1847.
Grinnell, Joseph. Speech of Mr. Grinnell, of Massachusetts on the tariff: with statistical tables of the whale fishery of the United States. Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton,1844.
Hegarty, Reginald B. Returns of Whaling Vessels Sailing from American Ports: A continuation of Alexander Starbuck’s History of the American Whale Fishery, 1876–1928. New Bedford: Old Dartmouth Historical Society, 1959.
6 Daniel Webster, Speeches and Forensic Arguments (Boston: Perkins & Marvin, and Gray & Bowen, 1830), 435.
Hilt, Eric. “Investment and Diversification in the American Whaling Industry.” Journal of Economic History 67, no. 2 (June 2007), 292–314.
Lanman, James, H. “The American Whale Fishery,” Hunt’s Merchant Magazine and Commercial Review. November 1840, 361–94.
Moment, David. “The Business of Whaling in America in the 1850s.” The Business History Review 31, no. 3 (1957), 261–91.
Nicholas, Tom. VC: An American History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019.
Palfrey, John G. Statistics of the Condition and Products of Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts for the Year Ending April 1, 1845. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, State Printers, 1846.
Starbuck, Alexander. History of the American Whale Fishery. Waltham, Mass., 1878.
Tower, Walter Sheldon. A History of the American Whale Fishery. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1907.
Webster, Daniel. Speeches and Forensic Arguments. Boston: Perkins & Marvin, and Gray & Bowen, 1830.
Whalemen’s Shipping List and Merchants’ Transcript
Warner, Oliver. Statistical Information Relating to Certain Branches of Industry in Massachusetts, for the year ending May 1, 1865. Boston: Wright & Potter, State Printers, 1866.
WhalingHistory.org. https://whalinghistory.org/av/voyages/ Accessed November 2021.
Wright, Carroll, D. Census of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: 1875 Boston: Wright & Potter Print. Co., State Printers.
DIGITIZATION AND TRANSCRIPTION UPDATE
As we near the end of this year, we would like to give a sincere thank you to our volunteer transcribers, who help make our historic collections accessible to the public. The tenacity and attention to detail of our volunteers is inspirational, and we are deeply grateful for all that they do to help preserve the history of Nantucket.
Recently we reached out to one of our most active transcribers, Charlotte Long, to ask her for her thoughts on the transcription process.
What do you enjoy most about the transcription process? It’s like reading a unique story as you write it.
What is the most interesting thing you have found while transcribing?
The makeup and evolution of each crew. The whaling crew was international and subject to harsh changes. The very ill were dropped off at islands to make their own way. Native islanders sometimes served in order to get to another location. Regardless of what happened to them the crew pulled together and respected the skill of those in the hunt.
What aspect of transcription have you found most difficult?
Changes in the English Language over the years. I’ve learned to understand English from the 1800s and 1700s
What has motivated you to keep transcribing for as long as you have?
I tracked each voyage on Google Earth and researched the history of islands and mainland ports in the logbooks. Fascinating! I also enjoy getting insight into each log keeper’s life such as captain, sailor, or carpenter along with the language of sailing ships and whaling.
Although I am consistently saddened when a whale is caught, it is part of our history.
How did you get started with transcribing?
My initial interest was in the forgotten role of women on whaling ships. Not to my surprise, the onboard women remain silent.
What advice would you give somebody who is just starting with transcription?
Pick a project that intrigues you and TAKE YOUR TIME. Carefully read and periodically review the instructions provided at the bottom of each page. The first few pages may be difficult to transcribe due to the original writer’s handwriting and spelling. Not to worry. You can always go back and correct prior transcriptions.
And so, we give our deepest thanks to you, Charlotte, for all your outstanding work.
We would like to share some fun accomplishments from 2024 transcription projects:
1,739 48% 1,739 pages of the Gardner Family Papers have been transcribed, amounting to roughly 48% of the collection. Pages Collection
The logbooks of the vessels Minerva, Aurora, Charity, Planter, Diamond, Horatio, and South America have all been completed and an extra item in the logbook collection, the George Harrison Ritchie Journal, has been completed
Volumes three, four, five and six of the Obed Macy Journals have all been completed.
After an Instagram poll to decide what collection to transcribe next, the Reminiscences of Nantucket Collection was uploaded then completely transcribed in less than two weeks!
283
Pages
41
Pages
28
Attendees
283 pages of the Maria L. Owens Papers and 41 pages of Francis Devens Parrish Diary have been transcribed.
