Winter 2006
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Vol. 55, No. 1
The Old Mill Recollections of a Young Miller
Author Exposed! Keeper of Voyage Narrative Revealed
The Portrait of Absalom Boston Uncovering the Mysteries
Board of Trustees E. Geoffrey Verney, President Bruce Percelay, Vice President Melissa Philbrick, Vice President John W. Atherton Jr., Treasurer Patricia M. Bridier, Clerk Thomas Anathan Rebecca Bartlett C. Marshall Beale Kenneth L. Beaugrand Heidi Berry, Friends of the NHA Robert Brust Nancy Chase Richard Duncan Polly Espy Nan A. Geschke Nina Hellman Julius Jensen III Christopher L. Maury Bruce D. Miller Sarah B. Newton Anne S. Obrecht Christopher Quick Melanie Sabelhaus Harvey Saligman, Friends of the NHA Janet L. Sherlund Nancy Soderberg Bette Spriggs Isabel C. Stewart Jay Wilson
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Letter to NHA Members
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Author Exposed! Young Sailor Is Revealed as “Anonymous” Keeper of Excellent Voyage Narrative BY MARY MALLOY
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The Portrait of Absalom Boston BY FRANCES RULEY KARTTUNEN
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Curatorial: Recent Acquisitions BY BEN SIMONS
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Profile in Philanthropy: Nina & Bob Hellman BY CRISTIN MERCK
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Education:The Old Mill BY JOSHUA WIDGER VAN HOESEN
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Book Review: Smuggler’s Luck BY ELIZABETH OLDHAM
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People: Frank Milligan BY CECIL BARRON JENSEN
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News BY CECIL BARRON JENSEN
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Editorial Committee
Cecil Barron Jensen Editor Elizabeth Oldham Copy Editor Eileen Powers/Javatime Design Design & Art Direction Claire O’Keeffe Banner Redesign
Vol. 55, No. 1
D E PA RT M E N T S
Niles D. Parker Acting Executive Director Robyn & John Davis Curator
Mary H. Beman Thomas B. Congdon Jr. Richard L. Duncan Peter J. Greenhalgh Amy Jenness Robert F. Mooney Elizabeth Oldham Nathaniel Philbrick Bette M. Spriggs James Sulzer David H. Wood
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On the cover NHA Millers Joshua Van Hoesen and Garth Grimmer Photo: Eileen Powers/Javatime Design
Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket history. Original research, first-hand accounts, reminiscences of island experiences, historic logs, letters, and photographs are examples of materials of interest to our readers. © 2005 by Nantucket Historical Association Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published quarterly by the Nantucket Historical Association, 15 Broad Street, Nantucket, Massachusetts. Periodical postage paid at Nantucket, MA and additional entry offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket, P.O. Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554-1016 (508) 228–1894; fax: (508) 228–5618, nhainfo@nha.org For information about our historic sites: www.nha.org
An Exciting New Chapter in the Life of the Nantucket Historical Association
Photo: Laurie Richards/Pixel Perfect
This new design of Historic Nantucket coincides with an exciting new chapter in the life of
E. Geoffrey Verney
Niles D. Parker
the Nantucket Historical Association. The year 2005 has been one of new beginnings with the opening of the Whaling Museum and the start of life-long learning programs in decorative arts and crafts at the 1800 House. The colorful look of this magazine reflects a new editorial perspective that will include more topical articles about Nantucket history and information about the NHA collections, along with our traditional scholarly work. We are also in the midst of concluding a strategic-planning exercise that will provide direction to the NHA for the next three years. We do not envision a significant departure from the essence of the 2001 five-year plan. In fact, the proposed plan builds upon it, confirming our direction of exploring diverse themes and stories related to Nantucket history at our numerous properties. With the Whaling Museum, Research Library, and 1800 House now in full operation, the board and staff can now focus on enhanced use of all our properties and collections as well as many of the other issues that have been awaiting the completion of our major projects. To that end we are creating a long-range exhibition schedule that will bring exciting new and changing exhibitions and related programming to the NHA. Rotating shows will feature objects from the association’s renowned collections, objects that have not been seen in years. In addition, we are planning exhibitions that will borrow work of other museums, individuals, and organizations. As part of the plan, we will also become a venue for traveling exhibitions organized by other museums; giving Nantucketers a chance to see collections they might otherwise be unable to visit. Of course we will not only be on the receiving end of loans but will continue to send out works on loan as well. As we learn more about our collections, display more of them, and increase awareness and access to our deep holdings, we expect to field more requests to borrow from the NHA. In fact, our first outgoing loan in 2006 will be the Absalom Boston portrait that is discussed in this issue by Dr. Frances Karttunen. The painting will travel as part of the important exhibition Portraits of a People: Picturing African Americans in the Nineteenth Century, and will be hosted at the Addison Gallery in Andover, Massachusetts, the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, and the Long Beach Museum of Art in California. We hope you have the opportunity to visit our painting at one of these venues in the coming year. Last, at this time of year we ask for your support of the NHA’s Annual Fund. As we look back on the remarkable year and take great pride in the new buildings and increased programming, we also look ahead with energy and excitement. Contributions to the Annual Fund support all aspects of our operations, which expanded greatly this year. Your generosity will help us to keep the candles burning ever more brightly. Thank you,
E. Geoffrey Verney
Niles D. Parker
PRESIDENT, BOARD OF TRUSTEES
ACTING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROBYN & JOHN DAVIS CURATOR
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T H E J O U R N A L O F T H E B R I G RO B ROY
Author Exposed! Young Sailor Is Revealed as “Anonymous” Keeper of Excellent Voyage Narrative BY MARY MALLOY
L Another survivor of the Rob Roy voyage is a remarkable Kaigani Haida wood and paint mask from Kasaan Village in Southeastern Alaska. The artifact was donated to the East India Marine Society in Salem, Massachusetts, by Captain Daniel Cross in 1827. Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum, E3483.
