Nantucket-Vineyard Relations, by Robert J. Leach

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Nantucket - Vineyard Relations

BY ROBERT J. LEACH

It may seem unkind to put the "younger" island first in this title. But in fact I have approached this sometimes tight relationship from the Nantucket vantage point. Last summer we chartered a plane to show the Vineyard to some house guests we were entertaining in 'Sconset where we spent the season.

As a third generation Vineyarder-turned Quaker (some thirty years ago), I was on Nantucket to get material for my forthcoming book on Nantucket Quakerism. I had got used to the barren moors, swamps, and scrub woods of the smaller island. How much more diversified, lush, and forested Martha's Vineyard appeared. Notwithstanding no Vineyard town (except Edgartown) echoes the metropolitan character of Nantucket town.

Curiously, the present Edgartown is mostly an early 19th century creation. Nantucket is older. It should be the other way round. Only in a few places is the "right" feeling registered. One such place is to view Edgartown from the Tower Hill burial ground to recall that much of the "old town" settlement was a farming complex stretching south and west toward the south beach. Large movement into Edgartown (as we know it) came only after the American Revolutionary War. Migration into Nantucket town from Capaum and southward took place a half century earlier. Both "urban" movements were directly related to the burgeoning whaling industry.

We all know that Thomas Mayhew received both islands (and others) by a grant from the Earl of Sterling, confirmed by Charles I in 1641. Mayhew founded Old Town the next year, settling on the property now known as the Mayhew Parsonage. Apparently he found squatters (as well as many Indians) on Martha's Vineyard. Among the former group the family of John Pease (who came on perhaps as early as 1680) takes central position.

Then in 1659 a cousin of Mayhew's, one Thomas Macy, began negotiations to settle Nantucket — to escape, as it happened, from the anti-liberal spirit then characteristic of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

By 1661 Nantucket began its corporate proprietary life, with Mayhew retaining both a full share and his position as Chief Magistrate. Tuckernuck Island was held by him in fee simple — and Muskeget was retained as a part of the Vineyard complex till 1881! Mayhew often attended the Proprietors' Meetings on Nantucket. He even arranged for his preacher (teacher) to come along to lead Sunday service on occasion — at Madaket — where the settlers first went.

NANTUCKET-VINEYAKD RELATIONS 29

This lay preacher was, of course, none other than Peter Folger, 1619-1690, who had replaced Thomas Mayhew, Jr., in 1657, when the latter took sail for England and was never heard of again. Folger spoke Algonquin, and was thus invaluable in arranging land purchases on Nantucket — probably on both islands. His wife, Mary (Morrill) Folger, 1620-1704, was an educated woman, so that the tradition of the family to converse in Latin was quite possible.

The Folgers arrived with seven children. Two more were born during their seven year tenure in Old Town. These were John Folger, 1659-1732, who could recall his childhood home; and Experience Folger, 1664-1738, who was a mere infant when they left.

Probably the Nantucket association cost Folger his pastorate in Edgartown. Thomas Macy and Edward Starbuck, two of the leading figures in the Madaket settlement were electarian Baptist lay readers: men who believed in adultbaptism and an unpaid clergy. By 1665 Folger had adopted their views, quarreled with Mavhew (who was a Puritan, albeit liberal) and went off wit his family to Newport, Rhode Island, then a center of Bap (and Quaker) activity.

Before the year was out, Folger was asked to Join the Nantucket settlement (then moving to Capaum Pond — Harbo as it was originally known) as a half-share proprietor to intr duce a blacksmith's shop. He soon became the leading lay pr^cher as well To their nine children was then added the famous tenth , Abiah Folger, 1669-1752, who, in 1690, would marry Capt. Josiah Franklin of Boston, and then become mother of Benjamin Franklin, the first genuine American.

The year the Folgers moved to Nantucket, their eidest danghter, Joanne Folger, 1645-1690 married Jo^Coleman 1640-1715 the first of that well known Nantucket family (It is interesting to note that one of their daughters, Phebe Coleman, 1674-1719, married Gershon Cathcart, 1670-1720, from the Vineyard m 1692 and went back to the larger island to establish their household there.)

The second, Bethiah Folger, 1646-1669, wed in 1668, that is in four vears' time; choosing John Barnard, 1642-1669, son Robert and Joanna (Harvey) Barnard — the first of them name on the "far-away" island. Within the year John and Bethiah were drowned off Chappaquiddic, the first sea victims regis ered on Nantucket. John Coleman's brother Isaac C°]emun 1647-1669 norished the same day, while Eleazer Folger, 1648-1716, Bethiah s brother, clung to wreckage till he was saved. They had gone to Old Town presumably to trade.

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

Eleazer was married in three years' time (1671) to Sarah Gardner, 1652-1729, daughter of Richard and Sarah (Shattuck) Gardner, who had moved to Nantucket from Cape Ann in 1667. Sarah senior was a Quakeress, the first indeed to settle on the island. The original male Quaker, John Swain, had emigrated from the North Shore in 1661. In fact he had initially visited Nantucket in the company of Peter Folger in 1659. Apparently the informal Baptist services on the island met the needs of his and Sarah Gardner's Quakerism. Certainly John Swain spoke occasionally in the worship services then held on Sundays and Thursdays.

