Historic Nantucket, Spring 2023, Vol. 73 No. 1

Board of Trustees 2022–23

Annabelle Fowlkes, President

Susan Blount, Vice President

Carla McDonald, Vice President

John Flannery, Treasurer

Sarah Alger, Clerk

Nancy Abbey

Patricia Anathan

Lucinda Ballard

Stacey Bewkes

Wylie Collins

Amanda Cross

Cam Gammill

Graham Goldsmith

Ashley Gosnell Mody

Robert Greenspon

Wendy Hudson

Carl Jelleme

Kathryn Ketelsen, Friends of the NHA Representative

Valerie Paley

Marla Sanford

Denise Saul, Friends of the NHA Representative

Sara Schwartz

Janet Sherlund, Trustee Emerita

Carter Stewart

Melinda Sullivan

Michael Sweeney

Jason Tilroe

Alisa A. Wood

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.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket, P.O. Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554–1016; (508) 228–1894; fax: (508) 228–5618, info@nha.org. For information visit www.nha.org. ©2022 by the Nantucket Historical Association.

Editor: Ashley Santos

Designer: Amanda Quintin Design

all photos by nha staff unless otherwise noted.

Cover: Cranberry Pickers, Eastman Johnson, 20" x 30", oil on cradled panel.

Connecting…

FROM THE BOARD PRESIDENT AND GOSNELL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Since its founding in 1894, the Nantucket Historical Association has been a collecting organization. With support from generous individuals, families, and the Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association, we have been able to, over nearly 130 years, develop an extensive and remarkable collection. Paintings, textiles, manuscripts, journals, logbooks, furniture, Lightship baskets, scrimshaw, photographs, oral histories, historic properties, and more. Collectively these items help tell stories of Nantucket Island and its evolution. The extensive additions to our collection in the past year, a few of which are highlighted in this issue, have done much to expand the narratives we can tell. From a stunning child’s Windsor chair made on the island in the 18th century to Eastman Johnson’s masterpiece study for Cranberry Pickers to John Walling’s Naval commissioning sword to Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin’s beautiful painting, At Eventide, to the archives of the Nantucket Aids network, and more—we are excited to now care for and share these important artifacts— touchstones of a vibrant and varied Nantucket history.

A museum collection such as this must be actively managed. Some of the early members of the NHA realized this within the first decade of the organization’s existence as they began to grapple with finding sufficient space to store and display the artifacts. The Fair Street Museum, built in 1904, was a poured concrete structure ahead of its time. Intended as a fireproof vault, the structure is now the NHA’s Research Library, continuing to protect collections and provide a welcoming location for research. As you will see, we are about to engage in a significant restoration of that property to ensure that we may continue to best preserve items, study them, encourage research, and highlight the histories they represent and help illuminate. As Mary Starbuck noted in her 1897 plea for constructing the Fair Street Museum, “…many valuable relics will come back to the island.” Judging from this past year, her prescient advice remains accurate.

But the NHA exists for more than just the sake of collecting. We are not simply preserving concrete bunkers for the storage of artifacts. At the heart of our mission lies storytelling. And if we are to tell more accurate and inclusive stories, we must accept that our collection is incomplete and remains a work in progress. As Brown University professor and museum scholar Steven Lubar has written, museums need to “collect and connect.” As the NHA board and staff embark on creating a new strategic plan, we are carrying that idea forward. Connecting past and present with diverse communities on the island, we realize we are missing collections and stories. We must seek to fill important gaps and ask new questions: What stories have not been told? How do we tell those stories? Who can best tell them? How do we build a collection that is more representative, one that reveals a broader cross-section of Nantucket’s community members who are both shaping and responding to the joys and challenges of living on this faraway island? Nantucket’s history is being written every day. We hope you will connect with us and help consider how, together, we might collect and share it.

Annabelle Fowlkes President, Board of Trustees

Niles Parker Gosnell Executive Director

Cranberry Pickers by Eastman Johnson

Cranberry Pickers depicts a woman and man harvesting cranberries on Nantucket’s north shore. Painted around 1877, it is one of approximately twenty works Johnson created in preparation for his masterpiece Cranberry Harvest, Island of Nantucket (1880), which is now in the collection of the Timken Museum in San Diego.

Eastman Johnson (1824–1906) is the primary artist of national importance associated with Nantucket in the late nineteenth century. He and his wife began summering on the island in 1870 and returned annually through 1890, residing from 1871 onward at a property he purchased on what is now Cliff Road. The artist’s island sojourns inspired some of his most enduring works as a major genre painter, portraitist, and chronicler of American life.

This painting of cranberry pickers is extremely unusual because it is both a study and a stand-alone work that, in its specificity and beauty, surpasses all the other images Johnson produced related to his final Cranberry Harvest painting. Last exhibited publicly over thirty years ago, the painting was feared lost until recently. With most of Johnson’s best works already in museum collections, this rediscovered painting presented a rare chance for the NHA to secure one of Johnson’s finest depictions of Nantucket for the people of Nantucket.

The painting will go on view this summer at the Whaling Museum and will be featured in an exhibition of Eastman Johnson and Winslow Homer paintings of women coming to the NHA in 2025.

This acquisition was made possible thanks to an outpouring of generous support from numerous private donors, NHA board members, and the Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association.

Child’s Windsor Chair

This chair is a one-of-a-kind piece. Not only is this remarkable Windsor chair notable for its size and design for a child, as well as its excellent condition, but its Nantucket origins make it an artifact that, without a doubt, belongs in the NHA’s collection.

The Nantucket Windsor chair form evolved from familiar Philadelphia Windsor chair designs, examples of which were commonly imported to the island throughout the second half of the eighteenth century. Chairs made by two Nantucket chairmakers, Frederick Slade and Charles Chase (1731–1815), are seen as the most impressive and representative specimens of the type.

This chair is a beautiful scaled-down version of a classic Nantucket braced fan-back armchair, made from hard and soft woods and potentially with the original dark green paint still intact. The craftsmanship displayed by its elegant crest rail scrolls and carved knuckles and the overall structural grace it emulates can likely be attributed to Frederick Slade with further research.

The chair will go on view this spring in the Whaling Museum.

Thanks to a generous gift from the Friends of the Nantucket Historical Assocation.

At Eventide by Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin

Over the last year, the NHA has acquired five works by Elizabeth Coffin to complement the seven already in the collection. The NHA is excited to be the home for these works, and looks forward to studying them and displaying them for the community and visitors alike in future exhibitions.

Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin (1850–1930) was an educator, philanthropist, and artist. Born in Brooklyn, where she lived most of her life, she studied at Vassar College, the Academy of Fine Arts in the Hague, the Art Students League in New York, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Among her instructors were Johan Philip Koelman, William Merritt Chase, and Thomas Eakins. Her father was from Nantucket and a descendant of the early English settlers. She began summering on the island in the early 1880s, eventually buying a house in which she later retired. Her signal achievement for Nantucket was the revival and transformation of the Coffin School, which she helped guide for more than two decades.

Coffin painted At Eventide (1890) while summering on Nantucket, and it is one of her most appealing images. It captures two boys beside a dory at the water’s edge, holding a basket of shellfish. The painting stands out due to Coffin’s ability to capture the effects of natural light within a landscape. The influence of Coffin’s teacher and friend Thomas Eakins, who emphasized the importance of light, is apparent in this work. The painting is believed to be the same one Coffin exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1891.

The painting will go on view this spring in the Williams Forsyth Gallery at the Whaling Museum.

Thanks to a generous gift from Carolyn Coffin Marlowe, in memory of her parents, William W. and Alma Killen Coffin.

2023 EXHIBITION PREVIEW

Summer on Nantucket: A History of the Island Resort

Opening May 26 | Whaling Museum, McCausland Gallery

Containing more than 200 artifacts from the NHA collection, this exhibition tells the story of Nantucket as a summer destination, from the opening of the first tourist hotels in the 1840s to the multi-billion-dollar real-estate, construction, and rental economy of today.

