Historic Nantucket
"Our Island Home" 70 years ago. Photograph by Alexander Starbuck.
April, 1979 Published Quarterly by Nantucket Historical Association Nantucket, Massachusetts
NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OFFICERS
President, Leroy H. True Vice-Presidents, Albert G. Brock, George W. Jones, Alcon Chadwick, Albert F. Egan, Jr., Walter Beinecke, Jr., Mrs. Merle T. Orleans Honorary Vice-President, Henry B. Coleman Secretary, Richard C. Austin Treasurer, John N. Welch Councillors, Leroy H. True, Chairman Robert D. Congdon, Harold W. Lindley, terms expire 1979; Miss Barbara Melendy, term expires 1980; Donald Terry, Mrs. H. Crowell Freeman, terms expire 1981; Miss Dorothy Gardner, David D. Worth, terms expire 1982. Historian, Edouard A. Stacxpole Editor: "Historic Nantucket", Edouard A. Stackpole; Assistant Editor, Mrs. Merle Turner Orleans.
STAFF
Oldest House: Curator, Mrs. Kenneth S. Baird Receptionists: Mrs. Margaret Crowell, Miss Adeline Cravott Hadwen House-Satler Memorial: Curator, Mrs. Phoebe P. Swain Receptionists: Mrs. Irving A. Soverino, Mrs. Richard Strong. 1800 House: Curator, Mrs. Clare Macgregor Old Gaol: Curator, Albert G. Brock Whaling Museum: Curator, Renny Stackpole Receptionists: Frank Pattison, James A. Watts, Patricia Searle, Rose Stanshigh, Alice Collins, Clarence H. Swift, Mary Lou Campbell Peter Foulger Museum: Curator and Director, Edouard A. Stackpole Receptionists: Mrs. Clara Block, Everett Finlay, Mary J. Barrett, Mrs. Ann Warren Librarian: Mrs. Louise Hussey Nathaniel Macy House: Curator, Mrs. John A. Baldwin Receptionists: Miss Dorothy Hiller, Archaeology Department, Curator, Mrs. Roger Young Old Town Office: Curator, Hugh R. Chace Old Mill: Curator, John Gilbert Millers: John Stackpole, Edward G. Dougan Folger-Franklin Seat & Memorial Boulder: Curator, Francis Sylvia Friends Meeting House-Fair Street Museum: Curator, Albert F. Egan, Jr. Lightship "Nantucket": Curator, Benjamin S. Richmond Shipkeeper: Richard Swain Greater Light - Receptionists: Dr. Selina T. Johnson, Florence Farrell Building Survey Committee: Chairman, Robert G. Metters Hose Cart House: Curator, Francis W. Pease
HISTORIC NANTUCKET Published quarterly and devoted to the preservation of Nantucket's antiquity, its famed heritage and its illustrious past as a whaling port.
Volume 26
April, 1979
No. 4
CONTENTS
Nantucket Historical Association Officers and Staff
2
Editorial—The Quality of Nantucket
5
The "American Rembrandt" by Robert di Curcio
7
Coming Events: The Nantucket Needlework Exhibition
16
Notes on Tuckernuck
17
Legacies and Bequests/Address Changes
31
Historic Nantucket is published quarterly at Nantucket. Massachusetts, by the Nantucket Historical Association. It is sent to Association Members. Extra copies $.50 each. Membership dues are—Annual-Active $7.50; Sustaining $25.00; Life—one payment $100.00 Second-class postage paid at Nantucket, Massachusetts Communications pertaining to the Publication should be addressed to the Editor, Historic Nantucket. Nantucket Historical Association, Nantucket. Massachusetts 02554.
— Parliament House, the home of Nathaniel and Mary Starbuck, where the large living room served as a meeting place for the Selectmen and for the first meetings of the Nantucket members of the Society of Friends.
