An Old Lady of Nantucket

A n O l d L a d y o f N a n t u c k et

by Margaret Hosmer

DOWN IN INDEPENDENCE Lane, Nantucket Town, which now has its western end obliterated and blocked by buildings, there once stood a low, unpainted house with a green front door, ornamented with a large brass knocker. This was the home of Aunt Betsey, who, since the death of her-sea-captain husband, rented the lower part of her house and lived alone in the upper rooms, which consisted of two front rooms, a low kitchen at the back, and the tiny room where she slept. A large chimney and entry occupied the center of the house. In the south front chamber stood a 4-poster bedstead with a canopy and valance and counterpane of Aunt Betsey's own handiwork. Her husband, who had been a captain in the merchant service, had brought many curious things from abroad which lent an air of unusual interest to this unused guest chamber.

The old lady wore silks brought by her husband from China and France. An embroidered muslin kerchief, folded and tucked into her belt, and a cap tied with "laylock ribbins," completed her attire. When she went out to spend the afternoon she folded over her shoulders a large white muslin shawl with deep embroidered border, and wore a drab shirred silk bonnet, or sometimes a huge green silk calash that could be drawn up close around her face by the proper pulling of adjacent strings. She carried her sewing materials in an oval basket, with a handle over the middle, and covers which could be lifted up at each end.

The aunt's winter costume consisted of an enormous pelisse, a fur cape and a black velvet bonnet. On windy days, when she plodded along to the North Church, the cape annoyed her by persistent flapping, to prevent which she affixed a large hook-and-eye in the middle of the back; and on warmer days, when the cape was not needed, the pelisse flaunted the solitary eye with impunity.

Aunt Betsey was a pillar of the church and never missed a Sunday service or a Friday evening "lecture". Once, while visiting in New York State, she and her friends attended a revival meeting. After the service, she was startled when the speaker came up to her, "stuck his head into my bunnit, and said:'Do you know the Lord?' I stared right back at him. 'Know the Lord,' I said, 'I knew him before you were born!"'

The little grand-nieces of this strong-minded old lady liked to visit her in the house on Independence Lane. The afternoons passed quickly in

AN OLD LADY OF NANTUCKET 29

her parlor, among the many things her husband's ship had brought home. A secretary stood in this room, the front of which could be rolled back and forth before its pigeon-holes. Upon the top lay Aunt Betsey's green baize Bible, with pages reserved for the family record. Over the secretary hung an oil painting of her husband, who looked very imposing in a highshouldered coat with brass buttons, a nankeen-colored vest, ruffled shirt front, and a stock that came out under his chin and reached to his ears. .Close above his eye brows his hair was cut in a bang, and his queue was tied with a black ribbon. The eyes of this portrait had a peculiarlook, as if they were following a person about the room.

Eunice, the little grand-niece, who often visited Aunt Betsey, did not like to stay alone with the picture. She would peep up suspiciously at it, and then run into the kitchen where the cheerful rattle of the old lady's pots and pans soon dispelled any idle fears.

In the corner of the parlor a buffet was built, which Aunt Betsey called the "bo-fat," and through its glass doors could be seen a complete set of blue Canton china, brought home by her captain-husband. "There isn't a nick or crack in them," she often announced proudly. She called her blue dishes "Indja china," as did other Nantucket housewives with similar sets, as they were brought from the Far East by vessels in the East India Company ships. Although the blue china predominated the buffet it also included a great rectangular soup tureen, large latticed fruit dishes, little cups with covers, sauce boats, a gravy dish with boars' heads for handles, the double hot-water plates which could be filled with hot water through the sides, the soup plates, deep saucers, and the countless pieces with the pattern of the legendary willow. Aunt Betsey loved to tell the story of the pattern — the lovers who were changed into doves, the angry father, the bridge, the casket of jewels.

In the lower part of the buffet, behind the wooden doors, were jars of preserved ginger, tamarinds in little engraved glasses of foreign workmanship, and other dainties to which the little nieces were sometimes treated.

In the afternoon, Aunt Betsey baked her biscuit for supper in the large open fireplace in the parlor. After making up the biscuit in her hands, she packed them closely in a circle in the round, deep baking pan. By turning the crane, screwed against the wall of the fireplace, she selected an iron pot-hook, hanging from it, on which she hung the pan of biscuit over the fire, and when the dough began to rise she raked up the coals and placed them on the cover of the pan to brown the biscuit.