Even before Eleazer married (he was fourth in the family), his sister, Patience Folger (sixth in the family), 1654-1760, married Ebeneezer Harker, 1650-1700 (the first of his name on Nantucket). The year was 1670, when Patience was only 16 years old.

In 1675 two others of Peter's one-time Edgartown family wed. Dorcas Folger, 1647-1742, responded to Joseph Pratt, 1645-?, of Boston; and Bathsheba Folger, 1650-1700, followed suit with John Pope, 1650-?, similarly of the mainland (third and fifth children respectively). John Folger, the Vineyard-born seventh — traditionally favored child, only married in 1687, choosing Mary Barnard, 1667-1736, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary (Barnard) Barnard, granddaughter of Robert and Joanna — thereby niece of his late uncle John (who was lost off Chappaquiddic).

John Folger became a founding member of the Nantucket Quaker Meeting in 1708; thus providing Benjamin Franklin with his only Vineyard-born Quaker uncle. As Abiah Folger had married in 1690, the last of Peter's brood to leave home was Experience, whose favor fell upon John Swain, Jr., 1664-1738, in 1692.

By that time her father had been two years buried in the original Capaum burial ground, while Thomas Mayhew had been dead a dozen years, resting in the family plot just off South Water Street in Edgartown. Peter's widow lived on till the Quaker Meeting for Worship was founded on Nantucket in 1704.

The Folger connection with the Vineyard did not stop there for Richard Folger, 1700-1783, one of Quaker John's sons (not a Quaker himself incidentally) married Sarah Pease, 1700-1783, of Edgartown, daughter of Matthew and Mary (Butler) Pease, granddaughter of Matthew and Elizabeth (Butler) Pease, and of William Butler. Grandfather Matthew Pease was, in fact, a grandson of the original John Pease (the squatter). The Richard Folger marriage took place in 1722 (just as Capaum Harbor was closed by a hurricane).

Five years before, in 1718, Nathaniel Folger, 1694-1752, an older also non-Quaker brother of Richard, married a Tisbury girl in the figure of Priscilla Chase, 1697-1753, daughter of Lt.

NANTUCKET-VINEYARD RELATIONS 31

Isaac and Mary (Tilton) Chase, reputed to be the largest landowners up-island. The Chases, however, had reversed the Folger tradition, having been Nantucketers and then Vineyarders. At least this was the case for Lt. Isaac Chase. His wife had been born in Chilmark, daughter of Benjamin Tilton of that place, but had removed to Nantucket in 1675 when they married. They returned to the Vineyard about the opening of the 18th century.

Two of Nathaniel and Priscilla (Chase) Folger's children in turn married Vineyarders. In 1737 their daughter Elizabeth Folger, 1719-1795, wed Paul Pease, 1715-1755, of Edgartown (whose ancestry I have been unable to trace — at least from the Nantucket records I have read).

Her sister, Rebecca Folger, 1721-1788, wed Benjamin Marchant, 1720-1777, son of John, in 1742. Marchant was probably a Vineyarder, though, in both cases, their husbands came to reside on Nantucket. None of the Nathaniel Folger family were, incidentally, in any way connected with Nantucket Quakerism.

Still another of Quaker John's children destined to develop Vineyard connections (in another generation) was Jonathan Folger (like his father and grandfather a blacksmith). This third son did embrace Quakerism by marrying a daughter of the Friends minister Nathaniel Gardner (in turn a son of Quakeress Sarah Gardner). They had a daughter, Dinah Folger, 1720-1786, who married Stephen Chase, 1708-1787, in 1742 in Meeting (as his second wife).

Stephen was the son of Isaac, Jr., and Mary (Pease) Chase, grandson of Lt. Isaac and Mary (Tilton) Chase, (thus nephew to his uncle Nathaniel's wife). Isaac Chase, Jr., and family also had returned to the Vineyard, probably a decade and more after the senior couple had gone back. Isaac, Jr's wife was born to James and Elizabeth Pease, and thus was in turn a granddaughter of the original John Pease (and great-aunt to Richard Folger's wife). This branch of the Chase family had no doubt frequently attended Nantucket Quaker Meeting so it is not surprising to learn that some of them joined the Society of Friends — as did Stephen. (Attention will be drawn to a sister of Dinah later on.)

And to bring the wheel full around again in Quaker John's family, it appears that one of Richard and Sarah (Pease) Folger's daughters, Susannah Folger, 1722- ?, married one Ebeneezer Cleveland, 1720-1794, (of undetermined Vineyard ancestry) like Paul Pease, Benjamin Marchant and Stephen Chase, he too moved to Nantucket, no doubt to participate in the enormous whaling boom which had not yet reached the Vineyard.