NANTUCKET Turn of the Century Original Pen and Ink Sketches by Sheila Welch
Note Paper TWELVE ORIGINAL PEN & INK SKETCHES by Sheila Welch
$2.25 a box
NANTUCKET Turn of the Century 1980 Calendar Ttcelve Original Pen and Ink Sketche» by Skeila Welch
1980 Calendar $3.50
NANTUCKET TURN OF THE CENTURY
Christmas Cards 4 Pen & Ink Sketches - 12 Cards
$3.00 a box
Pick up at the Whaling Museum Gift Counter - or WRITE TO; Nantucket Historical Association Box 1016, Nantucket, M.ass. 02554 Please include $1.00 for postage and handling.
5
The Quality of Nantucket "THE ISLAND HAS nothing deserving of notice but its inhab itants..." So wrote that unusual Frenchman, de Crevecoeur, in his "Letters From An American Farmer," two hundred years ago, in describing his visit to Nantucket. His observations became the first ex tensive analysis of this Island and Town to be written by a literary man, writing as a keen and discerning visitor around 1774. At first glance such a summation as cited might appear disparaging, but it was actually quite the opposite. In Nantucket de Crevecoeur had found a scene markedly different from places he had visited in the American colonies. He found here a race of seafarers somewhat apart from the main — a people who, having adopted whaling as a means of livelihood, had become the frontiersmen in this enterprise — the pioneers in a new Colonial industry, deep-sea whaling. The astute Frenchman described the plain but sturdy town, the busy waterfront, with cooper shops, rope walks and rigging lofts bordering wharves where sloops, brigs and schooners were moored, being fitted out or cargoes unloaded. And, as he succinctly noted, what made the place unusual and distinctive was not so much the busy scene as the inhabitants — these whaling Quakers, who were unique in the Colonial maritime world. These 18th century Nantucketers were a development of the self reliance of the early settlers, combined with a strong religious association with the Society of Friends, and the prosecution of a vigorous seafaring life. For over a century they had been a race of seafarers who had created in Nantucket a virtual maritime free-state. It is this Island Town which has become a priceless heritage. Today, we find our new way of life, revolving around the summer business and off-season tourism; realizing the tremendous asset of our historic past. But, we also recognize that the Island needs protection inasmuch as the outlying land is concerned. The Town and the Island are integral parts of our future. It is necessary to preserve both. They represent "quality," in the marketplace of now and of the future. We want Nantucket to continue to be a place of quality. If we can control the natural growth of the Town and preserve in a natural state the shores, commons and beaches which the Town must acquire, we will ensure our unique advantages.
6
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
With de Crevecoeur's observations as to the inhabitants of Nantucket being worthy of notice we of the present day are provided with a challenge. They established here a place of quality. Succeeding generations added their share in the toil of carrying on this reputation. If we, the inhabitants of today, are to be "deserving of notice" we have the full responsibility of maintaining what they created two hundred years ago.
Edouard A. Stackpole
The First Baptist Church I
Photo by Louis S. Davidson
7
T h e "American-Rembrandt" on Nantucket by Robert A. diCurcio NANTUCKET! SAY THE word at a gathering and faces light up, pleasant memories flow, and a mystic aura is evoked. True in the day of whaling as it is now, just as surely did the faraway island cast its spell on one of America's greatest artists: Eastman Johnson, an American "Old Master" if ever there was one. In 1870, as an accomplished and renowned portrait painter and "genre" artist, he brought his new bride, Elizabeth Buckley of Troy, N.Y., to summer on The Island at the suggestion of one Dr. Gaillard Thomas to "...meet his desire for a quiet and incurious locality". Nantucket became Eastman Johnson's summer studio ever after, for he — like so many others to follow him — succumbed to that happy malady: falling in love with Nantucket Island. His residence and studio perched atop "the Cliff' looking out over cranberry bogs that in those days ringed the broad, watery expanse of Nantucket Sound below. Here he was to immortalize the 19th century Nantucketers who culled those cranberry bogs dressed in stove pipe hats or full skirts with fancy bonnets — a remarkable series of genre pictures of those elegant and distinguished rustics, the Nantucket cranberry pickers. In 1873, Scribner's Monthly published an article on Johnson, reading in part:". . .the artist Eastman Johnson has shown his usual fine taste in taking up his residence here and has transformed two of the old houses that stood on the site into a home and studio. The location is just out of town on the Cliff which is high ground just above the bathing beach, commanding a magnificent sweep of the ocean, a spot which ought to be occupied by cottages and hotels!" Eastman Johnson's reputation in the latter half of the 19th century stemmed mainly from his popularly acclaimed genre paintings — pictures of the dignity in the every day life and labors of common people. After 1870, Nantucket became the principal locale for his genre paintings of the American scene. Previously, as a sometime Washington, D.C. resident, he had painted negro slave scenes; his famous Negro Life in the South 1859 (The New York Historical Society) — or My Old Kentucky Home as it later came to be called after Stephen Foster's popular song of the same name — earned him the respect of the public, the prestigious National Academy of Design, and the art critics of the day, one of whom called it "A first class character piece". Although some today would
Eastman Johnson at work in his Nantucket Studio.