On each side of the fireplace was a tiny cupboard. One of these contained her small store of books, among them being "The Shepherd of

30 HISTORIC NANTUCKET

Salisbury Plain," and a volume with queer old wood-cuts, one of which depicted a man with a peaked beard and high ruff which she identified as the discoverer of America but who more closely resembled Sir Walter Raleigh. In the other cupboard was a jar of "molasses sugar," which she used in cooking fruit, and which she often treated her little nieces.

Little Niece Eunice enjoyed the quiet afternoons at Aunt Betsey's old parlor. She admired the pair of ornamented vases on the mantle, which held feather flowers with small stuffed birds perched here and there among them, brought from France. The little girl liked the Chinese books made of sparkling white rice paper and with covers of silk, containing brilliantly colored pictures of birds and flowers and Chinese ladies with their brightly colored clothing, slanted eyes and wonderfully long finger nails that were a mark of royalty. She also enjoyed playing with curious Chinese toys — nodding mandarins, lacquered glove boxes, and a paper jackanapes that slid up and down a stick. There were also Nantucket creations, silhouettes representing Aunt Betsey's brothers, with their hair tied at the back with ribbons and ruffled shirt fronts.

Sometimes her aunt would take her to a carpenter's shop near by, where the child gathered odd-shaped pieces of white wood, with which she built houses on the floor when they returned to the house. At such times Aunt Betsey would be busy in the kitchen, sweeping the hearth, using a long-handled broom made of coarse beach grass, or perhaps skimming milk with a quahaug shell, its inner side more shining white then the cream.

In those long-ago days every parlor had its dozen chairs exactly alike, and in Aunt Betsey's parlor, in a solemn row against the wall stood the rush-bottomed chairs. The little nieces liked to draw them forward, to "play house" behind them with their dolls, while Aunt Betsey dozed in her rocker before the fire. It was all very well when two were playing but a third niece usually stirred up a frolic. On one occasion Aunt Betsey, asleep in her rocker, became the object of a more vigorous rocking and was "capsized." She was unhurt but led them home in disgrace, remarking to their mother: "I can have any one or two of them — but never the three of them again!"

But Aunt Betsey's house was doomed to destruction. When the great fire of 1846 burned out the business section of Main Street it soon spread to the north and engulfed Independence Lane. At first the house was considered safe and during the evening people kept coming in and placing silver spoons, knives and forks on the black horse-hair sofa in the parlor. But as the flames spread Aunt Eunice's brothers soon convinced her she

must leave quickly. She had lived here all her life and was too shocked to do more than mutter that it "wasn't going to burn now," as they hurried her to safety. She was taken to Niece Eunice's house, where she sat wearing her "best bumbazine," rocking to and fro, muttering: "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" as she thought of her china, her French flowers, her husband's portrait and her feather beds.

After the fire, on the spot where the house stood, there was a heap of what looked like glass, where the large buffet had set against the wall. It was all that remained of her "blue Indja china." Only the memories remained of the French flowers, the curious book with the pictures of the Chinese ladies, the portrait of the merchant captain, and the many quaint, foreign "things" which he had brought home from his voyages. The practical brothers did save some clothing and pots and pans, although one of them afterwards stated: "If I had known of those molasses sugars in the chimney cupboard I would not have spent the time saving those old chairs."

Aunt Betsey afterwards made her home in Niece Eunice's family dwelling. Seated in a high-backed rocker beside the fire she continued to relate stories of Nantucket. The children knew by heart how the Indian Quibby was hanged outside Newtown Gate, and could repeat the adventures of Aunt Betsey's husband, who had been in the "marchant service." When she made mistakes or omissions they assisted her in the story of Cousin Peleg or Jonathan who had sailed to the Brazils for "sparm whales," or had gathered "terapins" at the "Gallypagos Islands." The children felt a personal interest in all of the tales. Whenever she spoke aoout the ownership of land out of town she referred to them as "owning cow's commons." The little nieces joked secretly among themselves, "cow's tails" being these sections of the "commons." Aunt Betsey would look at them shrewdly from her rocking chair, and remark to their mother: "Dorcas, what's them girls a-laughin' at? Seem's to me they're always giggling these days!"

(Margaret S. Hosmer wrote this account, based on family history, sixty-five years ago, while she was living in Los Angeles, California, her home most of her life. We trust its authentic Nantucket atmosphere will appeal to readers of today as it attracted Islanders, in 1912.)