The exhibit begins with “Impressions of Summer,” a feast of paintings, trade signs, souvenirs, and other items capturing the flavor of Nantucket in high season. “The Resort Economy” traces the island’s transition from a whaling port to a vacation spot. “Must See, Must Do” explores beach and water recreation, entertainment and dining, and changing tourist activities across more than a century. “Where to Stay?” demonstrates how summer-home options have changed as more of the island has been developed. “Who’s Here?” features new acquisitions from the NHA’s costume and textile collections showing island summer fashions. “It’s Not All Roses” recognizes the hard work seasonal employees and year-round residents put into making summer happen for everyone and explores some of the downsides to the island’s popularity and success: crowding, traffic, housing insecurity, and economic inequality. The exhibit concludes with “Winter,” a look at the continuation of island life after the crowds depart.

Island People: Portraits and Stories from Nantucket

Reopening with new additions this spring

Whaling Museum, Williams Forsyth Gallery

This exhibition draws from the NHA’s collection of painted portraits to highlight both famous and lesser-known Nantucketers whose life stories intersect with the themes and currents of the island’s history.

An exciting new addition this year will be the newly conserved 1851 painting called Nantucket Indian Princess by Hermine Dassel, on loan from the Rhode Island Historical Society. This portrait depicts eleven-year-old Isabella Draper, a young islander of mixed Nantucket Wampanoag and African American heritage.

New Acquisitions Highlights

Opening May 26

Whaling Museum, Williams Forsyth Gallery

The last year has been an exciting one at the NHA for collections acquisitions. Come see Cranberry Pickers by Eastman Johnson and important works by Nantucket’s most notable female artist from the turn of the twentieth century Elizabeth Rebecca Coffin.

Nantucket Lightship Baskets

Opening May 27 | Hadwen House

Nantucket baskets are a symbol of the island worldwide; see over 100 examples showcased in one of the island’s most majestic Main Street homes. Explore the reinstalled José Reyes workshop and the work of both contemporary and historic weavers, drawn from the NHA and Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum collections.

SUPPORT EXHIBITIONS

If you would like to support our 2023 exhibitions, please contact Laura Barnes, Director of Development, for more information at (508) 228-1894 Ext. 125 or lbarnes@nha.org. Gifts are fully tax-deductible according to federal guidelines.

Your generosity allows us to share this look at Nantucket’s history with over 90,000 visitors a year.

John F. Walling in the uniform of a U.S. Navy lieutenant. This photo was probably taken in April 1943, when Walling was home on leave.

Photograph by Louis Davidson, gift of Raymond F. DuBois Jr.

U.S. NAVY COMMANDER

JOHN F. WALLING

The Life and Love Story of an Island Hero Lost at Sea

By Michael R. Harrison, NHA Chief Curator and Obed Macy Research Chair

In 2022, the NHA was fortunate to receive a series of donations related to Cmdr. John Franklin Walling, a man who grew up on Nantucket and whose promising career in the U.S. Navy was cut short during World War II. First, Commander Walling’s commissioning sword from the U.S. Naval Academy was donated by Raymond F. DuBois Jr., followed by a cache of letters and photographs from Dubois and his family. Reporting about these gifts in The Inquirer and Mirror newspaper brought a further donation of Commander Walling’s diaries from Susan Carpenter, a family friend. Together, these materials provide a poignant window into Walling’s adventure-filled life and his passionate love and devotion for Doris Annabella Helmkamp, whom he married in 1943.

John Franklin Walling (1912–1945) was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the second child of Charles H. Walling (1874–1937) and Georgie L. (Smith) Walling (1878–1971). His father was a railroad clerk, and the family came to Nantucket in 1913 for Charles to take up a position with the New Bedford, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Steamboat Line.

From 1916 until his retirement, he was the line’s wharf agent on the island. Walling’s mother, Georgie, worked at different times as a school teacher and as a steamboat clerk. In later life, she was involved with the Artists Association of Nantucket, the Wharf Rat Club, and the Daughters of the American Revolution. As a child, John attended the Nantucket public schools, where he consistently received top marks from his teachers. At Nantucket High School, he took part in student theatricals. In July 1926, he and four friends walked the entire

40-mile perimeter of Nantucket on the beach. In 1928, he entered Phillips Exeter Academy on a scholarship and completed his last two years of high school there. In 1931, he entered the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

John Walling was the fifth man from Nantucket to attend the Naval Academy. George William Coffin (1845–1899) matriculated to the academy in 1860 but was ordered into active service in the fall of 1863 without graduating. Seth M. Ackley (1845–1908) graduated with the class of 1866 and ended his career as a rear admiral, while Richard Mitchell (1849–1897), class of 1869, retired as a lieutenant. Marcel E. A. Gouin (1900–1960), born in Siasconset, graduated with the class of 1924 and made his career in naval aviation, retiring as a vice admiral.

Walling’s surviving diaries run from the fall of 1934 to May 1940; he kept additional volumes, but they have not yet surfaced. The books we do have trace the activities of his academy days and his early professional assignments. They are interspersed with notes on daily life, and his enjoyment of sailing, swimming, and sunbathing are evident. While his education and early naval service saw him residing in Maryland, Connecticut, California, and the Philippines, Walling returned to Nantucket when he could. In December 1935, he tells his diary, “Leave, and a small one, with Christmas day in Prov [Providence], then home, where it blew like a son of a gun for three out of four days, went traveling Friday [Dec. 27] and it was cold. Salt blue fish, salt pollock, fresh cod, and mothers apple pie & steamed pudding. Made my N.Y. connection Tuesday noon [Dec. 31] with 1 minute to spare!”

Walling graduated from the Academy in 1935 and reported to the cruiser USS Tuscaloosa as a newly commis-

“His surviving letters to her reveal a man quickly and deeply smitten.”

U.S. Naval Academy commissioning sword of Cmdr. John F. Walling, 1935 Gift of Raymond F. DuBois Jr., in memory of Annabella Walling DuBois and in honor of the Wharf Rat Club, 2022.22.1. Photograph by Jeff Allen.

sioned ensign. While assigned to this ship in 1936, Walling crossed the equator for the first time. His summons to appear before King Neptune, preserved with his letters, charges him with “Imitating broken down and worn out actors” and being the proverbial “man from Nantucket,” among other satirical crimes.

In 1937, Walling studied for six months at the navy’s submarine school in New London, Connecticut. From there, he was assigned to the submarine USS S-37, stationed in the Philippines. He was attached to this boat until August 1941. In late 1941, he reported to the Portsmouth Navy Yard in New Hampshire to join USS Flying Fish, then fitting out. All the while, his career steadily advanced. He was promoted to lieutenant (j.g.) in 1938 and full lieutenant in 1941.

Walling met Doris Annabella Helmkamp (1922–2000) in 1940 or 1941, the daughter of U.S. Navy commander Elmer F. Helmkamp and Mildred A. Helmkamp. His

surviving letters to her reveal a man quickly and deeply smitten. In one written to her from Manila on letterhead from USS S-37 in 1941, he says, “Haven’t been out dancing much, cause every place there is to go only reminds me of once with you. . . . I swear I shall be very sensible when I see you, but when I see you, I know I shan’t be sensible, and that’s because / I Love you, John.” When she came to Manila on a tour of the Pacific with her parents, he wrote to her still, even while seeing her often. In a letter dated only “Sunday,” he writes, “You looked very lovely last night, and thank you for dancing with me. Truly, you dance beautifully, and I’m afraid I’m the one who does the staggering. Shall we dance again sometime?” Before she departs, he writes, “You are so lovely tonight that I must write you about it, on account I am especially in love with you, and hope you are the same. May I hope that—nay—tis perhaps foolhardy of me to suggest—but yet—that perhaps

before you go I might hold your hand.” In another letter, written aboard USS Canopus en route to Shanghai, he writes, “This is a terrible condition I’m in. No matter what I’m doing, you keep popping up . . . . What a fine condition for a young man to be in.”

Unfortunately, we do not have any of Annabella’s letters to John. From what he writes, we get glimpses of her news and can see her sending snapshots and gossip. “And I certainly do want one of those pictures you had taken for the sorority, and I most emphatically don’t have too many of you, and they don’t take up too much room.”