THE "AMERICAN REMBRANDT"
9
condemn as hypocritical this painting ot negro slaves singing, playing relaxing, and courting, such moralists would do well to consider more closely the envy that the perspicacious Johnson painted on the faces of the white children on the periphery of the scene; it is genuine. Elected a full academician of the National Academy in 1860, the most talented young painter of American domestic life of the time, genre artist second to none, Nantucket summer resident Eastman Johnson was no New England provincial. He had spent six marvelous years abroad in the 1850's learning the craft of oil painting - a European tour that was de rigeur for the serious professional of his day. At the "Dusseldorf School" in Germany he studied briefly in 1851 with Emmanuel Leutze, an American who was famous for his huge (12 by 21 feet), patriotic painting George Washington Crossing the Delaware 1851 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC), known to generations of Americans chiefly through an engraving of it that EJ helped to prepare. On the whole dissatisfied with the rest of the German genre artists in Dusseldorf (recommended to him by the American Art-Union, then the most powerful group of art patrons), he changed his ambience rather quickly to that of The Hague in Holland where he found his life-long inspiration in the paintings of the Dutch old masters. In late 1851, Johnson wrote to the American Art-Union: "I am at present at The Hague where I am deriving much advantage from studying the splendid works of Rembrandt and a few other of the old Dutch masters (probably Vermeer, van de Cappele, van Mieris, ter Borch, et al)...l must say I regret having spent so long a time in Dusseldorf (not quite a year). . .where the present artists are deficient in some of the chief requisites, as in color, in which they are scarcely tolerable. . .Leutze was the only colorist amongst them. . (as quoted by Patricia Hills in her excellent monograph Eastman Johnson, op. cit) EJ's ability to handle color was one of his great assets; he made enough of an impression on the sophisticated Dutch with it, that he became known to them as "the American Rembrandt". The Dutch genre tradition became second nature to him. What is more, he was offered the position of court painter to His Majesty William II. But this young man, born but a few years earlier in 1824 in the hinterlands of Lowell, Maine, refused royal patronage in the land of Rembrandt and Vermeer, and after a four year apprenticeship made his way in 1855 to Paris in search of even more instruction.
10
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
There he studied in the atelier of Thomas Couture, a teacher who was partial to young Americans. Couture, recognized for his sumptuous colorism, is now remembered as the teacher of the great French iconolast painter Manet. (The celebrated Impressionist painters of the day were once known as Manet's "gang.) It was Couture who impressed even more strongly on EJ the importance of method in art. It was, in the final analysis, this early grounding in European coloristic method that elevated EJ's art to greatness. He carried European method back to an American art scene, employed but re-interpreted it in the extolling of honest toil in the fields, barns, and Maple groves — the admirable dignity of rural America. When, in the 1880's and 90's, his career emphasis changed to depicting fashionable and affluent individuals in elegant interiors, and to portraits of the "upper classes", the resulting so-called "conversation pieces" trace their pedigree, as Patricia Hills puts it (op. cit.), to the seventeenth century Dutch and Couture's atelier. If Manet was a bete noire of French academic painting and the precursor of French Im pressionism, then Johnson is the fair haired boy of American genre painting and precursor to the likes of Thomas Eakins and Winslow Homer, titans of 19th century realism.