We have had a total of 28 attendees (with many repeats) to our Drop-in Transcription Hours at the Research Library this fall.
NEWS, NOTES & HIGHLIGHTS
Properties
Restoration Work, Large and Small is Underway Across the NHA Campus
Work is underway on the Hadwen and Barney Candle Factory North Wall at the Whaling Museum. The specialized team hired by the NHA to conduct the project from Integrated Conservation Resources, Inc. (ICR) works daily to stabilize the wall and remove previously incompatible materials. Through this winter the team will continue to stabilize and repair bricks before removing the two upper windows and completing the final repointing of bricks and reinforcement joints to conclude the project.
Another project that was identified to secure the back side of the Whaling Museum was the wood siding of the main building structure. Signs of water damage were identified on the building’s siding and the team worked quickly to determined it was due to a failing gutter system on the museum’s rooftop. To stop any further damage, the building’s walls have been striped, reinstalled and the wood siding will be replaced, and the necessary upgrades will be made to the gutter system to prevent future water damage to the building’s exterior.
The Old Mill restoration is also very much underway. With the structure buttoned up for the harsher winter months, the preservation firm the NHA is working with, Husk Preservation Inc., is currently working behind the scenes to source unique and hard to find timber. The timbers include white or live oak naturally curved timbers that will match the circumference of the Old Mill’s cap circle. Another significant timber being sourced is a replacement for the long, iconic tail pole. Currently Husk Preservation Inc. is working with a preservation timber frame-focused engineer to finalize species selection and diameter. As the heavy cap of the windmill is moved into the wind via the tail pole and as
it's constantly exposed to the elements, its strength, bending capacity, resistance to sag/gravity, and rot resistance are key when sourcing the right timber. Once proper timber is identified, the physical work will begin to progress through the winter and spring months.
The Research Library continues to get additional upgrades after the completion of phase 1 of the major restoration last spring. Most recently, a new gas line was updated at the property to bring the system up to code and minimize the view of modern equipment on the exterior of the building. New fiber was also completed at the property to remove an old coax cable that ran along the exterior of the building, therefore, minimizing the view of unnecessary equipment on the building façade. The NHA would like to thank Island Energy Services for their hard work replacing the gas lines on this project.
LEARN MORE & SUPPORT
To learn more about the NHA’s Restoration Projects, please contact ask@nha.org
NEWS, NOTES & HIGHLIGHTS
Programs
NHA Hosts International Group for Cultural Heritage and Climate Change Program
This November, we welcomed a group of working professionals from around the world for a four-week program on Climate Action for Sustainable Built Heritage Conservation and Management, with a focus on the restoration project of the Whaling Museum’s Candle Factory North Wall. This program is in partnership with the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) and Integrated Conservation Resources, Inc. (ICR).
From nearly two hundred applicants for this training course, eleven working professionals were chosen from various countries around the globe, including Japan, Iraq, Spain, Kenya, Portugal, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Jamaica, and India. The main objectives of the course included assessing climate risks to built heritage, developing appropriate monitoring and adaptation strategies, and building an international network of skilled professionals. The program also seeks to add important components to much of the flood mitigation and resiliency efforts underway on Nantucket. Participants took part in lectures, hands-on workshops, and site visits to the NHA’s restoration projects and other downtown properties affected by flooding. They also were able to take in many NHA programs and community events during their time on the island.
The program continues critical work that has been two years in the making since we hosted our first symposium on climate change conservation and protection with the National Park Service back in 2022; and had our first eight-week program to evaluate the conditions of each of the NHA’s properties with ICCROM, ICR, and a group of students from the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Pennsylvania in the summer of 2023.
“One idea that we all agreed on at the symposium in 2022 is that there is a great deal of data that has been generated on climate change at an overarching level, but there is no real site-specific data that helps us understand threats and therefore design conservation
and stabilization solutions to address those threats on the ground. We all agreed that taking this next step was essential and this new program and the one we partnered on in 2023 are great steps forward in generating this data for cultural heritage sites worldwide,” said Glenn Boornazian of Integrated Conservation Resources, Inc. (ICR).
In January 2024, the NHA signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (ICCROM) to formalize their commitment and partnership to drive collaborative research, training, and field projects aimed at influencing global policies and methodologies for climate action in built heritage conservation. This joint effort and work are the first of its kind and are vital in protecting Nantucket’s historic sites and gathering information that can be shared globally through ICCROM’s networks and resources.