ogbooks and journals, which describe dayto-day activities on shipboard, are indispensable tools for the maritime historian. Seldom compelling reading, they nonetheless contain essential details that allow us to reconstruct the past. On rare and wonderful occasions, a researcher will open the covers of a sailor’s journal and find the voyage revealed in delightful detail, and that was my experience fifteen years ago when I first encountered the journal of the brig Rob Roy at the NHA. At the time I was writing a dissertation at Brown University on the trade between New England and the Northwest Coast of North America (the coastline of what is now Washington State, British Columbia, and Alaska). Ships from Boston and other nearby ports headed around Cape Horn to the Northwest Coast to trade with the local Indian tribes for sea otter pelts, which were then carried on to Canton to trade for Chinese tea, silks, and porcelain.
This trade had nothing to do with whaling and was never prosecuted from Nantucket; consequently, the discovery of the Rob Roy journal at the NHA was completely serendipitous. While working on an entirely different research project (on whaling, of course), I happened on the description of the Rob Roy manuscript in the NHA catalog: “Journal of a Voyage Round the World in the Brig Rob Roy in the years 1821, 1822, 1823, 1824 and 1825 by the Author.” I knew that there had been a vessel of that name in the Northwest Coast trade, but when I asked to see the journal I had little expectation that this manuscript would be from that particular vessel, as Rob Roy was a common enough ship name in the decade following the 1818 publication of Walter Scott’s popular novel. To my great satisfaction, the Rob Roy journal was from the Northwest trade and it was filled with detail about the interacWinter 2006
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1 September 1823: “whether owing to the water or atmosphere I cannot tell but the water sparkeled more than I have ever seen it and the sea appeared all around like a lake of fire.”
tion between Americans and the native people on the Northwest Coast. Among more than eighty-five shipboard manuscripts that I examined in the course of writing a dissertation and three books on the maritime fur trade, it has remained my favorite. Filled with detail, humor, sarcasm, and clear and straightforward descriptions of people and places, it also has unflinching and insightful commentary on human behavior, especially during an extended period of cruising on the Northwest Coast between February 1822 and October 1824. Over the next several years I found myself many times on the ferry, headed back to Nantucket to look again at this manuscript, and increasingly frustrated that I didn’t know the name of the author, especially as I began to feel that I knew him pretty well from reading his diary. There are numerous scribblings on the first page, including the names “D.M. & W. Bryant,” 6 | Historic Nantucket
“Wm. Bryant,” “Jas. P. Sturgis & Co. Canton,” and “Thomas Dier 1st Officer.” On the title page, he identifies himself only as “the Author.” Because he was obviously involved in the decision-making process on board, I assumed the author was the supercargo, but without a surviving crew list there was no way to attach a name to the position. He could not have been either the captain or the mate, as both are regularly mentioned by name in the daily entries (and not always in the most respectful terms!). In the text of the journal the author gives two clues to his identity: at one point he mentions that he has “Bryant blood” in him, indicating a relationship to one of the vessel’s managing owners, John Bryant; and in an entry for the period 21–30 December 1822 he writes, “During this time I have numbered 24 years of age.” The principal owners of the brig were John Bryant and William Sturgis, who controlled most of the ships involved in the Northwest Coast trade at the time. The Rob Roy was just one of nine vessels that they sent out in the business between 1818 and 1825. (When the sea otter population on the Northwest Coast collapsed in the
Above left: On the the title page of the Rob Roy Journal the keeper is identified only as “the Author.”
1830s, Bryant & Sturgis pioneered the California hide trade, and it was on one of their vessels, the brig Pilgrim, that Richard Henry Dana Jr. made his famous voyage, documented in Two Years Before the Mast.) The Rob Roy was brand new when she departed Boston for this voyage in August 1821. She reached the Hawaiian Islands just after Christmas, and proceeded from there to the Queen Charlotte Islands, off the coast of what is now British Columbia. Haida Indians rowed out to meet the vessel and the journal keeper found, to his mortification, that the cargo brought from Boston was not going to bring much profitable trade. “In the first place,” he wrote, “we had but one kind of Muskets on board the Vessel (excepting Rifles) which in two weeks after our arrival were not worth a beaver skin each & not a half a dozen of them was sold for the first two seasons— the locks of them were good for nothing.” Competition among the Boston vessels was fierce. During the more than two and a half years that the Rob Roy cruised the coast, she regularly encountered the Frederick, Griffin, Hamilton, Lascar, Lama, Lark, Litteler, Mentor, Owhyhee, and Volunteer, all from Boston, and all in the
Author Exposed! | Mary Malloy
New Year’s Day, 1823: “the truth is a vessel on this coast is a perfect hell to any person that is any way peaceably inclined” same business as themselves. Canny traders, Northwest Coast Indians worked one ship against another to get the highest prices for pelts. Both the Indians and the Americans recognized that the sea otter population was in precipitous decline after forty years of intensive harvesting for the Canton trade, and it lent an urgency to the enterprise. On several occasions, the Rob Roy journal describes violent encounters between the Indians and the crews of American ships, but even those confrontations did not put a stop to trade. In the Rob Roy journal we learn the names of Haida chiefs, “Lemor,” “Altatsee,” “Skid,a,ga,lu,” “Cowell,” “Carter Conner,” “Skitagates,” “ Enors,” and “old Eeaster Connor…the largest Indian on the coast.” There are ethnographic descriptions of burial practices and systems of rank in the villages, and a detailed vocabulary of words in the Haida language “as it is spoken in conversation with Americans.” Though the author obviously spent a great deal of time with Haida people, both ashore and with those individuals who traveled on the Rob Roy (sometimes for several months at a stretch), his vocabulary list concentrated on those words necessary for trade. Terms from the list are liberally sprinkled throughout the journal entries. With his ear for language, the journal’s
author was able to collect historical information from the Indians. At one point he writes that the way the Indians learned there “was any inhabitants on the Globe except themselves was by a dead whale floating ashore with a harpoon in him.” The best descriptions are saved for “Nacoot, a grate drunkard but the cleverest indian on the coast.” This Haida chief spent almost six months on board the Rob Roy, providing local knowledge, services as a translator, and conducting his own private trade with both the ship’s crew and with the native tribes they encountered. The entries range from straightforward descriptions:
Above: The pages of the journal are filled with fascinating details of the trade between Americans and the native people of the Northwest Coast. it and the sea appeared all around like a lake of fire.”