Upon his return to the U.S. in late 1855 and thereafter until the early 1870's, Johnson applied his European lessons mainly to subjects of the American Indian, the negro slave, Civil War combatants, maple sugaring and barn scenes in Maine. Since it was a time when daguerreotype photography was coming into its own, painters, collectors, and the art public turned their attentions to pictures of anecdotal scenes from American life, such as EJ's much admired The Boyhood of Lincoln 1868 (The University of Michigan Museum of Art), showing an adolescent Abe by the fireside intently studying the borrowed book of song and story. Portraiture was left for a while to the mechanized novelty of the photographer's craft. The Nantucket Scene A recognized genre artist and portraitist before setting foot on Nantucket, EJ fulfilled the Dutch prophecy as the American Rembrandt during those halcyon summers on The Island. He took to Nantucket in much the same way as Herman Melville (a contemporary genius whom he probably never met) explains his own affinity in Moby Dick : ". . .because there was a fine boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island which amazingly pleased me." One of the first things Johnson did as an artist on Nantucket was to
THE "AMERICAN REMBRANDT"
11
construct a staging for a painting of boisterous children frolicking on and around an abandoned Stage Coach. Johnson used Nantucket children as models, and the result was the large (3 ft. x 5 ft.) oil The Old Stage Coach 1871 (Milwaukee Art Center) — as idealized and sentimentalized a scene of childhood as one was likely to see. But this was what the spirit of the times (Zeitgeist, to recall the philosophical term) demanded: Americans were wont to portray themselves as youthful, brash, in the driver's seat, and way out front in those days; this to blot out, perhaps if nothing more, the trauma of their Civil war. The 1907 catalog of the American Art Association (of a posthumous retrospective show after Johnson's death in 1906) describes The Old Stage Coach: "The body of an old stage coach which, in its time, judging from its form and color, must have been a famous vehicle (Johnson had the vehicle transported from the Catskills where he first conceived of the picture) has been cast aside on an open field near a farmyard, and a large group of merry children are playing with it. Two girls and two boys, prancing and kicking, represent the four horses. Others occupy the box seat and interior, and a more enterprising lad stands on top waving his hat, while a companion endeavors to climb up to him." Of Johnson's Civil War paintings, The Wounded Drummer Boy 1871 (The Union League Club of N.Y.) is probably the most famous. When Civil War memories were finally far behind, Johnson on Nantucket began to lighten his palette, and women appear more frequently in his paintings, especially after his marriage and after his only daughter, Ethel, was born in 1870. Much reminiscent of Vermeer are his studies of women posed indoors near a window. Although he made occasional trips to Maine in the late 1870's, and though he kept a winter studio at West 55th St. in New York, the majority of Johnson's post 1870 genre scenes were set in Nantucket, and salient among them are the series on cranberry picking and corn husking bees, activities as peculiarly American as his beloved maple sugaring. The quintessential "Americanness" of his Nantucket scenes explains much of the appeal in his nostalgic renderings of agricultural labor. Another aspect of his critical acclaim at the time was that he exalted the labor of common folk as a joyous contribution to the growing nation with which they appear to be in complete harmony. This we may contrast with the scenes of his European contemporary counterparts such as the Barbizon School in general and Jean-Francois Millet in particular, whose famous painting The Gleaners 1857 (Louvre, Paris) of stoop-backed, babushka'd peasant women in a stubble field shows none of the optimism
THE "AMERICAN REMBRANDT"
13