“We are prioritizing our relationship with our expert partners from ICCROM and ICR and using this opportunity to bring these professionals into the fold, as we have real-time restorations underway that were identified as priority projects to safeguard the island’s historic buildings from climate and disaster risks,” said Nile Parker, NHA Gosnell Executive Director.
ICCROM is an intergovernmental organization based in Rome that promotes the conservation of all forms of cultural heritage in every region of the world. It is a UNESCO-funded organization created after World War II to bring scientists, architects, universities, and more together to develop programs for restoring and conserving cities and cultural sites destroyed and damaged by war.
As the NHA continues its push to preserve its historic buildings through well-researched and expert-supported rehabilitation, it looks forward to sharing more about this vital project, course, and partnership.
Generously supported by The Community Foundation for Nantucket’s Remain Nantucket Fund and Nantucket Offshore Wind Community Fund at the Community Foundation for Nantucket.
NEWS, NOTES & HIGHLIGHTS
NHA on the Road “Overseas”
Our Visitor Experience team journeyed to six different senior centers on Cape Cod from Bourne to Provincetown for our NHA on the Road Overseas series this fall. NHA On the Road launched in 2021 to bring signature NHA presentations to Nantucket elder services groups to deepen the NHA’s commitment to the island community. Last spring, we began NHA on the Road Overseas to engage with senior centers on Cape Cod. Since its launch, over 1,100 seniors and counting have attended our On the Road and Overseas programming.
Generously supported by Mass Cultural Council. Special thanks to Hy-Line Cruises for generously sponsoring travel and Thrifty Car Rental for sponsoring transportation for NHA guides to conduct this program overseas.
Decorative Arts at the 1800 House
The Education team continues to organize a plethora of creative Decorative Arts programming, including the launch of the first Greatest Hits evening program series this fall. This series offers some of our most popular workshops, including woven bangles, historic transferware, sailors’ valentines, and more. Specifically scheduled for after-work hours to engage with working professionals on island. The series has been a sell-out success, and we look forward to offering more of our Greatest Hits this winter. We also collaborated for an important island initiative, No More Empty Bowls, in partnership with Nantucket Food, Fuel, Fall Programs
and Rental Assistance. This included hosting a FREE workshop to design historic transferware bowls to be donated to their fundraiser to help alleviate food insecurity on Nantucket.
Mindful History: Sensory Saturdays
We have partnered with Nantucket S.T.A.R. to launch a new offering of Sensory Saturdays as part of our Mindful History programming. Mindful History was launched in 2021 to provide museum-based experiences for participants to connect with art and history. It currently includes Mindful History: Connection, Wellness, and Memories. Our new Sensory Saturday offering is the first Mindful program catered to youth and invites those with sensory or special needs to the
museum with their caregivers for a quiet, low-light, sensory morning to foster social connections and museum experiences at their own pace. Our first program had an engaging morning with over 26 attendees, and we look forward to continuing this program this winter.
Sarg Celebration: Under the Whale
Our Community Program and Education teams came together to introduce an exciting new night life program, Sarg Celebration: Unwind Under the Whale. Sarg Celebration aimed to engage with broader audiences and create a vibrant, culturally enriching social gathering for adults at the Whaling Museum. It included pop-up gallery tours of our featured
exhibition, Tony Sarg: Genius at Play, live painting by contemporary artists inspired by Sarg, tarot card readings, face painting, balloon art, and more! The evening was full of educational experiences, connections, and fun that welcomed over 150 community members to the museum for what many said was one of the most unique events they have attended on island. We look forward to hosting more Unwind Under the Whale programs that celebrate art through collaboration, history through our exhibitions, and connection through experiential social interactions. Special thanks to Create for art supplies and Cisco Brewers for their support.
In Loving Memory of Edith Bouriez
Edith Bouriez has been an influential figure in the decorative arts at the Nantucket Historical Association’s 1800 House. Since its early days, Edie was the driving force behind the needlework courses offered each year, shaping the curriculum, and expanding the program’s offerings. She began teaching in 2007, the first year of the program, and continued until 2021, adapting seamlessly to teach her class online. With her boundless creativity and technical prowess, there was no challenge she couldn’t master. Her legacy of skill, knowledge, and innovation continues to enrich the decorative arts programs at the NHA, leaving an enduring imprint on the organization.