To the enigmatic: 18 September 1823: “a circumstance took
12 February 1823 [at Tongass, Alaska]:
place to day which I consider will put an
“today the Carpenter went ashore & in
end to nearly all discipline on board”
1 September 1823: “whether owing to the
[Unfortunately, there are no further details!] To those that illustrate the very great diversity of the author’s jobs onboard:
water or atmosphere I cannot tell but the
8 November 1823: “day before yesterday I
water sparkeled more than I have ever seen
undertook to Blead a man, tried in bouth
making a fire set the woods afire and it is running up the Mountain pretty rapidly.”
To the poetic:
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18 September 1823: “a circumstance took place to day which I consider will put an end to nearly all discipline on board” cers, jealousy of others and an hundred
Above left: While the author reveals much
other things make it
about the voyage, his own identity is kept a
bad worse than it
secret.
really is…To submit to it tamely cannot be arms & feet but the Blood would not run it was so thick & Black”
The Rob Roy was not an entirely happy ship, and for this young man the voyage was interminable, the captain unappreciative of his talents, and the Indians troublesome. On New Year’s Day, 1823, he wrote: “The new year commences pleasant but cold. I suppose their will be as their generaly is a good many remarks made at home on the commencement of the new year & I have this one to make, that I hope I shall not see the next one in this part of the world. To send a young man here (the coast) that is a poor drunken devil is perhaps well enough, for as the saying is it will either “kill or cure,” but I am not one of that stamp; yet although if I remain here long I will not answer for it. The truth is a vessel on this coast is a perfect hell to any person that is any way peaceably inclined for the grumbling of crews (who ought to be that), quarrels between the offi8 | Historic Nantucket
done. Advice is seldom well received or productive of any good.” [punctuation added]
The Rob Roy left the Northwest Coast in October 1824, though the journal (and its keeper) stayed on, transferring to the Mentor, another Bryant & Sturgis vessel, to inventory the cargo. He proceeded on the Mentor to Hawaii in December 1825, went from there to Canton, and then moved to yet another Bryant & Sturgis vessel, the Lascar, for his passage home, arriving back in Boston in August 1825, having been gone four years to the week. This journal is not the only extraordinary thing to survive from the voyage of the Rob Roy. In 1827 Captain Daniel Cross donated a remarkable Haida mask to the museum of the East India Marine Society in Salem (now the Peabody Essex Museum). A portrait of a high-ranking Haida woman wearing a large wooden labret in her lower lip, this mask is a mas-
terpiece of Haida carving and painting. Though it is never mentioned in the journal, it may well have come into the hands of Captain Cross from the Haida chief Nacoot, with whom Cross and his men had such a close relationship. It is one of a number of important masks carved by the same artist, and William Sturgis, one of the ship’s owners, borrowed it from the museum to illustrate a lecture he gave in Boston in 1848. The mask has been the central artifact of my research on the Northwest Coast fur trade for almost twenty years. The Rob Roy journal, both because of its inherent charm and because of its relationship to the mask, became the central document. Late last year, in another moment of serendipitous research, I discovered the identity of its author. Doing historical research is not unlike other kinds of labor. Bits of information are ferreted out of documents or artifacts and
Author Exposed! | Mary Malloy
12 February 1823 [at Tongass, Alaska]: “today the Carpenter went ashore & in making a fire set the woods afire and it is running up the Mountain pretty rapidly.” built up, like bricks in a wall, to create the edifice of what you know. The larger contexts of American History, or Northwest Coast Indian Anthropology, or whatever the subject is in which you are working, are the mortar you use to hold it all together. What makes history such a grand occupation, however, are the rare and glorious moments when discoveries are made— when you turn a page and your eye catches that word or phrase that brings the picture into focus. Then the past reaches out of the document and touches you. And so it was that day as I scrolled through page after page of Bryant & Sturgis correspondence, sitting at a microfilm reader in the Baker Library at Harvard. I had glanced through this correspondence years earlier, but was back looking for a different sort of information, having been hired by the Council of the Haida Nation to write a report about the perceptions that Americans had of Haida people prior to 1846, when the British Crown claimed their territory. There, in a letter of instructions to Captain Daniel Cross from the owners of the Rob Roy, was the answer to the mystery of the authorship of the journal. It was dated 14 August 1821, at Boston, and included the following passage: “Altho’ we address these instructions to you alone, yet we wish you to consider them as intended both for yourself & Mr. William Bryant who goes with you, & who has our
full confidence in every aspect. He will act with you in all cases, & we wish you always to consult him in the most confidential manner. In case any accident deprives us of your services, he is to take charge of the cargo & the trading part of the voyage, & Mr. Dyer of the vessel. Should any difference of opinion prevail between you & Mr. Bryant respecting the voyage, your decision is to govern, but we trust & hope that as the object of you both is to promote the interest of the voyage, you will never have occasion to exercise this power.”