and esprit de corps in Johnson's farm scenes; although Millet sought to dignify the workers in the fields, he conveys a hopelessness that never for a moment entered Johnson's oeuvre, not even in the late character studies of old Nantucket sea captains. Thus the contemporary critic William Walton could state with ample justification in Scribner's Magazine XL (1906) . .his (Johnson's) conception of the rendering of 'the life of the poor', of 'the tillers of the soil', and 'the ex-toilers of the sea' preaches no ugly gospel of discontent as does so much of the contemporary French and Flemish art of this genre; his Nantucket neighbors know nothing of the protestation douloureuse de la race asservie a la glebe; there is no crie de la terre arising from his cranberry marshes or his hay-stuffed barns". He continued: "The happy combination of right feeling and sound technique is manifest in all the details; the respectable old silk hat which constitutes so important an incident in several of the best of his Nantucket scenes would have been fatal to the ordinary genre painter — it is dignifiedly hospitable in the Glass With the Squire 1880 (Annmary Brown Memorial, Prov., R.I.), gravely stern in The Reprimand 1880 (location and owner unknown), genuinely pathetic in Contemplation (probably Captain Charles Myrick 1879, Nantucket Historical Association, Peter Foulger Museum) and Embers 1880 (Mrs. Herbert S. Darlington, Lajolla, Calif.) But seldom has so unimportant a baggage played such an important role in art." In another commentary on the comparison of E.J.'s genre with one of his European counterparts, Patricia Hills [op. cit.] states, ". . the content of the Breton is the awesome and solemn but necessary labor of the French peasant; the content of the Johnson is the democratic and even hedonistic gaiety of a Nantucket cranberry harvest." Of equal interest, as far as his contributions to Nantucket's art scene, are Johnson's depictions of Nantucket personages within Nantucket interiors. He did many renditions of old whaling masters (sea captains) such as Captain Myrick, a favorite and splendid type. An American Art Association catalogue in 1907 stated: "Charles Myrick, a Nantucket man, appears in several of Johnson's pictures. This [Captain Myrick, ca. 1879, F. N. Bard, Chicago, 111.) is a study of an old New England type which is now fast disappearing. An old man with a fringe of whiskers around his face, wearing an old-fashioned beaver hat, black coat and waist coat, with a loose white tie, leans for-
14
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
ward, resting his right hand upon an ivory-handled malacca stick. His head is lowered, his eyes raised, and his pathetic, wrinkled face suggests a life with more than the ordinary share of hardships." Captain Myrick was the subject of the last genre painting exhibited by Johnson (Embers shown in 1899 at The National Academy of Design), showing the old Captain, an ember himself, staring in contemplation at the dying embers in his fireplace. This is a most appropriate exhibit in a career nearing its close. After 1880, Johnson resumed his early interest in portraiture, possibly because of the lucrative commissions he was capable of attracting at that point. His last dated genre painting is T h e Nantucket School of Philosophy 1887 (The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore). E. U. Crosby (op. cit.) quotes 'A memo on file at the Walters Art Gallery' as follows: "Eastman Johnson called at 455 Madison Ave., New York City, on Edward D. Adams, on Sunday, April 21, 1889, and gave the names of the character studies he had as models in the execution of his painting entitled "The Nantucket School of Philosophers", belonging to Mr. Adams. (The painting shows a group of old men seated in a ring around an old wood stove in a Nantucket cobbler's shop, conversing and possibly reminiscing about days gone by.) Mr. Johnson explained that the following 'philosophers' were alive at that date: the shoemaker, Captain Haggerty; the talker, Captain Moore; on the left-hand side, leaning on his hand, Captain Ray, and that the other 'captains' were all dead." Crosby further states that Captain Haggerty's shop was located in a small wooden building on Liberty Street, at the rear of the Henry Coffin property. Writing in the Oct. 1958 issue of H i s t o r i c N a n t u c k e t , the quarterly publication of the Nantucket Historical Association (pp. 35-38), Louise Stark sums up the warm feeling that Nantucketers can harbor for this artist who more than anyone else set the tone and the stage for the phenomenal flourishing of the arts on Nantucket: "Eastman Johnson was a great portrait painter as well as a painter of daily scenes. Some of his portraits of Nantucket people give me the feeling he painted them because they fascinated him and he loved them. "No artist I've found of Nantucket subjects has given me as much a feeling of the island and its people in the time he painted as Eastman Johnson. Nantucket is fortunate to have had such a devoted and skillfully trained artist so engrossed in the island."