However, the principal later Folger connection with the Vineyard came through the nearly fatally shipwrecked Eleazer and his Gardner wife. One of their grandsons, the Hon. Abishai Folger, 1700-1778, one-time representative of Nantucket County

NANTUCKET-VINEYARD RELATIONS 33

in the General Court (Legislature of Massachusetts) married the daughter of his colleague, the Hon. Paine Mayhew. This girl, Sarah Mayhew, 1708-1734, grew up in the harborside house of her Harvard-educated grandfather, Matthew Mayhew (whose gravestone marks the roadside Mayhew plot). It is amusing to remember that Matthew had opposed the setting up of Nantucket County as separate from the County of Dukes County in 1695, as he thought Nantucketers to be too closely intermarried!

Abishai and Sarah were joined in wedlock in 1727. After her early death, Abishai remarried in Meeting, so that her children grew up as Quakers. One Quaker grandson, Capt. Mayhew Folger "found" the mutineers of the Bounty. And his grandson, Admiral William Mayhew Folger, left the fortune which made possible the Peter Foulger Museum in Nantucket Town. It seems the good Admiral forgot what his middle name signified! And it appears that Sarah (Mayhew) Folger was in her own right descended from a Nantucket Quaker! Her mother, that is Paine Mayhew's wife, was Dinah Norton, in turn daughter of Jacob Norton, 1665-1740, who married Dionis Coffin, 1671-1750, of Nantucket, in 1690, she being a daughter of Stephen Coffin, Quaker (and niece of Mary [Coffin! Starbuck, the founder of Nantucket Friends Meeting). Thus the first family of Martha's Vineyard in its fifth generation was both Nantucket descended and Quaker in its inheritance. What would the old Governor have thought; for he deported any Quaker who reached his island shore.

It should be noted that Jacob Norton was son of Isaac Norton, first of his name on Martha's Vineyard; that Jacob Norton, Jr., married a Mayhew (perhaps making a double marriage with Paine Mayhew's sister), and that a second daughter, Rachel Norton, 1705-1767, married Joseph Coleman, 1699-1756, of Nantucket in 1725. Joseph was son of Thomas and Jane (Childs) Challenge-Coleman and grandson of John and Joanna (Folger) Coleman. A third daughter of Jacob Norton's Elizabeth Norton, 1707-1730, married Benjamin Trott, 1685-1754, also of Nantucket, in 1729. Benjamin was the son of John and Anna (?) Trott (Quakeress). Still another daughter of Jacob's, Mary Norton, married a Norton cousin on the Vineyard.

In finishing off the Folger interest at least one last interisland marriage must be considered, that between Timothy Folger, 1706-1750, Abishai's brother (sons of Nathan and Sarah [Church] Folger), and Anna Chase, 1710- ?, which took place in 1733; she being a daughter of James Chase, 1686- ?, and Rachel (Brown) Chase, 1687- ?, married in 1707 and granddaughter of Isaac, Jr., and Mary (Pease) Chase (thus niece of Stephen Chase, the Quaker). In fact Anna (Chase) Folger's parents were the product of another inter-island marriage; for her mother was a daughter of John III and Rachel (Gardner) Brown, in turn

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"HISTORIC NANTUCKET''

granddaughter to Capt. John and Priscilla (Grafton) Gardner; and of John, Jr., and Hannah (Hobart) Brown; all of Nantucket.

It should be pointed out that Capt. John Gardner (brother-inlaw to the first Quakeress) equalled Governor Mayhew's zeal in preventing Quakers from visiting Nantucket in the 1680-1696 period when he was Chief Magistrate on the smaller island. In any case Timothy and Anna had no interest in Friends Meeting.

Perhaps the most startling of Nantucket connections comes from the John Coffin family. John's waterfront house, the "Wilson Crosby" place in Edgartown, stands a bit farther north from the original Mayhew property than Matthew Mayhew's stands to the south of the "Thomas Meilleham" residence. (Unfortunately, both the oldest Mayhew house and the manor house of 1698 are both gone.) Maj. John Coffin, 1647-1711, is remembered by the oldest stone in the Tower Hill burial ground. He removed to Old Town in 1668, with his bride, Deborah (Austin) Coffin, 1652-1718, to represent Coffin interests on the Vineyard (three years after Folger went to Nantucket).

Actually Tristram Coffin, his father, was the first magistrate on Nantucket (after Governor Mayhew). Tristram was a moderate Puritan who lined up with his Vineyard counterpart against such men as Folger (and Swain, Macy and Starbuck). Yet Deborah Coffin was niece of Edward Starbuck, through her mother, Sarah (Starbuck) Story-Austin — later Varney, wife to Joseph Austin of Dover, New Hampshire. Her liberal Baptist views became Quaker in the 1680s, so that in her turn Deborah Coffin became herself a Quaker by 1704, as did Major John by 1708. Their harborside house thus harbored a small Quaker cell.

Parenthetically, this cell continued to reform itself for most of the 18th century, till in the 1780s the parent meeting on Nantucket peremptorily disbanded it, without stating why. Meanwhile visiting Quakers who got to the Vineyard made for Old Town (sometimes up-island to the Chase family) and nearly always to visit the Indian tribes. It would appear visiting Quakers were more popular with Vineyard Indians than with those of Nantucket. But familiarity breeds various less than admiring attitudes in most cases.

(Continued in our next issue)