In October 1941, Walling visited Nantucket on leave before reporting to the Portsmouth Navy Yard to join USS Flying Fish, then fitting out. He reported to Annabella that the cold, squally, overcast weather was “just the sort” he had expected. It was good to see his friends

again, but he really could only think of her. “Oh, sweet, I love you so much and as I see this Island again, and all its attractive corners and quaint streets, I think of how it will be when I can show it all to you, for Nantucket is a very lovely spot, even when the wind howls!” A few days later he reports he’s been cod fishing offshore. “We go about 20 miles off the beach, bait the hooks with clams, let the line down to the bottom, and haul up 15 lb. codfish as fast as you can handle the line. Got a bushel of scallops the other day, and now my hands are all cut up from opening them—can’t take this rugged life. . . . When I’m not fishing, I go over to the Wharf Rats Club to sit in my allotted place around the pot-bellied stove and gam with all the old-timers. . . . Oh, sweet, if and when I retire, I shall spend my summers and the fall down here renting sail-boats and just a-sitting at the Wharf Rats; you can come too.”

John Walling standing in the conning tower during one of his submarine patrols. Gift of Raymond F. DuBois Jr.

Another letter makes clear that John had given Annabella his class ring as a token of affection. After the U.S. declared war on Japan in December 1941, he told her to keep it “cause if anything should happen, which I know won’t, I’d like you to have it anyway.”

In May 1942, the Flying Fish departed the east coast for the Pacific theater. While aboard the sub, John wrote a continuous series of letters to Annabella, which he called “this news-letter to you.” The first page begins, “27 May, 1942. At 100 feet,” and continues, “maybe some day when you drag this letter out, I can say, ‘oh, yes, that was written one day, just before_____’ and it will be sort of historical, as it were. And you will flash your blue eyes at me and murmur, ‘my hero’!” A week later Walling and the Flying Fish took part in the historic Battle of Midway.

In mid-July 1942, Walling described his boat heading back to base after nearly three months on patrol. “[N] ow all we have to do is evade a few thousand miles of air patrols, lurking enemy submarines, and our own forces, who seem to take particular glee in bopping us, and I can talk to you again, hear that throaty chesty voice I so love. Today, for the first time in more than three weeks, we’ve been on the surface during daylight, and, oh, golly, did that sun ever feel good. We get used to seeing each other by the light of electric bulbs, and quite forget what the long period out of the light will do. . . . Everything, but meat, comes from cans now, has been for weeks. Even the potatoes! And, despite all the vitamin pills we’ve taken, fresh fruit and vegetables will sure be welcome. There goes the diving alarm; must be a plane: see you later.”

John Walling and his friends on Old North Wharf, August 1943. Back row, left to right: Margery and Leeds Mitchell, Austin Strong, John Walling, Richard C. Beer. Front: Annabella Walling and Doris Beer. The Skipper restaurant and Steamboat Wharf are in the background. Gift of Edouard A. Stackpole, P823.

Lt. Cmdr. John Walling and Annabella Walling departing on their honeymoon, May 1943. Gift of Raymond F. DuBois Jr.

John Walling was promoted to the rank of lieutenant commander in May 1943. The same month, while he was stateside between patrols, he and Annabella were married in a ceremony in Coronado, California. He undertook additional training at New London in late 1944, at which time the couple purchased a modest house outside Mystic, Connecticut. Plans for furnishing and fitting out the house, complete with sketches, fill a number of letters.

Walling visited his mother on Nantucket a number of times: in October and November 1941, in April, August, and September 1943, and in May, July, and September 1944. During his spring 1943 visit, he brought with him the Silver Star medal he had received for gallantry in action as diving officer on Flying Fish. He gave the medal to his mother and told her to “hide this in a bureau somewhere, Ma, and don’t tell anybody about it.” The Inquirer and Mirror reported the honor to its island readers three months later, when the government released the news. Annabella accompanied him on the August 1943 and the 1944 visits.

In all, Walling took part in three war patrols aboard Flying Fish. In 1943, he was given command of USS S-48, and in 1944 he commanded USS Marlin on a patrol in the Atlantic, during which time he was appointed to the rank of commander. Finally, he was ordered to take command of USS Snook in the Pacific, which he did on December 5, 1944.

Walling took the Snook on its eighth and ninth combat patrols of the war. The boat patrolled the Kurile region north of Japan on its eighth patrol, but attacked no enemy vessels. The boat returned to Guam after this and sailed on its next patrol on March 25, 1945. Emergency repairs brought the Snook back to port two days later, with it finally departing again on March 28. On that day, John wrote to Annabella, “Dearest Missy, A few hurried last lines again . . . . We’ve had a pleasant 24 hour stay . . . . Love you, Darlingest, love you and want you and think of you all the time. I’ve got it bad, and it’s wonderful. Thank you for marrying me. Kiss, kiss, kiss. John.”

It is unclear when Annabella, living at the couple’s house outside Mystic, would have received this letter mailed from Guam. We do know she received a telegram from the navy on May 14, 1945: “The Navy Department deeply regrets to inform you that your husband Commander John Franklin Walling USN is missing

Commander John Walling and wife, Annabelle on their wedding day, 1943. Courtesy Raymond F. DuBois.

following action while in the service of his country. The department appreciates your great anxiety but details not now available and delay in receipt thereof must necessarily be expected.”

From Guam on March 28, the Snook headed to the South China Sea. Walling reported his boat’s position about 50 miles from the east coast of Hainan, China, on April 8. Orders he received over the next four days did not require acknowledgment, and he sent none. The boat was then ordered to assist in the rescue of downed British airmen on April 20, but made no reply. Due in off patrol on May 5, the Snook never arrived. The best guess of naval historians is that it was sunk by an enemy submarine, but no evidence has been found in Japanese naval records to confirm how the submarine was lost.

In August 1945, the navy publicly disclosed that the Snook was overdue from patrol and was presumed last with all hands. Annabella received a packet containing her undelivered letters to Walling: “As soon as mail is received in this office for Naval personnel who are missing in action, it is returned to sender as undeliverable,” the covering letter said. “We wish with you that war conditions had not prevented our delivering all of the enclosed letters for your husband before he was reported missing, but trust that your love and support were conveyed over and over again in the mail which did reach him.” In the fall, Annabella requested and

received, a complete list of the names and addresses of the next of kin for the Snook’s entire crew, so that she could write letters of condolences. The list of parents, siblings, and widows, preserved with Walling’s letters, makes sad reading.

When John was officially declared dead in May 1946, Annabella, then residing on Rose Lane in Nantucket, received a letter from Navy Secretary Adm. James Forrestal. “I know what little solace the formal and written word can be to help meet the burden of your loss, but in spite of that knowledge, I cannot refrain from saying very simply, that I am sorry. It is hoped that you may find comfort in the thought that your husband gave his life for his country, upholding the highest traditions of the Navy.”

Annabella was a sophomore at UCLA at the time of John’s death. In October 1946, she married Cmdr. Raymond F. DuBois (1915–1992), another U.S. Navy submarine officer, and they started a family together. Commander Walling’s commissioning sword eventually passed to her son, Raymond F. DuBois Jr., and it is he who donated it to the NHA last year in a ceremony at the Wharf Rat Club in honor of his mother. John Walling’s diaries, retained by his widow, passed to a family friend, whose daughter, Susan Carpenter, discovered them after her mother’s death and has now donated them to the NHA.

“Due off patrol on May 5, the Snook never arrived. The best guess of naval historians is that it was sunk by an enemy submarine, but no evidence has been found...”

Research Library Update

In 2022, the NHA’s digitization team completed work on nearly 60 manuscript collections, all of which are now available to researchers online. The year started off with digitizing the Ships Papers Collection (1,521 items), with the rest of the year spent digitizing collections as small as a single item to collections of family correspondence numbering thousands of pages.

This year, the focus is on two collections: account books and student reports from the Preservation Institute Nantucket program. The account book collection consists of nearly 500 volumes recording the business dealings of hundreds of island individuals and firms. Many of these volumes are from Nantucket ships and preserve crew lists, payments records, and lists of supplies, whale oil, and transactions in foreign ports. Other volumes relate to the island’s lighthouses, shops, wharfs, government offices, the railroad, and land transactions. Documenting 300 years of business activity, the collection ranges from Mary Coffin Starbuck’s seventeenth-century account book to Bill Sevren’s 1980s receipt books.