16
Coming Events Exhibition of Antique Needlework Opens July 9 TWO HUNDRED YEARS of Nantucket Needlework is the title of an exhibition of antique and historical needlework to be held this summer under the auspices of the Nantucket Historical Association. The exhibition will open Monday, July 9, at the Peter Foulger Museum and will continue throughout the summer. It is presently scheduled to close September 3rd. The exhibition has many possibilities—samplers, embroidered pictures, quilts, mourning pieces, petticoats, shawls and other interesting pieces of needlework executed on island prior to 1900. An enthusiastic group of women is working diligently, and has been for the past two months, under the direction of Elizabeth Gilbert, chairman of the exhibition. The many pieces loaned to the Association have been sorted, culled and cleaned. The best examples of each category have been selected and have been photographed. As many of these photographs as possible will be used in a brochure describing the exhibits. The Historical Association's museums have provided a varied and excellent assortment as the nucleus for the exhibition. These include several very interesting quilts, most of which have fascinating stories to go with them. There are also delicately embroidered gowns and petticoats, handed down from one generation to another, all carefully preserved by their owners. There is a representative selection of samplers, their fine stitches often the work of young girls who were required to "do their stint" each day, sometimes by the light of only one or two kerosene lamps. Each piece chosen to be displayed in the exhibition will have as much documentation as possible: the name of the embroiderer, the approximate date of completion, and such other information as may make the piece of greater interest to the visitor. The exhibition will be arranged in the room at the north side of the Peter Foulger Museum, on the second floor. It will be open to the public during the hours when the Museum itself is open. If our visitors show as much enthusiasm when they see the antique Nantucket needlework as Mrs. Gilbert's committee have shown while they have been getting it ready, the Nantucket Historical Association will have another successful endeavor to enter on its records.
17
Notes on Tuckernuck by Diana Walker IN TELLING THE story of Tuckernuck, we begin with a quotation from Early Nantucket and its Whale Houses, by Forman, describing the 17th century town of Nantucket then known as Sherburne. "In literal sense the colony had no town. It possessed no streets, no houses, no shops. It was a spread out country village arranged in helter skelter fashion. The average dwelling lot comprised of about 20 acres and the roads, nothing but sand ruts, and paths through the grassy hummock and woods. With due grains of allowance, todays settlement on Tuckernuck resembles in several respects the layout of Sherburne." Tuckernuck remains unique because there has been little change in plan or development in the past two hundred years. In 1829, Eliza Gardner, a young Nantucket school girl, drew a map of the island (Nantucket Historical Association). According to her map, and others of that period, there were 11 houses on Tuckernuck. Today there are twenty-six. Only five houses, a few outbuildings, and additions have been constructed in the 20th century. The greatest development took place between 1829 and 1900. There were probably as many as thirty houses during the peak of Tuckernuck's population. We know that the houses no longer standing were either swept out to sea, victims of abandonment, or destroyed by flames. The latter element has always been a serious problem on this little island which has had its share of devastating fires. Nothing can be done about the sea with its ever changing tides, eating away so much of the "backside" of Tuckernuck, and sometimes unexpectedly, depositing sand in some other place on the island's shoreline. After the protection of Smith Point arm disappeared in a series of storms in the 19th century, Tuckernuck had to fend for itself. Since then the south side of the island has been constantly battered, moved and changed. As a result approximately a third of the island has been lost to sea. Although Tuckernuck is only a pin point in the history of the for mation of the Northeastern United States, the result of the massive upheaval caused by the Ice Ages can be clearly seen. Consequently, this island is a source for geological studies in this area. We live in a period of interglacial retreat. The Ice has come four times, and after each advance, it has withdrawn. The second and third Ice Ages brought most of Martha's Vineyard, Chappaquiddick, Tuckernuck, and Nantucket. The fourth Ice Age brought most of Cape Cod, and the Elizabeth Islands.