Thereafter, all correspondence sent to the Rob Roy was addressed to both “Capt. Daniel Cross and Mr. William Bryant.” The letter was signed “Your Friends and owners, [James] Bryant and [William] Sturgis. James Bryant was the eldest, and William the youngest, of the ten children born to Captain James Bryant and his second wife, Hannah. The brothers were nineteen years apart in age, so the fact that Jim took Willy under his wing and arranged to teach him the business in his own company is not strange. Their business relationship continued after the conclusion of the Rob Roy voyage; within a year of his return to Boston, William Bryant departed again for the Northwest Coast, this time as captain of the Bryant & Sturgis ship Triton. The Rob Roy was lost on the California coast in 1830; Captain Daniel Cross died at sea in 1850. The last vestiges to survive
this voyage are the mask that he presented to the East India Marine Society, and this journal. No documentation can currently be found to explain why the journal came to Nantucket. When NHA staff recently searched for information they found that the catalog information associated with the accession number on the cover described “a red trunk.” In a way, this is a perfect end to the story because the interpretation of history is never complete. Solving one small mystery leads inevitably to a chain of others; the joy of discovery is always balanced by the questions still unanswered. Captain William Bryant died at home in his bed in Springfield, Massachusetts, on 22 August 1857, thirty-two years and two days after he returned from his first voyage to the Pacific Ocean on the Rob Roy. u MARY MALLOY teaches Maritime Studies at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole and Museum Studies at Harvard University. She is the author of “Boston Men” on the Northwest Coast:The American Maritime Fur Trade, and Souvenirs of the Fur Trade: Northwest Coast Indian Art and Artifacts Collected by American Mariners
SOURCES Letter of Instruction to Capt. Daniel Cross, August 14, 1821. Bryant & Sturgis Papers, Baker Library, Harvard University. Ms. 766, 1811–72, B 9/5, p. 219.
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Photo: Terry Pommett
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D I S C OV E R I N G T H E H I S TO RY O F A 19 T H - C E N T U RY PA I N T I N G
THE PORTRAIT OF
Absalom Boston By Frances Ruley Karttunen
R
are is the publication about Nantucket’s black community that has not been illustrated with the handsome portrait of Nantucket businessman, master mariner, and one-time whaling captain Absalom Boston. Yet documentary information about this painting is almost nonexistent. In Picturing Nantucket, Stacy Hollander contributes an essay that synopsizes Absalom Boston’s life, business career, and involvement in the fight for integration of Nantucket’s public schools. She also outlines a history of the Prior-Hamblin school of portraiture, to which she ascribes the painting, but as to the work itself, she can only state, “The identification of this unsigned portrait is derived from family tradition and provenance. The date of the portrait that is suggested by the clothing is between 1835 and 1845.” A 1906 entry on page 286 of the Nantucket Historical Association’s Cat-
Left: Portrait of prominent African-American sea captain Absalom Boston, from the NHA collection. 1906.56.1
alogue of Donations and Purchases states simply “Picture of Absalom Boston. Sampson D. Pompey.” That the portrait was donated by black Civil War veteran Sampson Dyer Pompey, who lived at 3 Atlantic Avenue, led to the mistaken identification by Edouard A. Stackpole in 1988 of that house as Absalom Boston’s own home. The misidentification is now pervasive. The house at 3 Atlantic Avenue was, in fact, the home of two generations of Pompeys, who were, like the Boston family, descendants of African slaves brought to Nantucket in the first half of the 1700s. The intersection at which the house stands—today known as Winter 2006
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Photo: Henry S. Wyer
Absalom Boston | Frances Ruley Karttunen
“Five Corners”—was known in the mid1800s as “Pompey’s Corner.” Deeds and probate inventories reveal that Absalom Boston owned a great deal of land and several houses on both sides of York Street beginning just to the east of 27 York Street, the house next door to the African Meeting House that Florence Higginbotham bought in 1920 and named “Mizpah.” Absalom Boston was sixty-nine years old when he died in 1855. Even though he had made a will leaving his entire estate to be administered by his widow, Hannah (Cook) Boston, a probate inventory was made of his real estate and personal belongings. At the time of his death he owned three houses: one “with settlement” (probably a sailors boarding house) on the north side of York Street, and two on the south side of the street. One of the houses had a barn with harness and carriages. There was also a store on the north side of 12 | H i s t o r i c N a n t u c k e t
York Street, which is labeled on the 1858 Walling map as “Mrs. Boston Shop,” and there was a mowing lot, which appears to have been on the south side of York, bounded on the west by Pleasant Street. The inventory is much concerned with horse tack and agriculture while rather cursory about the contents of the rooms of each of the houses. It mentions general categories such as “furniture” and “utensils” rather than specifics, but it does list two watches—one worth $25 and the other worth $5—and ten silver spoons. The total value of the estate was $1,351.50. Despite Absalom Boston’s diversified business ventures, his family did not continue in comfortable prosperity. After his death, his widow Hannah sold some of the property on the south side of York Street, backing up on Boyer’s Alley, and although she was sixty years old, she went to work as a stewardess, making up staterooms and cleaning up after passengers on the steamboat Island Home.