The University of Florida’s Preservation Institute Nantucket (PIN) has operated as a center for education in historic research and architectural preservation on Nantucket since 1972. It is one of the nation’s oldest, continually operating field schools for historic preservation. The program prepares the next generation of heritage specialists as part of applied research and learning that helps document, conserve and manage the island’s historical, architectural and cultural resources. The NHA Research Library is one of

three repositories to receive the research outputs of the program and is working in partnership with PIN to make this research available online.

Also in 2023, the NHA is launching a pilot digitization project at the collections storage center. Due to the wide variety of artifacts in the collection, digitization of three-dimensional materials requires a different approach than the one taken at the Research Library for digitizing materials such as manuscripts, books, and photographs. The pilot will allow staff to establish workflows and metrics that can guide the project long term.

In the first quarter, the pilot project team has reviewed nearly 1,000 artifacts, including paintings, trunks, ship models, South Seas materials, natural history specimens, and architectural mementos, ensuring that each is cataloged and photographed. Upcoming artifacts include jewelry and a subset of the furniture collection.

Digitization of the NHA’s collections is made possible thanks to a visionary gift from Connie and Tom Cigarran. The NHA Board of Trustees has matched their gift, allowing staff to increase digitization capacity this year.

The collections digitization pilot project team (from left to right): Miles Burton, Meghan Luksic, and Deven Kirby.

The Research Library digitization team (from left to right): Maria Grause, Tracy Leddy, Ashley Miller, and Julia Campese.

The second and third acquisitions are both letter books—compilations of outgoing business correspondence from island merchants. The first is from the whale-oil and candle maker James Barker (1759–1832) and contains letters to his extensive network of business associates in Boston, New York, and elsewhere from 1794 to 1803, including letters to his younger half-brother Jacob Barker (1779–1871), who was later a leading figure in antebellum American finance. The NHA holds a great many individual business documents from the late eighteenth century but very few complete letter books from this time. The book promises to open a window on the daily operations of one of the island’s less-understood whale-oil concerns.

The NHA has recently added three important manuscripts to its research collections. The first is a logbook from the ship Henry Astor. The Henry Astor was built as a merchant ship in New York in 1820. It made two whaling voyages to the Pacific from Hudson, New York, under Captain Charles Rawson between 1831 and 1839 before undertaking two more from Nantucket between 1840 and 1848 under captains Seth Pinkham and Thomas M. Coffin. The ship then carried the members of the Henry Astor Mining Company and the Sherburne Mining Company from Nantucket to the California gold fields in 1849. It was subsequently sold to Panamanian owners. The current logbook documents the 1831–35 voyage from Hudson and was written by first mate Reuben F. Starbuck of Nantucket. This voyage was particularly successful, harvesting 2,200 barrels of sperm oil; the log contains many drawings of whales and whale tails, indicating successful and failed hunts. By coincidence, the NHA already holds a scrimshaw whale tooth bearing a portrait of the Henry Astor that was engraved by the very same Reuben Starbuck during this voyage. The logbook is a gift of Peggy Coyle; an ancestor of hers purchased the book for $1.00 on a summer visit to Nantucket in 1889.

Henry Astor Ship Log. MS220 Log 424. Gift of Peggy Coyle in 2022 (Acc. RL2022.31).

The second letter book is from Christopher Mitchell & Company, the island firm that operated the famous Nantucket whalers Globe, Lima, Peruvian, Phebe, and Christopher Mitchell. The book starts in 1835 and runs to 1843, and its letters relate to the details of shipping, whaling, and oil refining. The construction progress of a new whaleship, the Walter Scott, is traced in letters to Gideon Barstow & Son in Mattapoisett. Other letters reveal disputes about leaky whaleships in the Pacific, purchases of canvas and hemp for sail- and ropemaking, and shipments of refined oil in Nantucket’s coasting fleet to merchants in New York and elsewhere. The book is a gift of Deborah Culbertson.

The NHA, like many museums and archives, collects oral histories to preserve living traditions and record community history from the people who lived it. Hearing people’s stories in their own voices reminds us that history is made in the present, and not all history can be collected through artifacts alone.

The NHA is custodian for several hundred oral-history recordings, in both audio-only and video formats, and regularly initiates new recording projects to answer new questions and address specific research goals. In this update, we hear from two NHA Research Fellows about their recent experiences working on Nantucket oral-history initiatives.

COLLECTING ORAL HISTORIES

By Frances Karttunen, NHA Research Fellow

In the summer of 1960, The Inquirer and Mirror sent me to interview a visiting celebrity. I knew very little about her or her accomplishments, and there was no way in those days to do a fast search, so what I turned in was not worth printing.

In 1965 I apprenticed with a master fieldworker recording rural dialect samples from Finnish immigrants in the US. The goal was to get people to speak at length, and the questions came from a list of events and personalities in Finland just before and after the emigration years. This strategy elicited some riveting oral history.

I spent most of my academic career writing about the indigenous languages of Mexico. I was studying how people spoke, but I could not ignore what they spoke about, and this led to my book Between Worlds

Shortly after the publication of Between Worlds, I retired home to write The Other Islanders, for which I interviewed Nantucketers whose parents or grandparents had come to Nantucket from other countries, including from the Cape Verde Islands. In 2002 I organized Jag!, an exhibition in the NHA’s Research Library Whitney Gallery for which Nantucket Cape Verdeans donated nearly a hundred family photos to the NHA photo collection.

Still image from an interview with Theran Singleton, 2022. Gift of Theran Singleton, RL2022.21 (MS590 DO-590/6).

The NHA returned to the theme of Nantucket Cape Verdeans in 2021 with Shoulders Upon Which We Stand, an exhibition in the Whaling Museum, followed in 2022 with Cape Verde in Our Soul. For this, I conducted seven one-hour interviews with nine individuals, and I also spoke with two others in a Food for Thought program presentation. Although there was hesitancy from some at first, these Cape Verdeans had confidence in me because of our previous positive relationship and because the 2021 exhibition had taken a first step toward representing their history within the walls of the Whaling Museum. We conversed easily because of long acquaintance and my familiarity with past generations of Nantucket families. Challenges came in scheduling all the interviews within one winter month and carrying out one long-distance interview. Another challenge for me was transcribing Cape Verdean Kriolu words and phrases. The interviewees had learned these by ear, but had yet to learn how they might be written down. There had also been recent spelling reforms for written Kriolu. However, an up-to-date glossary of words and phrases and consulting with Carl Cruz of New Bedford provided clarity.

Of prime importance with oral history interviews is transcribing each interview as soon as possible after recording and being able to check with the interviewee during the process. However, there are always things that need clarification, and it is essential to get the names of people mentioned and the spelling of their names correct.

Reviewing a 2001 interview I conducted with Eileen P. McGrath (1923–2021) about her schoolmates in the Nantucket schools in the 1930s, I came across a previously-overlooked nugget about Nantucket Cape Verdeans.

Eileen: Jareaseh Arges St. Jean. I grew up with her. …The Arges kids lived with the Rodericks in that lovely old Nantucket house on the west side of Surfside Road just before the road going in to the youth center. Their family made the bayberry candles.

Another nugget from our conversation:

Eileen: …a laundry in back of York Street on what’s called Onion Court.

Frances: Onion Court? I've never heard of it.

Eileen: Between York and Warren there’s a big block, and in there is a little thing called Onion Court. I don’t know if it's even recorded, but that is what it was called.…My father had a man who worked for him who lived on Onion Court.

Frances: You learn something new every day.

Eileen: You do, you do! And that's what makes it such fun.

Filming the Cape Verdean oral history interviews was a team effort that included Al and Mary Novissimo, Liz Schaeffer, videographer Joanna Hay, and myself. The positive warmth among the team members and the interviewees was a joy.

Left: Portrait of Eileen McGrath, originally published in Nantucket Map & Legend, 2000. Gift of Kate Stout (PH9-1-40).

REFLECTIONS ON TRANSCRIBING ORAL HISTORY

By Barbara Ann White, NHA Research Fellow

Transcribing oral histories is interesting and challenging. Even if the transcriptions are about people you know, you never fail to learn new things. And the tales about island life will uncover tidbits of history that you never knew.