Edie’s credentials extend far beyond the Nantucket Historical Association. For two decades, she was the principal needlework instructor for Erica Wilson, managed Wilson’s shop in New York City, and orchestrated the Nantucket Needlework Seminars. She led workshops across the U.S. and abroad, earning a teaching certificate in Crewel from the Embroiderers’ Guild of America and teaching at their national seminar. Beginning in 1989, while splitting her time between the U.S. and France, Edie organized and taught extensively in Paris and the southwest of France. In 2009, she further expanded her repertoire by introducing cashmere knitting to her Nantucket offerings. A lifelong New Yorker and longtime summer resident of Nantucket, Edie resided in one of the island’s historic homes for many years. Her profound impact on needlework at the 1800 House remains unmatched.
In Loving Memory of Arie Kopelman
A man of great accomplishments, Arie was known not only for his remarkable achievements, but also for his warm, genuine nature, charm and thoughtfulness, and his wonderful sense of humor.
Arie and his wife Coco have had a long and meaningful history of involvement with the NHA. Arie served as a trustee of the NHA Board from 1998 to 2006, and as President of the Board from 2000 to 2003. During that time, he focused his efforts on securing support for the Campaign for the Nantucket Historical Association. By its conclusion in 2005, the campaign had raised $25.1 million to transform the old Fair Street Museum into the state-of-the-art Research Library, which opened in 2001; to fund the redesign and expansion of the Whaling Museum, which opened in 2005; and to increase the endowment. With their own leadership gift to the campaign, Coco and Arie named the Discovery Room in the Whaling Museum.
During his tenure on the NHA’s board, Arie served on the Development, Capital Campaign, and Museum Building Committees. He was also instrumental in establishing the Heritage Society, which recognizes individuals who make planned gifts to the NHA through their estate plans.
For many years, Arie chaired the Winter Antiques Show in New York City. In 1998 and 2019, he helped bring the NHA’s exhibitions to the prestigious show in the Park Avenue Armory. He and Coco were major supporters of the NHA, providing invaluable support to the annual fund, membership, campaigns, and special events.
Arie played a pivotal role in the Friends of the NHA acquisitions of numerous significant works for the NHA, including the George Inness painting Back of Nichols’ Barn and the Spermo paintings, of which he was particularly proud. Arie had a deep passion for and expertise in Nantucket decorative arts. Most recently, he was the driving force behind the Friends acquisition of both the Nantucket child’s and Nantucket adult Windsor chairs.
Above all, Arie loved his family. He often spoke with immense pride and joy about his grandchildren, sharing stories that reflected his deep connection with them.
His presence will be deeply missed, but the love and kindness he shared with everyone he met will be remembered forever.
•
•
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1894 Society
$100,000 and Above
Annabelle & Gregory Fowlkes
Jim Irsay
Ronay & Richard Menschel
Helen & Chuck Schwab
Jason A. Tilroe
$50,000 – $99,999
Susan Blount & Richard Bard
Ritchie Battle
Christy & Bill Camp
Amanda B. Cross
Shelley & Graham Goldsmith
Bonnie & Peter McCausland
Franci Neely
Burwell & Chip Schorr
$25,000 – $49,999
Nancy & Douglas Abbey
Elizabeth & Lee Ainslie
Maureen & Edward Bousa
Julie Jensen Bryan & Robert Bryan
John M. DeCiccio
Deborah & Bruce Duncan
Betsey & Charlie Gifford
Mark H. Gottwald
Lucy Dillon & Kevin Kuester
Ashley Gosnell Mody & Darshan
Mody
Ella W. Prichard
Denise & Andrew Saul
Virginia Valentine
Patricia Hambrick & Harry W. Wilcox
$10,000 – $24,999
Gale H. Arnold
Janet & Sam Bailey
Stacey & Robert Bewkes
Patricia Nilles & C. Hunter Boll
Anne Marie & Doug Bratton