Above: The house at 3 Altantic Avenue was owned by two generations of Pompeys, not by Absalom Boston. Shown here circa 1895 is Samuel D. Pompey and his wife, Susan Kelley Pompey, standing out front. Possibly photographed by Henry S. Wyer. P1 Right: The 1858 Walling Map shows “Mrs. Boston Shop” on the north side of York Street. MS1000-5-1-4
The Weekly Mirror reported in December 1857 that Mrs. Boston had suffered a stroke while the Island Home was berthed in Hyannis. Brought home to Nantucket, she died three days later, on December 6, at the age of 62. According to the Weekly Mirror, “Her funeral on Tuesday was attended by all belonging to the boat and a large number of citizens.” Before the month was out the three surviving children of Absalom Boston— Carolyn (Boston) Clough, Oliver Boston,
Detail
Photo: Frances Karttunen
Absalom Boston | Frances Ruley Karttunen
and Thomas Boston—petitioned the probate court to appoint a new administrator for their father’s estate. The court then ordered a second inventory, just three years after the first. The focus of this inventory was more domestic than that of the previous one. Rather than just furniture and utensils, it listed every item found in every chamber of each house. The new inventory reflects the sale of one of the houses on the south side of York Street and reveals a $75 mortgage on the house on the north side. What was left of the contents of the store was valued at only $5. The value of the estate as a whole had declined to $601.39. Yet the contents of the two remaining houses implies a very comfortable life (although one that was perhaps unraveling). There were bedsteads, bolsters and pillows, bedding, bureaus, fifteen chairs altogether, mirrors and a looking glass, a clock, lamps, vases, pictures, a stove, crockery, and a copper kettle. The spoons had multiplied from ten to an even dozen. Notably, in the southwest chamber of the 14 | H i s t o r i c N a n t u c k e t
house on the north side of York Street there was a portrait. Other than the 1906 notice of Sampson Pompey’s donation, this item in the 1858 inventory is the only known documentation of a portrait belonging to Absalom Boston’s family, and it only came to light in 2004. Carolyn (Boston) Clough was a married woman with a home of her own, and Oliver and Thomas Boston left the island after their mother’s death. At the time of the dissolution of Absalom and Hannah’s household the portrait was apparently conveyed to the Pompey family for safekeeping. For nearly a half century Sampson Pompey and his wife Susan looked after it. Then, after Susan’s death in 1904 and three years before he himself died, Sampson donated the portrait to the Nantucket Historical Association. Nursing care for Susan in her last years had been crushingly expensive, and even though the Pompeys’ New Guinea neighbors had kept them afloat with loans, the aged Sampson Pompey had gone deep into debt. Upon his death, his house at 3
Above: Absalom Boston owned a great deal of land and several houses on York Street beginning east of this house at 27 York Street, next to the African Meeting House. SC449
Atlantic Avenue and its contents were auctioned to pay his creditors, but the portrait of Absalom Boston was safe for posterity. u Author’s note: I am indebted to Helen Seager
for sending me back to Probate Book 19, where I had previously overlooked the second inventory of Absalom Boston’s estate. FRANCES RULEY KARTTUNEN is an ethnohistorian and author of The Other Islanders: People Who Pulled Nantucket’s Oars, published in 2005 by Spinner Publications, New Bedford. Also in 2005, Karttunen attended the world premiere in Prague of the opera La Conquista, by Lorenzo Ferrero, with whom she collaborated on the Spanish and English libretto and contributed the parts written in Nahuatl, the Aztec native language. She is a regular contributor to Historic Nantucket.
C U R AT O R I A L
Recent Acquisitions By Ben Simons
Recent acquisitions to the collection include a range of donations and purchases, several of which we have highlighted here: A small oil-on-board painting by New Bedford-born artist Wendell Macy was completed in 1872, the earliest visit by the artist to Nantucket. It depicts two fisherman heading out into the surf alongside a fishing dory on a beach—a setting that resembles ’Sconset or the south shore of the island. The painting displays strong attention to figural detail and Macy’s fine technical skill in the expression of light on the waves breaking in the early morning sun. The painting was purchased at Christie’s this summer with funds from the NHA’s Acquisition Fund and the Max and Heidi Berry Acquisition Fund.
From top: A small oil painting by Wendell Macy, a pastel of the Hadwen House by Edmund Garrett, Anne Ramsdell Congdon’s painting of Commercial Wharf.
A pastel on paper of the NHA’s Hadwen House at 96 Main Street, once owned by whaling merchant William Hadwen. Completed ca.1920 by the artist Edmund Garrett, the work shows the historic mansion painted yellow and adorned with green shutters, with a lantern gate that has long since disappeared. Garrett’s work preserves the appearance of the house during the height of the Main Street fêtes of the 1920s and ’30s. The artist’s work is new to the collection and was purchased by the NHA.
A fine harbor scene showing Commercial Wharf painted by the accomplished artist Anne Ramsdell Congdon was purchased at Rafael Osona’s auction in August with assistance from the Max and Heidi Berry Acquisition Fund. Congdon was an important member of the Artist Colony on Nantucket that flourished in the 1920s and ’30s. The oil on board shows Congdon’s mature style favoring bright colors and broad brushwork. The acquisition adds to the NHA’s collection of works from this important era in Nantucket’s history. William W. Coffin’s hand-colored photographic portraits of thirty Nantucket men who served in World War II have come to our collection at the Research Library. The gift was made to the NHA by the photographer’s daughters, Marilyn Coffin Brown and Carolyn Coffin Marlowe, and is a poignant reminder of Nantucket’s involvement in World War II and the personal stories of these servicemen. The photographs will be on display in the Whitney Gallery of the Research Library through Memorial Day 2006. u BEN SIMONS is the NHA Assistant Curator.