Transcribing is easier than it used to be because of an automated speech-to-text program. Each oral history is uploaded, and the transcriber reads and listens to each interview simultaneously. The job entails making corrections as you listen. You pause the recording and type in the adjustments. Sometimes, this is not as easy as it sounds because the program prints what it hears, and that may not always be accurate.

People do not always articulate clearly, and voices may drop in volume and become difficult to hear. Background noises can interfere. Sometimes you need to wind and re-wind the recording to distinguish what was said. Good headphones are a must, so the listener can try to isolate the word or phrase that at first seemed unintelligible.

The longer you listen, the more accustomed you become to the particular voice and begin to pick up more words. This may require listening to an entire interview several times to pick up something that you might have missed earlier.

Transcribers need to be familiar with words particular to Nantucket. Place names are often hilariously mangled by digital transcriptions. Examples include the words Sconset, Madaket, and Coatue, which are never transcribed correctly. I listened to one interview several times before I realized that the name was Wyer.

Above: Bartlett Road home of Frank and Bette Spriggs, 1993. Gift of H. Flint Ranney, RL2007.21 (PH12-121).

I learn a lot by transcribing and not just about Nantucket. For example, I knew Frank and Bette Spriggs fairly well during their retirement years, but I learned a lot about their rich and fascinating lives before moving to the island. I felt like I got to know them much better by transcribing their 2015 interview with Betsy Tyler.

Francis W. “Franny” Pease told interesting stories about growing up on Nantucket during the Depression. The yearround population was so small that he and his friends could ride their bikes to the beach in the summer, stay all day, and “not see a soul.” He recalled an ice and sleet storm so intense that he skated from school to his home in the middle of the street.

Franny talked at length about his years in the army during World War II. A ham radio enthusiast, he had hoped to be assigned to radio communications. Instead, despite no experience whatsoever, he was assigned to chemical warfare in the Aleutian Islands, which he did not enjoy: “It was nasty stuff.”

He reminisced about the many jobs he’d had on Nantucket and reflected on the changes he had witnessed, mostly about the increase in summer and year-round population.

Frank Spriggs, who “started as a summer kid in 1943,” moved to the island full-time for a portion of his childhood. When he was 10, he enrolled in Cyrus Peirce School, which then housed grades 1–6. The only African American in his grade, he said he was “excited” to be there because the school he’d attended in Washington, D.C., had been segregated.

Like Franny, Bette, and Frank described a time when Nantucket was much emptier. Bartlett Road, where they built a house, was a dirt road surrounded by fields with few houses. One neighbor was the nightclub “Thirty Acres,” owned by the Perry family. The Spriggs reminisced about lining up for tickets to dance to live music.

During Frank’s years at I.B.M., they did a lot of international travel, including three years in Japan and a trip to China in the early 1980s. Bette visited the Beijing Zoo when the pandas were a major attraction while Frank was in a business meeting. Frank said that Bette “became the attraction” as a six-foot-tall Black woman. Bette added, “but, not in a hostile way.”

Transcribing interviews is beneficial on several levels. They help the NHA to document local history. They are enjoyable for the people being interviewed who enjoy sharing their stories. And they are learning experiences for both the interviewer and the transcriber.

Francis Pease in his U.S. Army uniform, 1943. Gift of Steve Shepard, RL2005.76 (P21810).

1. Emily F. Coffin Gardner (1836–1906) with an unidentified woman, possibly her mother, Valina Coffin. Sixth-plate ambrotype. PH169 C37.

2. Louisa Drew Fisher (1810–1891) and Captain Elisha H. Fisher (1807–1883). Captain Fisher commanded a number of whaling ships, including the Maria and Napoleon of Nantucket. Two sixth-plate daguerreotypes. Gift of the estate of Mary B. Fisher, 1959.16. PH169 C86, C87.

3. Taken as a farewell gift for Emily T. Barnard, 1855. Halfplate daguerreotype. Standing, left to right: Lizzie Crosby, Lizzie Whitney, Helen Pinkham. Sitting, left to right: Susan B. Crosby, Emily T. Barnard, Sarah Howland Gardner. Gift of Helen C. McCleary, RL1999.2004.1. PH169 C224.

4. Unidentified man holding carpenter’s tools. Ninth-plate ambrotype. PH169 C252.

5. Group on board a ship, circa 1855. Half-plate ambrotype. PH169 C260.

6. Judith Jones Derrick (1836–1912) worked as a teacher at Nantucket High School until she married artist George G. Fish in 1866. Ninth-plate daguerreotype. PH169 C55.

Conserving the Cased Photograph Collection

The NHA holds a significant collection of early photographs, 276 cased daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes. Dating from 1845 to the mid-1870s, the images in the collection are often the only photographic documentation of the island’s whaling elite, particularly during the industry’s waning years between the Great Fire of 1846 and the last whaleship’s departure in 1869. The collection also contains the only known photograph of Nantucket before the Great Fire: an 1845 daguerreotype depicting Main Street. Many of the individuals depicted in these portraits are identified and in conjunction with the NHA’s extensive genealogical resources, can be linked to specific individuals and stories from Nantucket’s past.

Building off of a 2018 National Endowment for the Humanities Preservation Assistance Grant for Smaller Institutions, the NHA recently conserved 19 cased photographs (13 daguerreotypes, 6 ambrotypes). Senior Photograph Conservator Monique Fischer completed the treatment at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Mass. Daguerreotypes are generally considered to be the first fully successful and practicable photographic process. Commonly in use from 1839 to the late 1850s, they were made using a copper plate coated in silver. The image was captured directly on the plate (“direct positive”), so images are laterally reversed, as in a mirror image. The primary conservation concern with the NHA’s daguerreotypes is the deteriorating cover glass, which has created spotting on a number of images. This is the result of the glass exuding an alkaline liquid that appears opaque, and, if untreated, may chemically attach the daguerreotype, pitting the silver, and exposing the copper beneath. Treatment for these objects included replacing the original glass (which was retained) with more stable borosilicate glass.

Ambrotypes, most popular in the mid-1850s, were commonly available from 1852 until 1881. These were made by sensitizing a plate of glass using the wet plate collodion emulsion process. The image captured on the glass is a negative. To make it appear as a positive image, the plate was backed with a black material. Like daguerreotypes, the image captured was mirrored, but ambrotypes could correct for this by flipping the plate over (emulsion side down) to apply black backing. The conservation concern with the NHA’s ambrotypes is flaking of the black backing layer and collodion, which was consolidated during the treatment process.

Due to the fragile nature of the cased photographs, the collection was digitized in 2022, with support from Connie and Tom Cigarran. As part of the digitization process, catalog records were updated to reflect current metadata standards and best practices, with the ultimate goal of increased discoverability of the collection. Future plans include improved housing for the collection and further conservation on the most at-risk images.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this update do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Research Library Undergoing Major Restoration Project Pending Town Approval

Starting this spring, the NHA will be conducting a major restoration project at the Research Library, located at 7 Fair Street, funded by the Nantucket Community Preservation Committee (CPC), pending approval at the next Town Meeting. The Research Library and adjacent Friends Meeting House will close to visitors for the season in early April in preparation for this potential project.

The project will include conservation and stabilization of the historic concrete façade to ensure the building is structurally sound, as well as replacement of windows, doors, and entryway roof, installation of a new HVAC control system, fire suppression system, and water and drainage system, as well as some electrical relocation work. All while ensuring the restoration work is physically compatible with this important historic building and guaranteeing the conservation and security of the collection housed within the building.

The Research Library is significant in the history of the development of reinforced concrete and was one of the first poured-in-place concrete structures built in the United States in 1904 to house the NHA’s collection in a fireproof building.

Just three years after its inception, the NHA recognized the need for safe storage of the treasures in its care. Recording secretary Mary E. Starbuck wrote in her 1897 report: “More than anything, we need a fireproof building. We have land enough at the rear of the Meeting-house for a brick extension of sufficient size for our purposes, and when we have such an addition, many valuable relics will come back to the island.”

