7
The Discovery of Nantucket Island
by John Lacouture ALL HISTORIC PLAQUES and visitor handouts on Nantucket credit the discovery of Nantucket to Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602. There is little doubt that Gosnold sighted and sailed by Nantucket on the thirty ton Concord in mid May 1602 bound for Verrazanas "Refugio" (Narragansett Bay) in an attempt to establish an English settlement. Gosnold, unfortunately, has never received the credit due to him in American History books as the leader of the first attempt to establish the first English settlement in Massachusetts (at Cuttyhunk in 1602) and for his role as the prime instigator and second in command of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia in 1607. It is, therefore, with considerable reluctance that this article is written which will attempt to fairly conclusively prove that Nantucket was discovered long before Gosnold sailed by it in 1602.
There were possibilities of Nantucket's being sighted (i.e. discovered) by European voyagers, explorers or fishermen long before 1602 most of which cannot be verified. One might start with the Norsemen. Eric the Red sailed from Iceland in 982 to explore and settle in Greenland. He settled in Eriksfyord and returned to Iceland three years later mounting such a good publicity campaign for Greenland that 25 shiploads of colonists left for Greenland in 986.
In the year 1000 Leif Erickson (Eric the Red's son) on a sailing direct from Norway to Greenland missed Cape Farewell (Greenland's southern point) and made landfall at either Labrador or Newfoundland. He realized he had overshot, headed northeast, and returned safely to Greenland with the news of a new land. From then on the Vikings from Greenland made frequent visits to Markland, the forested middle or southern part of Labrador to obtain timber. Less frequently they visited Vinland, probably the St. Lawrence, New Foundland area, but possibly the Nova Scotia and New England areas. Several serious but unsuccessful attempts were made to settle Vinland. The main difficulty encountered by the Norsemen without firearms in their colonization attempts in Vinland was the stout opposition offered by the Indians.