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PROFILES IN PHILANTHROPY
Nina & Bob Hellman: A Promised Gift By Cristin Merck
Over the past forty years, Nina and Bob Hellman have collected Nantucket-related art and artifacts, assembling what is widely considered one of the most important privately held collections of whaling tools and materials. Now the Hellmans are making a promised gift of their remarkable collection to the Nantucket Historical Association, knowing that their bequest of art and artifacts will remain on Nantucket, preserved and presented by the NHA as touchstones to the island’s past. As part of the 2005 exhibition, “Island Treasures: Gifts to the Nantucket Historical Association,” a selection of their scrimshaw, documents, paintings, and whaling tools has already been displayed in the Peter Foulger Gallery of the new Whaling Museum. The Hellmans, who have had a home on Nantucket since the 1970s, have long been involved with the NHA. Nina, a dealer in maritime antiques, currently serves on the board of trustees, while Bob is a museum interpreter whose gallery tours focus on the
tools of the whale hunt. “I really enjoy talking with visitors about the tools,” said Bob, who relishes the serendipity of locating Nantucket artifacts and the challenge of researching them and deciphering their markings. One of Bob’s earliest acquisitions remains one of his most intriguing. Although he knows the iron whaling spade was crafted by Nantucket blacksmith Samuel Brown Folger in 1826, Bob is puzzled by its unusual marking of an eagle. “My theory is that the eagle may commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the United States,” he said. Serendipity, however, had little to do with the Hellmans’ decision to include the NHA in their wills. Working with their legal advisor, the Hellmans planned carefully. Through Nina and Bob’s foresight and generosity, their legacy of rare and important art and artifacts will be preserved as part of the NHA’s collection. u CRISTIN MERCK is the NHA’s Assistant Director of Development
From top: Nina and Bob Hellman are mem-
The Heritage Society
bers of the NHA’s Heritage Society, which
The Nantucket Historical Association invites you to become a member of the Heritage Society and join forward-looking donors who have included the association in their wills with gifts of personal and real property, cash, and securities.Your gift will help build the NHA’s collections, secure its financial stability, and fulfill its mission of education and preservation for future generations. For more information, please contact Judith Wodynski, Director of External Relations at jwodynski@nha.org or (508) 228-1894, Ext. 111.
recognizes and thanks those who have provided for the association in their wills. The Hellmans promised gifts were on view this summer in the Peter Foulger Gallery at the new Whaling Museum.
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E D U C AT I O N
The Old Mill By Joshua Widger Van Hoesen
Photos: Carol Bates
Above: Interior images of the Old Mill and the gears that turn the vanes to grind the corn. S972, S7874 Above right: Joshua Widger Van Hoesen on the steep stairs at the entrance to the Old Mill.
the swirl of the breeze like a cold hand across my cheek, the sharp smell of cornmeal, and the slow creak of gears and stones grinding together—these are all the sounds and smells of the Old Mill, a most cherished place of mine. Every summer I spend lazy warm days sitting in a low-back, collapsible chair, basking in the sun as the four arms of the windmill spin briskly in the wind. As I lift the 3,500-pound grinding stone with a lever and pulley, I feel the twists in the rope flow against my callused hands, I hear the corn being crushed and ground. I listen as it slides down the shoot into the sifter that lifts and falls with a resounding clunk every time the grinding stone turns. My feet remember running up the stairs in the morning to open all the wooden windows and separate the main gear. I give tour upon tour of the Old Mill—telling others about this special place and the island’s past. My memories of the windmill are all great, partly because of the many conversations I’ve had with my fellow millers. We talk about the strangest subjects. I learned more about politics in the first year I worked there than I ever had in school. One of my favorite things about the Old Mill are the many deceptive legends woven into its past. One is a story of a giant sea rat and snake fighting for all eternity in the dusty crawl space beneath the mill. An
Photo: Eileen Powers/Javatime Design
The smooth floorboards beneath my feet,
amusing way to pass the time is to listen to the silly comments from tourists. “You think we would have thought of something better by now to grind corn,” said one visitor. I’ll never forget replacing a few shattered teeth in the crown gear up on the third floor—hoping a gust of wind wouldn’t catch the blades, making the gears pinch my hand. My only sad memory of the windmill is at the end of the summer when we stop grinding and the vanes creak to a stop for the last time. That’s when my thoughts turn to next spring, when the windmill will open again. And again I will be in “my place.” u JOSHUA WIDGER VAN HOESEN is a tenthgrade student at Nantucket High School and for the past three summers has been one of the NHA’s apprentice millers. Winter 2006
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BOOK REVIEW
Smuggler’s Luck: Being the Adventures of Timothy Pinkham of Nantucket Island during the War of the Revolution, By Edouard A. Stackpole By Elizabeth Oldham
Photo: Rob Benchley
As
Portrait of Edouard A. Stackpole, seated at his desk in the Peter Foulger Museum, 1990. P14009