In 1897, the association made a pivotal decision. Rather than buying and “fitting up” a whaleship, an idea that was briefly considered but deemed too expensive, it was voted that the fund accumulating for that purpose be convert-

Research Library

Research Library and Friends Meeting House, October 2022.

ed to a fund for “the most pressing need of the Association — the erection of a fire-proof building.” Instead of brick, concrete was chosen as the building material by architect George W. Watson of Boston. As an early adapter of this building technology, the Research Library is the second reinforced concrete structure in the State of Massachusetts (after Harvard Stadium) and the first reinforced concrete structure in Massachusetts, if not the United States, with a flat roof.

The collection of artifacts and documents that had been growing for ten years was moved from the Friends Meeting House to the new fireproof building in 1905. The fireproof building was for years known as the Fair Street Museum, the primary exhibition space of the association, with collections arranged in a “cabinet of curiosities” style on both floors of the building. The Fair Street Museum was the heart of the NHA, overflowing with everything from projectile points to whaling logbooks, along with larger items like furniture and firehose carts. As the association expanded its properties in the twentieth century, which created additional exhibition and storage spaces, the aging fireproof building sat ripe for a new use that honored the aspirations of the founders of the NHA.

What better place for a library and research center than a fireproof building? Therefore, it was retrofitted, restored, and enlarged in 2001 for irreplaceable primary-source documents, including logbooks, account books, family papers, maps, journals, business records,

and photographs that record the history of Nantucket to be housed in a climate-controlled space.

Today, the building serves as a research center for historians, students, journalists, homeowners searching for information about their Nantucket houses, genealogists filling in the branches of their family trees, and more!

Special thanks to the Nantucket Community Preservation Committee (CPC) for their continued support and generosity over the years, most recently supporting projects including the exterior and interior rehabilitation of the Thomas Macy Warehouse and the Whaling Museum’s Hadwen & Barney Oil and Candle Factory.

Includes excerpts from the Nantucket Historical Association Properties Guide, Quaker Meeting House/Research Library by Betsy Tyler, 2015.

NOTICE

The Research Library and Friends Meeting House will be closed to the public from April through November 2023. Throughout this closure, Research Library staff will still be responding to inquiries at library@nha.org and accommodating research appointments on a case-by-case basis.

To learn more about the history of the Research Library, please visit www.NHA.org

Crowd of onlookers watching the laying of the cornerstone for the addition of the Research Library (at the time known as the Fair Street Museum, 1904).

Exterior façade of the Fair Street Museum (Research Library) circa 1910.

Verney Fellowship Research Update

Kayci Merritte’s research trips to the NHA’s Research Library focused on recovering narratives from the archive about Black people as they were found in spaces ranging from the historic whaleship to the still-forming spaces of tourism on Nantucket. Her research was informed by a variety of materials, including personal letters, newspaper clippings, ships’ logs, postcards, and tourist manuals. This research fits into her broader academic work and teaching focused on notions of Black space and place. Her dissertation for her Ph.D. in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University works within the areas of Black geographies and environmental humanities and analyzes perilous everyday environments and materials.

In an effort to enhance the public’s knowledge and understanding of the heritage of Nantucket, Mass., the NHA offers an annual fellowship, the E. Geoffrey and Elizabeth Thayer Verney Fellowship. Established in 1999, the award encourages research in the collections of the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library and is open to academics, graduate students, and independent scholars.

Applications or inquiries may be sent to Amelia Holmes, NHA Director of Collections & Research Services, at aholmes@nha.org

An ad for the Ocean House hotel from the Handbook of Nantucket, 1874. MS397-4-13.

NHA Launches Climate Change Assessment Project at Historic Properties this Summer

Building from the invigorating Climate Change and Cultural Heritage Symposium the NHA hosted this past December with the National Park Service, we have been fortunate to work with ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property) based in Rome, the University of Pennsylvania’s Historic Preservation graduate program, and ICR-ICC (Integrated Conservation Resources Inc. and Integrated Conservation Contracting, Inc.). ICR-ICC is a group of architectural conservators who design conservation programs for historic buildings, monuments, and sites. Glenn Boornazian started this company in 1987, but before that, Glenn worked for the NHA and oversaw the maintenance and repair of our structures.

After many discussions, an exciting multiyear project is being developed to host a group of UPenn student interns to spend ten weeks on the island this summer to evaluate the NHA’s properties. The interns will be led by Glenn and Dr. Rohit Jigyasu, an international expert and project manager at ICCROM, specializing in risk management related to disasters and climate change at cultural heritage sites. The student interns will also work with local environmental experts to understand the risks to the Nantucket environment. In addition, we will conduct reviews of each of our properties to create Conservation Management Plans (CMPs). These plans would include a resilience review of our properties by assessing the risks of disasters and climate change and integrating the results into the CMPs. This would position the NHA in a leadership role on this subject, particularly as it relates to historic structural and building materials. In addition, ICR-ICC will also provide support to prioritize our specific building issues, including those unrelated to disasters and climate change, and develop coordinated implementation plans with associated budgets. These plans would include our own immediate priorities and those we uncover as we implement the conservation management plans for our properties, which will explore any risks from their surrounding context.

The project will then continue through the fall and winter as we install weather stations and monitors to collect data at each property, to be incorporated through software with overarching climate trends to help guide the site work for the following year. The NHA is thrilled about this collaboration with ICCROM, UPenn, and ICR-ICC to develop more data to help design and implement programs to protect historic properties, provide resources to others on Nantucket, and reach out to other communities that find themselves facing similar losses and risks. Stay tuned for more information as this project launches this summer!

Beneath the Shifting Sands A Journey to Discover the Identity of a Historic Shipwreck on Nantucket’s South Shore

By Evan Schwanfelder, Director of Education and Public Programs at Egan Maritime Institute

On the morning of November 30, 2022, I received a message from a friend on my phone, “Hey, any idea about the shipwreck that got uncovered on the south shore?”

In my five years at Egan Maritime, at least a few times a year, I get a call or someone comes into the office claiming to have found a “shipwreck.” While these messages are always well-intentioned, the remnants found are typically small and impossible to place in any historical context.

This specific case was not the norm, and a photo was attached. The picture showed what appeared to be a bow section, with frame pieces exposed. It looked old and substantial in size, so I decided to explore the site myself at low tide and was blown away by a few things. First, the size at approximately 40 feet long, pacing off the distance, and 12-15 feet wide. Second, based on the first photos I’d seen, the site had already filled in substantially.

By Saturday, word was spreading on the island; more people had seen the site and sent pictures to local news outlets. At Egan, our team decided it was time to research our next steps. A quick Google search yielded the results. The organization Egan needed to get in touch with was the Massachusetts Board of Underwater Archeological Resources (BUAR). On the website, they had a link to a one-page form that we filled out and submitted.

Just a day later, we were on the phone with the head archeologist at the BUAR, David Robinson, who was very excited to see the wreck and cautioned that time was of the essence in surveying the site on the beach. Dave and his colleague Graham McKay, master wooden boat builder and marine archeologist, were scheduled on a ferry to the island by the end of the week.

Above: (Left to right) David Robinson, Michael Harrison, Graham McKay, Renee Ceeley, Evan Schwanfelder at the wreck site on the south short. Photo credit Katie Kaizer Photography.

Shipwreck Update

Egan assembled a local team to compile as much research data as we could. The group included members of Egan Maritime staff, Michael Harrison, the Chief Curator and Obed Macy Research Chair at the NHA, and Holly Backus, Nantucket’s Preservation Planner. After looking at various data points from local newspaper archives and secondary sources on Nantucket shipwrecks, the group determined that remains could be from one of three ships: Poinsett, Austin Locke, or Warren Sawyer

Ultimately, the group decided to focus their research on Warren Sawyer, which included reviewing historic photographs, insurance, and construction records in the NHA’s collection. These documents gave insight into the composition of the wood, and the types of fasteners used to build the vessel.