Laura Buck†
Margot Bush
Olivia & Felix Charney
Nancy & John Clifford
Robyn & John Davis
Tracy & John Flannery
Ola & Randall Fojtasek
Kelly Williams & Andrew Forsyth
Nan Geschke
Susan Zises Green
Mae & Ande Grennan
Connie Anne & Jeremiah Harris
Cecelia Joyce Johnson
Diane Pitt & Mitch Karlin
Anne & Todd Knutson
Rena & Josh Kopelman
Jean Doyen de Montaillou & Michael Kovner
Polly Hallowell & Steve Langer
Mary & Al Novissimo
Laura & Bob Reynolds
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Christine & Stephen Schwarzman
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Louise E. Turner
Kim & Finn Wentworth
$5,000 – $9,999
Patricia & Thomas Anathan
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Mary-Randolph Ballinger
Peter A. Barresi
Carole & Gary Beller
Pamela & Max Berry
Cece & Lee Black
Jeanine & Alastair Borthwick
Connie & Tom Cigarran
Martha W. Cox
Lisa N. Dawson
Beth A. Dempsey
Elizabeth Miller & James Dinan
Megan Donovan-Chien & Ken Chien
Cynthia & John Everets
Joseph S. Freeman
Karyn M. Frist
Tessa Cressman & Jim Garrels
Robert I. Gease
Gordon Gund
Barbara & Ed Hajim
Kaaren & Charles Hale
Amy & Brett Harsch
Barbara & Amos Hostetter
Wendy & Randy Hudson
Susanne & Zenas Hutcheson
Mary Ellen & Jeffrey Jay
Cindy & Evan Jones
Mary Ann & Paul† Judy
Jill & Stephen Karp
Diane & Art Kelly
Coco & Arie Kopelman
Alexandra Leighton
Paula & Bruce Lilly
Nancy & Richard Lubin
Debra & Vincent Maffeo
Ann & Craig Muhlhauser
Carter & Chris Norton
Michelle Olsta
Kathryn & Roger Penske
Andrew Law & David Rattner
Gary McBournie & William
Richards
Sharon & Frank Robinson
Catherine Ebert & Karl Saberg
Linda T. Saligman
Anne Fairfax & Richard Sammons
Michael Gianelli & Gregory Shano
Deidre & Joesph Smialowski
Georgia A. Snell
Kate Lubin & Glendon Sutton
Athalyn & Michael Sweeney
Ann & Peter Taylor
Garrett Thornburg
Liz & Geoff Verney
Kathryn Wagner
Suzy Welch
Mary & John West
$3,000 – $4,999
Dinah & Barry Barksdale
Liz & Ben Barnes
Marybeth Gilmartin Baugher & Scott Baugher
Jody & Brian Berger
Susan & Bill Boardman
Marianne & Chris Brewster
Anne & Thomas Broadus
Patricia & Barrett Burns
Anne DeLaney & Chip Carver
Beth K. Clyne
Janice J. Compton
Beth & Andy Corry
Elizabeth & Jack Draughon
Julie & Cam Gammill
Page & Arthur Gosnell
Jenny & Justin Green
Claire & Robert Greenspon
Karli & Jim Hagedorn
Catherine & Richard Herbst
Wendy Hubbell
Martha Dippell & Daniel Korengold
Alice & J. Thomas Macy
Yumi Maeno
Carla & Jack McDonald
Nancy & John Nichols
Candace Platt
Susan & Harry Rein
Maria & George Roach
Janet L. Robinson
Margaret & John Ruttenberg
Bonnie J. Sacerdote
Erin & Joe Saluti
Alison & Tom Schneider
Nancy & Joe Serafini
Daisy M. Soros
Steven W. Spandle
Laura & Greg Spivy
Tina & Steven Swartz
Merrielou Symes
Robert A. Young
PRESENTS NEW ONLINE WORKSHOPS!
The NHA has been offering hands-on workshops in historic decorative arts for over 15 years on our campus on Nantucket Island. We’re excited now to offer a selection of our most popular workshops to our online community. Please join us to learn and participate in these time-honored traditions.
JUST ADDED! Penwork Shaker Box
Penwork decoration has been used since the 18th century on furniture, frames, and boxes, often to create the illusion of inlaid ivory. Students will learn how to create and adapt a design, transfer it to the box, prep the surface, use drawing tools, and finishing.
LEARN MORE AND SIGN UP AT
Sailor's Valentine Ornament
Learn the basics of this historic art and make a miniature valentine to use as an ornament or display.
Shell Flowers
Learn the basics of making shell flowers and decorative elements to enhance many other projects.
Sailor's Valentine Ornament
Create a stunning Sailor’s Valentine designed by Suzanne Dietsch.
The Art of Scrimshaw
Create scrimshaw medallions with modern materials using the techniques of the sailor's art.
Penwork Mirror Frame
Learn the historic practice of penwork and turn a simple frame into a work of art.