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familiar as we are with Edouard Stackpole’s seminal works on the whaling industry (The Sea-Hunters, Whales and Destiny) and his myriad shorter works and articles (137 entries in the Research Library’s catalog), we had never read any of his fiction. What a treat, then, to discover Edouard’s prodigious talent as an adventure novelist. And what an adventure it is! The boy, Timothy Pinkham, born on Nantucket in 1763, as an infant moves with his mother to live with her brother in Roxbury after her whaler husband is lost at sea. She dies soon after, leaving her orphan son in the care of his uncle and aunt. Growing up in Boston, young Tim witnesses the beginnings of the rebellion—seeing the redcoats drill in the city streets and hearing the cannonades from Dorchester Heights. He was thirteen years old when his uncle died, and it was thought best to have him return to Nantucket to live with yet another uncle. That’s where the adventure begins. Stackpole’s narrative flows like a river, and Nantucketers will enjoy recognizing places and scenes: “I walked jauntily up New Lane and into Duke Street, my heart filled with the beauty of this sunshiny morning.” But the mark of a good novel— and of the great novels—is in the author’s treatment of dialogue. That’s where this book shines: even with the thee-ing and thou-ing of Quaker speech and the arcane locutions of seafarers, the characters come
alive in their speaking—nothing stilted or contrived about their exchanges: “The old man’ll make thee the cooper now, Jack,” said Carrots to Major Singleton. “ ‘Bungs’ got a bad clip in the shoulder tonight.” ‘Bungs’ was the sailors’ name for the ship’s carpenter.” We won’t give away the plot (a reviewer’s cardinal sin), but we do guarantee a good read. An extra—a bonus—is the touchingly respectful foreword by Edouard’s son Renny, with his own memories of growing up on Nantucket and that good man as a father. Smuggler’s Luck is a reader’s good fortune. Thanks, Mill Hill Press. u The reprint of the 1931 edition was published in 2005 by Mill Hill Press, a member organization of the Albert F. Egan Jr. and Dorothy H. Egan Foundation.
PEOPLE
Executive Director Frank Milligan Accepts New Position as Director of Lincoln Cottage in Washington, D.C. By Cecil Barron Jensen
After six years as executive director, Frank
Frank Milligan in front of artifacts from the South Seas in the new Whaling Museum.
Milligan, Ph.D., left the NHA this fall to accept a new position as director of the Lincoln Cottage, a National Trust historic site in Washington, D.C. “Frank has made enormous contributions to the NHA and the Nantucket community,” said board president Geoff Verney. “We must count ourselves most fortunate to have had him as executive director during the capital campaign and the process of building our new museum. He has set a high standard for any director who will succeed him. Nevertheless, the organization, in both staff and trustees, is strong and well positioned to accept the responsibilities and challenges ahead.” Milligan was a driving force behind the design and construction of the new Whaling Museum, which opened last June. Construction of the new museum and conversion of the Fair Street Museum to the NHA’s Research Library and Archives was made possible by the success of the NHA’s capital campaign, which also added more than $8 million to the permanent endowment to support its educational and preservation activities. “I have loved every minute of my time with the NHA,” Milligan said, “in particular, the opportunity to work with a great
group of professional employees, dedicated trustees, and, of course, our generous members and donors. I am so proud of what the NHA has accomplished and especially pleased that the Whaling Museum has been so warmly received.” Milligan was also instrumental in guiding the restoration of the NHA’s Quaker Meeting House and 1800 House, the latter of which was opened earlier this year as a center for instruction in traditional Nantucket decorative arts and crafts. In addition, he introduced several educational initiatives for children and adults. He was a founding director of the Monday Super Series lecture program that the NHA helped to launch in collaboration with the Nantucket Atheneum, the Maria Mitchell Association, and the Egan Institute of Maritime Studies. Over the past six years the series has brought dozens of nationally recognized writers, educators, and speakers to the island and has expanded to include the Nantucket Conservation Foundation and WNAN-FM, the Cape and Islands NPR station. Niles Parker, the NHA’s Robyn and John Davis Curator, will be acting executive director while the NHA conducts a national search for Milligan’s successor. u
Winter 2006
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NHA NEWS By Cecil Barron Jensen
Photos: Laurie Richards/Pixel Perfect
August Antiques Show
From top: Rick and Janet Sherlund with former NHA Executive Director Frank Milligan; Pam and Will Waller; and Josette Blackmore, the chair for the 2006 August Antiques Show.
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The opening of the new Whaling Museum gave the 2005 August Antiques Show’s week of events, August 2–7, a theme and a source of celebration. In addition to coordinating the Antiques Show, the volunteer committee organized several special events at the museum including the Antiques Show Dinner hosted by Trianon/Seaman Schepps. “We were delighted to make the Antiques Show another reason to applaud the success of the new museum,” said chair Janet Sherlund. “It was a thrill to bring so many Antiques Show patrons to the museum to see the magnificent collection of Nantucket artifacts.” The prestigious Antiques Council returned to manage the three-day show and brought over forty of the nation’s top antiques dealers to the Nantucket New School, 15 Nobadeer Farm Road. The quality of the antiques and the festive atmosphere attracted a record number of attendees to the Thursday night Preview Party and new leadership Champagne Reception. A steady flow of antiques shoppers throughout the weekend assured the success of the event with the Collectors Booth, raffle, and children’s program attracting visitors of all ages to the show. Plans for the 2006 Antiques Show (August 4–6) are well under way, and the NHA board of trustees is pleased to announce that the chair for the twentyninth annual event will be Josette
Blackmore. A veteran volunteer for the Antiques Show, Blackmore has chaired the Collectors Booth, a silent auction at the 2004 Antiques Show Dinner, and, most recently, the public relations committee. “We are really looking forward to working with Josette,” said the NHA’s director of external relations Judith Wodynski. “She is a skilled leader and has a great vision for the Antiques Show.”