On December 8, just before low tide, the team headed out to survey the wreck. The site itself had filled in substantially since the time of the first reporting, but enough was still visible for Robinson and McKay to do an in-depth field survey. Robinson took special note of the type of wood in the remains and fastening hardware. We found a discrepancy in the visible wood types with what was listed on the construction records, but further research into the construction records revealed repair records of “mixed” wood in the Warren Sawyer The most significant missing piece of the puzzle was the lack of copper fasteners. Iron fastenings and wooden treenails were present, but the records clearly stated that the vessel was “iron and copper fastened,” and without the recorded presence of copper, it would be hard to say with complete certainty that the wreck was conclusively the Warren Sawyer.

In February of 2023, Egan Maritime once again got a call that another large fragment was exposed to the east of the original site. Approximately 1,000 feet east of the original site was another substantial piece of wreckage. Knowing the process, I took pictures, logged the coordinates, and filed a BUAR report. Dave Robinson and Michael Harrison reviewed the findings and determined it was most likely a stern section. Dave asked right away if I had seen any copper. During this initial review, I hadn’t seen the fastenings. That afternoon, at low tide, I went back to the site, and after just a few minutes I found a small black nail head with absolutely no rust or corrosion nailed into the butt end of an outer piece of hull planking, exactly where Dave said to look. We had found the presence of copper, the location of the two pieces matched the description of the debris field after the vessel had broken apart, and we were much closer to determining the true identity. In a follow-up conversation with Dave, I asked if we could conclude that these wreck fragments are the Warren Sawyer. He replied that we could absolutely not say that it isn’t the Warren Sawyer, and with the weight of evidence provided compared to the archeological remains, the simplest explanation, in this case, is probably the most applicable: the remains are most likely the remnants of the wrecked coastal schooner Warren Sawyer

Today, Egan Maritime is committed to collaborating with our research partners to launch an education program where community members can visit the sites and learn more about the research process. Nantucket’s history belongs to everyone, and we want to create educational programs that involve the whole community and teach the next generation of Island residents to be thoughtful stewards of our coastline. In addition, we are adding an exhibition on the Warren Sawyer to Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum to allow curious minds to learn more about this important piece of Nantucket history.

To explore this story further, tune into Egan Maritime’s Time and Tide podcast!

Evan Schwanfelder and Michael Harrison examining the wreck. Photo credit Katie Kaizer Photography.

Programs

NHA on the Road

Bringing Nantucket's rich history and stories to senior residents island-wide. This winter, our Museum Guides explored various stories with senior residents, including the Wampanoags, the story of the Great Fire of 1846, and Women’s history, which the NHA partnered with the Maria Mitchell Association on during the month of March.

Generously funded by The Community Foundation of Nantucket

Mindful History

Serving over 150 participants this winter, our new series Mindful History includes programs for the year-round community and visitors to discover their personal connection to art and history through participant-based conversation and reflection using the Whaling Museum collections, as well as yoga and meditation at Greater Light, and free-flow Decorative Arts workshops at various NHA properties. Connecting through Art and History guides participants through a multi-step process to See, Think, Connect, and Uncover their relationships to multiple pieces in our collection. The NHA partners with Fairwinds, Nantucket’s Counseling Center, on this series. Generously supported by The Tupancy-Harris Foundation.

Transcribe-A-Thon

We were thrilled to host the first-ever NHA Transcribe-A-Thon at the Whaling Museum this past March. Participants were invited to learn how to join our volunteer transcription program, get tips and guidelines for interpreting historic handwriting, and have the opportunity to practice transcribing with others. In addition to transcribing our ships’ logs collection, volunteers explored new projects recently digitized, including the Marshall-Pinkham-Farrier family papers and the Obed Macy journals and letter books. There was a hands-on calligraphy lettering station and a display of some of the archival material from the recently digitized collections on view for participants to see in person. With over 25 participants, the group transcribed 67 pages from the collection in one day!

If you would like to join our volunteer transcription program or learn about our next Transcribe-A-Thon event, please visit NHA.org or email Ashley Miller, NHA Assistant Archivist, at amiller@nha.org

This work is made possible thanks to a visionary gift from Connie and Tom Ciggaran, who understand and value how digitization and transcription help make our collections available and accessible to all.

School Programs

The Education team continues to engage with our island’s youth, bringing Nantucket history into the classroom and inviting students on adventures in the museum. In February, Nantucket Boys & Girls Club students spent the afternoon crafting a sailor’s valentine. In March, the Cyrus Pierce Middle School seventh grade class spent a day at the Whaling Museum to explore the ill-fated voyage of the whaleship Essex as they read the young readers’ version of In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick. Students enjoyed the signature Whaling Museum program of the Essex Gam presented by a Museum Guide, drawing scrimshaw, and touring the Essex exhibit.

DISCOVERY CENTER UPDATE

This spring, the Discovery Center is getting a fresh makeover, including a new mural by Mary Emery Lacoursiere in the story-time reading corner. As well as an engaging information interactive monitor, a student art display space, and a new Captain’s Quarters play station to open this summer.

Youth Weaving

This past March through April, we offered beginner and advanced youth weaving workshops, cultivating a returning group to continue honing their skills and welcoming a new group to introduce the iconic island craft. Our advanced youth weavers were invited to use dyed materials for their basics to create a colorful basket this winter, as seen here.

Little History Explorers

This spring, the popular offering of Little History Explorers returned to the Discovery Center, engaging with a younger audience, ages 1-5, in partnership with the Nantucket Community School. This program gives this young group a little taste of Nantucket history by visiting exhibits, enjoying a story time reading, and engaging with hands-on activities and crafts.

Education

Meet new staff in roles at the NHA!

Robin London, Events Manager

Robin is a born-and-bred New Yorker who has had her own photography and production company for over thirty years, where she specialized in fashion, portraiture, and events. After volunteering at a local pet rescue group, she started photographing her favorite portraits, “Soulful Pet Portraits.” Back in 1993, when Robin first visited Nantucket and stepped foot on those cobblestones, she knew the island would one day be her home. Robin has lived full-time on island since 2020 with her husband and their three rescue huskies. As an artist, Robin’s always dreamed of joining the NHA team. Robin says, “Starting a new life in my happy place has proven that hard work, determination, and countless Nantucket photographs helped make my dream come true! Working as the Events Manager for the NHA makes this dream even better.”

Amy Seip, Finance Manager

Amy comes to Nantucket from Northern Wisconsin/Minnesota where, for the past ten years, she worked in higher education at the University of Minnesota. She received her Master of Business Administration, with a focus on Leadership & Change / Organization Development, from the College of St. Scholastica and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration with a minor in Spanish and Latin American Studies from the University of Wisconsin. She is thrilled to be a part of the NHA team, and when not in the office she can usually be found exploring the island’s many trails and beaches with her husband and three sons.

Deborah Sorensen, Robyn & John Davis Curator of Exhibitions

Deborah, a Texas native and resident of Maryland, is excited to join the NHA as a remote team-member who will come to Nantucket regularly to support and further the NHA’s exhibition program. In Washington, D.C., she spent 17 years at the National Building Museum crafting exhibitions and film programs on far-ranging architecture and design topics and more recently served as Senior Content Developer for the planned Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. She also served as Senior Content Developer for the planned Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. She has an M.A. in Museum Studies from The George Washington University. Deborah is the proud mom of an artsy teenager and two loud rescue dogs.

2023 MEMBER EVENTS

Mark your Calendars!

Summer Exhibition Preview Reception

Thursday, May 25 | 5:30 – 7 pm

Whaling Museum

Join us for a special kick-off to the summer season while exploring our Summer Exhibit, Summer on Nantucket: A History of the Island Resort

Exclusive-Member Hour at the Whaling Museum

Every Friday, June 2 – September 1

9 – 10 am

Whaling Museum

Join us for some quiet time as members get the Whaling Museum to themselves. Great if you have a busy beach day ahead of you!

Mornings at the Collections Center

Wednesday, July 26 and Thursday, August 31 10 – 11 am

Gosnold Center, 89 Bartlett Road

Ever wonder what’s in the NHA Collections that aren’t on display for the public? Join our curatorial team for a behindthe-scenes tour of our special collections of paintings, furniture, and Nantucket artifacts.