Annual Meeting The NHA held its 111th Annual Meeting at the newly restored 1800 House, 6 Mill Street. During the warm summer afternoon, the board of trustees was pleased to reintroduce members to the historic house and talk about the new roster of classes on Nantucket decorative arts and crafts planned for the summer and fall. Included in the meeting were reports on the high-
Nantucket 10th Annual Wine Festival–2006 Save the dates for the 10th Annual Nantucket Wine Festival, May 17–21. The NHA/Wine Festival Gala will be on Thursday, May 18, and the NHA/Wine Festival Dinner and Auction will be on Saturday, May 20.
Photos: Laurie Richards/Pixel Perfect
lights of the year and the business of running the nonprofit organization given by former executive director Frank Milligan and president Geoff Verney. The nominating committee report was read by Tish Emerson, who then led the vote on the newest slate of trustees. Joining the board are Kenneth L. Beaugrand, Nan A. Geschke, Christopher L. Maury, Sarah B. Newton, Anne S. Obrecht, and Janet L. Sherlund. Foregoing the traditional speaker, the NHA chose to include a gam in this year’s annual meeting. Led by the Rev. Ted Anderson, NHA members were encouraged to share their memories of living on Nantucket. The conversation approach was well received, and members can look forward to another gam at the 112th annual meeting next July.
Above: August Antiques Show guests Felix and Olivia Charney; Nancy and Robert Puff and Connie and Tom Cigarran.
Walden Chamber Players One of the highlights of the summer was a musical performance in the Whaling Museum on June 23 by the Walden Chamber Players of Arlington, Massachusetts. The musicians chose works by Haydn and Mozart to complement the dramatic setting of Gosnell Hall and combined the music with readings of poetry and excerpts from whaling logs and journals. The players were Alexander Velinzon and Irina Muresanu, violins; Fenwick Smith, flute; and Rafi Popper-Keizer, cello. The artistic director was Christof Huber. The
Above left: Reverend Ted Anderson led the Gam at the 2005 Annual Meeting at the 1800 house while Eileen McGrath and Renny Stackpole look on. Above right: Ruth Grieder and Mary E.Van Arsdale also gammed.
evening’s program also included a multimedia slide show, designed by NHA technical consultant Mary Novissimo, of objects and images from the NHA’s collection. The concert was funded by a generous anonymous sponsor. The Walden Players will return to the Whaling Museum for another concert on Friday, May 26, 2006.
In Memoriam The NHA’s editorial committee lost one of its most devoted members last spring. Richard L. Brecker was a longtime NHA volunteer and a valued advisor to Historic Nantucket. A graduate of Yale University, Brecker served for two Richard L. Brecker years in the U. S. Marine Corps, attached to the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He then spent eight years here and abroad as a Winter 2006
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NHA NEWS
Above: Joining the NHA’s building and grounds department are (left to right): Peter Cardos, Properties Assistant; Andrea Howard, Grounds/Maintenance Assistant; and Manny Sylvia, Grounds/Maintenance Assistant.
U.S. Foreign Service Officer, including tours as Vice Consul and U. S. Information Officer in India and as Briefing Officer for the Secretary of State. Before starting his own firm, he spent a number of years with several leading advertising agencies in New York and co-owned a flag-manufacturing company in New Jersey. Prior to his retirement in 1991, Brecker was chairman of Brecker & Merriman, Inc., an international consulting firm headquartered in New York. He will be remembered as a talented musician (writing music and lyrics for two Yale Dramat shows); a keen golfer; an avid
Above: Since last spring the NHA’s administrative team has grown. New to the staff are (left to right): Susan Beaumont, Facilities Events Coordinator; Julie Kever, Administrative Assistant; Erin Flannery, Senior Interpreter; Sarah Bishop, Interpretation Coordinator; and Emily Pihl, Special Events Assistant.
reader; a loyal volunteer to many organizations here, in New York, and in Florida; and a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. His patience, kindness, and generosity will be sorely missed. u
Please join the Nantucket Historical Association for a trip to the Azores! June 2-13, 2006 Enjoy spring surrounded by the blooming hydrangeas and sapphire seas of the Azorian islands of Sao Miguel, Terceira, Faial, and Pico. During a ten-day trip hosted by the Nantucket Historical Association, you’ll take in the rich history, local cuisine, and natural beauty of the Azores—islands forever linked in whaling history with Nantucket! The islands’ whaling, scrimshaw, and wine museums are among the many sites you’ll visit. Package includes round-trip air from Boston, ten nights’ accommodations, breakfast daily, three lunches, five dinners, airport transfers, inter-island transportation, sightseeing, and gratuities.
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NHA members: $2,999* per person Nonmembers: $3,199* per person *Rates are based on double occupancy; single supplement is $599. Prices may vary slightly with rate of exchange
Reservations and a $1,000 per person deposit are due by Jan. 10, 2006. Deposit is subject to a $500 nonrefundable cancellation fee. Final payment is due April 3, 2006. For more information or to register, contact either: Julie Kever Nantucket Historical Association (508) 228-1894, ext. 0
Sheila O’Brien Egan Swain’s Travel (508) 228-3201, ext. 11
Photo: Jeff Allen Photography
Browse, Click, Shop
Gifts from the NHA’s Museum Shop now available Online! Museum Shop 11 Broad Street (508) 228-5785 email: gwinton@nha.org
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