Exclusive-Member Hour at the Hadwen House

Tuesday, June 13, Wednesday, July 12, and Tuesday, August 15

Mornings from 9 – 10 am

Wednesday, June 21, Tuesday, July 11, and Wednesday, August 23

Evenings from 5 – 6 pm

Spending your day in town? Be sure to see the NHA’s collections of Nantucket Lightship Baskets, as well as exhibitions highlighting the NHA’s decorative arts and map collections. Don’t forget to take a stroll through the gardens.

Hadwen Exhibition Opening Reception

Wednesday, June 21 | 5 – 7pm

MODERN BASKET MAKER

HIGHLIGHT:

KAROL LINDQUIST

By Karen T. Butler

We’ve all heard Shakespeare’s famous line, “What’s past is prologue.” That is certainly true for Nantucket lightship basket maker Karol Lindquist.

Karol is a second-generation Nantucketer and refers to herself as a traditional basket maker. For her, basketmaking encompasses feeling spiritually connected to and influenced by the earliest Nantucket lightship basket makers. These early makers created what she refers to as “work baskets,” mostly made of oak and utilitarian in nature.

Karol made her first Nantucket lightship basket while working with Reggie Reed, a self-described “laborer” who repaired baskets, made parts for other makers, and invented several devices to improve the process of basketmaking. She met him in the mid-1970s. He was initially reluctant to work with her, but he later realized he knew her relatives and finally agreed to allow her into his shop to train.

As Karol states it, Reggie did not teach her. Karol learned from Reggie by watching his every move as he crafted parts for lightship baskets. Reggie often reminded her, “You have to be thinking all the time about what you are doing and what’s going to be your next step.” For Karol, this all-encompassing thought process leads to learning all the time. Karol also learned various basketmaking techniques from several contemporary basket makers to improve her basketmaking skills.

Karol is drawn to traditional baskets and emulates their classic forms when creating her own baskets. For Karol, the early baskets stand alone for their simplicity and well-thought-out symmetry. These are qualities she aims to create, too. She sees the traditional baskets as beautiful, not needing a lot of ivory and other fancy decoration to adorn them.

Learning the craft of basketmaking from various basket makers has been a trend over many generations on the island. Karol learned from Reggie Reed, who took lessons from Bill Sevrens. Bill Sevrens was an apprentice to basket maker Mitchie Ray, who taught José Formoso Reyes, and the list continues. It is a web of influences, and the passing down of coveted techniques has helped keep the craft alive today.

Karol feels very connected to the Nantucket lightship basket lineage and is proud and happy to be part of it. As she sits in her workshop and talks of her love of traditional baskets, one can feel her pride in being part of a history unique to Nantucket.

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The passing down of coveted techniques has helped keep the craft alive today.”

1894 Founders Society

Through this Society, the Board of Trustees recognizes the cumulative giving by individuals who assist with the NHA’s annual operating needs. 1894 Founders Society members contribute $3,000 and up toward the annual fund, membership, and fundraising events, as well as to exhibitions and collections, plus scholarship and educational programs. Their generous support is greatly appreciated and welcomed by the community.

$50,000 and above

Connie & Tom Cigarran

Annabelle & Gregory Fowlkes

Jason A. Tilroe

$25,000 to $49,999

Anonymous

Nancy & Douglas Abbey

Susan Blount & Richard Bard

Amanda B. Cross

Deborah & Bruce Duncan

Barbara & Graham Goldsmith

Mark H. Gottwald

Kaaren & Charles Hale

Diane & Art Kelly

Jean Doyen de Montaillou & Michael Kovner

Franci Neely

Ella W. Prichard

Melinda & Paul Sullivan

Kim & Finn Wentworth

$10,000 to $24,999

Elizabeth & Lee Ainslie

Janet & Sam Bailey

Mary-Randolph Ballinger

Carol & Harold Baxter

Stacey & Robert Bewkes

Patricia Nilles & C. Hunter Boll

Maureen & Edward Bousa

Anne Marie & Doug Bratton

Laurie & Bob Champion

Olivia & Felix Charney

Martha W. Cox

Robyn & John Davis

John M. DeCiccio

Tracy & John Flannery

Kelly Williams & Andrew Forsyth

Connie Anne & Jeremiah Harris

Barbara & Amos Hostetter

Susanne & Zenas Hutcheson

Cecelia Joyce Johnson

Ann & Charlie Johnson

Diane & Mitch Karlin

Jill & Stephen Karp

Frances Karttunen

Anne & Todd Knutson

Rena & Josh Kopelman

Margaret Hallowell & Stephen

Langer

Helen & Will Little

Miriam Mandell

Bonnie & Peter McCausland

Ashley & Jeff McDermott

Carla & Jack McDonald

Ashley Gosnell Mody & Darshan

Mody

Diane & Britt Newhouse

Mary & Al Novissimo

Laura & Bob Reynolds

Crystal & Rich Richardson

Denise & Andrew Saul

Helen & Chuck Schwab

Janet & Richard Sherlund

Kathleen & Robert Stansky

Harriet & Warren Stephens

Colin Sykes

Kathryn Wagner

Paul E. Willer

Alisa & Alastair Wood

Kirsten & Peter Zaffino

$5,000 to $9,999

Patricia & Thomas Anathan

Lindsey & Merrick Axel

Victoria Sears-Bahnsen & Walter Bahnsen

Dinah & Barry Barksdale

Carole & Gary Beller

Pamela & Max Berry

Jennifer & Jonathan Blum

Carter & Henry Boughner

Christina Lee Brown

Julie Jensen Bryan & Robert

Bryan

Laura & Bill Buck

Lisa & Nathan Cressman

Beth A. Dempsey

Elizabeth Miller & James Dinan

Jennifer & Stephen Dolente

Ana & Michael Ericksen

Olamaie & Randall Fojtasek

Elizabeth Georgantas

Nan Geschke

Claire & Robert Greenspon

Gordon Gund

Catherine & Richard Herbst

Wendy Hubbell

Wendy & Randy Hudson

Joy H. Ingham

Carl Jelleme

Cynthia & Evan Jones

Mary Ann & Paul Judy

Coco & Arie Kopelman

Lucy Dillon & Kevin Kuester

Paula & Bruce Lilly

Sharon & Frank Lorenzo

Helen Lynch

Alice & J. Thomas Macy

Debra & Vincent Maffeo

Ronay & Richard Menschel

Ann & Craig Muhlhauser

Carter & Chris Norton

Liz & Jeff Peek

Maria & George Roach

Sharon & Frank Robinson

Janet L. Robinson

Linda T. Saligman

Marla & Terry Sanford

Maureen Searle

Mary Farland & Don Shockey

Georgia A. Snell

Laura & Gregory Spivy

Brooke & Michael Stanton

Kate Lubin & Glendon Sutton

Merrielou Symes

Ann & Peter Taylor

Garrett Thornburg

Sigrid & Ladd Thorne

Liz & Geoff Verney

Dorothy & Richard Verney

Suzy Welch

Mary & John West

$3,000 to $4,999

Susan D. Akers

Liz & Ben Barnes

Elizabeth Bauer

Susan & Bill Boardman

Anne DeLaney & Chip Carver

Beth K. Clyne

Beth & Andy Corry

Cynthia† & Joseph Freeman

Julie & Cam Gammill

Marybeth Gilmartin

Sara Schwartz & Will Hannum

Amy & Brett Harsch

Gloria & Jeffrey Holtman

Stephanie & Daniel Janis

Martha Dippell & Daniel

Korengold

Holly & Mark Maisto

Sally & Peter† Nash

Laura & William Paulsen

Ann & Chris Quick

Margaret & John Ruttenberg

Alison & Tom Schneider

Christine & Stephen

Schwarzman

Phoebe & Bobby Tudor

Denise & Bill Welsh

Harry W. Wilcox

Presents

Legacy

nantucket by design

August 2–5, 2023

As the Nantucket Historical Association’s summer fundraiser, Nantucket by Design celebrates design with engaging keynote speakers, unique discussions, a partnership with The Nantucket Summer Antiques Show, a design panel, and more!

2023 Design Luminaries

Stay tuned for more announcements!

Ashley Hicks and Martina Mondadori

Steele Marcoux

Thomas Jayne

Wambui Ippolito

Woven Bud Basket Class with Caitlin Parsons

Town Dish