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NOTES ON TUCKERNUCK
19
Cape Cod and the Islands consist of three basic kinds of land: the moraines, the outwash plains, and the seaborne drift sand. The moraines are high land "knobs and kettle country". The rocks were carried down by the glaciers, and, not, not being native to the area where found, are called "glacial erratics" (This Broken Archipelago, Lazell). Geologists assert that Nantucket has the "most remarkable terminal moraine anywhere in the world". "The buried backbones of the cape and island," says geologist Barbara Chamberlin, "are the old coastal plain hills." "The top of these hills loop across the center of Nantucket, reappear on Tuckernuck and again on Chappaquiddick next to the Vineyard" (Nantucket, Plowden and Coffin). "The outwash plains were composed of fine grained material, mud and a little gravel. On this grew the forests of beech, white pine, bayberry, and eventually beech climax. Today the beech climax is largely gone and the white pine virtually extinct" (This Broken Archipelago, Lazell). The seaborne drift sands pile up against the glacial moraines. For this reason, the currents are continually shifting the sands and often dig deeply into the sands and outwash plains (This Broken Archipelago, Lazell). Tuckernuck and Nantucket have some obvious "kettles" and pot holes sunk into the islands. "The scattered blocks of ice sunk in the moraines, melted and left the holes called kettles. Many of them contain fresh water today, and whether temporary (some dry up each summer) these kettles are the basis of freshwater biology of the Cape and Islands" (This Broken Archipelago, Lazell). In addition to the kettles, there is also a slough on Tuckernuck. Lazell refers to this, writing "Tuckernuck has one of the prettiest fossil rivers I know of slicing right down its middle." Since the last Ice Age, the seas have continually risen, and are continuing to rise. In the last two centuries, the water has probably risen a foot or two (This Broken Archipelago, Lazell). When we were young, there were a few Nantucketers who still remembered the Gravelly Islands. In 1771, a small pox hospital was established there, by Dr. Samuel Galston, and was abolished in 1778. The buildings were bought by the town of Nantucket. (Nantucket Argument Settlers) The Gravelly Islands were used for sheep grazing until they disappeared into the sound at the end of the 19th century. The earliest influx of Indians to our coast probably occurred about 9,000 years ago. These individuals were called "Paleo people". (Paleolithic Culture in America). The sea level at this time was as much as 400 or 500 feet lower. Nantucket was not an island, only a high place where the glacier had stopped. Inconclusive evidence of this culture is
20
HISTORIC NANTUCKET
found on Nantucket. A few, however, indicate possible presence of the Paleo people (Nantucket Indians, Legends and Accounts Before 1659, Brenizer). Much evidence has been found on Tuckernuck of the three groups of Indians that followed. The Archaic people came about 5,000 B.C. and were separated into the Archaic and late Archaic groups. The former hunted with the spear and throwing stick whereas the latter used bows and arrows, smoked pipes and introduced soapstone pottery. The Woodland people were the last group, the Algonquin speaking group being prevalent in this section of the East. They learned to cultivate corn, squash and beans. They lived in various types of wigwams, later houses, and also adapted caves for their abodes (The Nantucket Indians, Brenizer). "Toockernook", one of the early spellings for Tuckernuck, found on maps, meant a "loaf of bread" in their Indian language. As children, we were always told that the soft round spots of tall grass, scattered in various sections of the island, mainly above the North and East ponds, were once topped by wigwams. This has been somewhat corroborated by Forman in Early Nantucket and its Whale Houses. "Excavations at Squam from 1938-1941, by the Massachusetts Archeological Society, revealed grassy deposits, which may have represented wigwam floors." He goes on to describe what the 17th century settlers found on Nantucket. No pictures have ever been found of their shelters, but by early descriptions, they were probably circular huts and arbor houses in the general shape of a quonset hut. In the middle of these was a place for a fire, the smoke being let out by a hole in the roof. Because of the bitter winds which lashed Nantucket, some of the Indian shelters were probably constructed over dug out caves. In his book Mr. Forman shows a drawing of "Uncle Black's" cave taken from Eliza Gardner's map of 1829. "It was probably built by an Indian in imitation of English work." Dugout shelters, in a more primitive form, were familiar to the Indians long before the White man came, and provided some natural protection against the bitter cold winds. Interesting archeological finds have been discovered on Tuckernuck. One of the most interesting was found by Story Clark and her young friends in 1964. Exploring the South Shore, they suddenly came upon something white and oval sticking out of the bank. They were Indian graves. The first one contained the skeleton of at least three disarticulated persons in what is described as a bundle burial. One of the skeletons was that of a young child six to eight years old. Another was of a tall woman,
>•4 K| s
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HISTORIC NANTUCKET
about 5 feet 7 inches and with a nearly perfect set of teeth. Other graves were discovered with mature persons in flexed positions with knees drawn up to the chest. The bodies all faced the East. This was the first time that several Indian graves had been found in a concentrated area in this section of the Atlantic coast. A carbon sample was sent to Isotope, Inc., and they estimated the remains to be from 400 to 600 years before the present (i.e. 1964). No "bundle burials" had been found before this on Nantucket, and it was of particular interest to the Massachusetts Historical Society. Every summer, fine specimens of Indian craftsmanship continue to turn up along the paths or beaches. Some have belonged to the earlier Archaic cultures; some to the later Woodland period. There were warring tribes of Indians, the Madaket group, and the Tuckernucks. A legend found in an unpublished manuscript by Obed Macy is condensed in Brenizer's book on the Nantucket Indian. It relates the story of an Indian youth in Madaket, captured by the Tuckernuck Indians while fishing with his grandfather, who was slain by them. Adopted by the Tuckernuck Indians, he plans his day of revenge. This comes when he is able to warn his former tribe of a Tuckernuck plan to surround his village and destroy it. The Madaket Indians lie in ambush, and the Tuckernuck Indians are slaughtered in the battle which follows. The youth takes a place of high honor in his tribe. According to tradition, there were two tribes on Nantucket, those of the East and West. The western tribe was said to have migrated from Martha's Vineyard, and the eastern end of the island was occupied by a tribe from Cape Cod. Both were subtribes of the Wampanougs (originally called Pokanokets), member of the great Algonquin family. "...As rivals for the bounty of land and sea, these two factions waged frequent wars. In 1630, an intertribal marriage is said to have created a permanent truce between the Eastern and Western tribes" (Nantucket Indians, Brenizer.) In October 1659, Tuckernuck was conveyed by Thomas Mayhew to Tristram Coffin, Peter Coffin, Tristram Jr., and James Coffin for six pounds [Nantucket Lands and Landowners, Worth], Before this event, an agreement was made in 1660 to divide the island in half between Tristram Coffin Senior and Pottachannett. Below is a copy of the original document from the Genealogical Register in Boston which was given to the Registry in 1857 by a descendant of Joshua Coffin: The Twentye first day of June 1660 Thes presents the wittnes of J. Peter Foger of Martaines vinyard did upon the request of Tristram Coffyn Senior And
NOTES ON TUCKERNUCK
23
with the consent of Pattacohannet, Sachein of Tuckanuck devid The Island of Tuckanuck as followeth: the line is to run from a littel round hill yt lyeth a littel above the head of the pond yet is att the East Sid of the Island and so goe By the East northeast poynt of the Compass to The West South west End of The Island, And the Aforesaid Tristram Coffyn Senior is to have the South Sid of the Island according to This line and Pattachannett is to have the North Sid. Witness Edward Starbuck Witness Thomey Trappe
Witness my hand, Peter Folger
At that time according to early maps and accounts, Tuckernuck, was also known as Tuckanug, Tuckannuck and Pentockunock. It was densely wooded. These first settlers must have found a number of Indians on the island. In 1678, Tristram Coffin conveyed to each of his grandsons (70 in number) ten acres of Tuckernuck, but "it was not until 1861 that the Indian Sachem POTTACOHANNETT finally deeded their domain to the Coffins. Although Governor Lovelace had conformed the original transfer in his patent issued from Albany in 1671 (Nantucket being controlled by the New York colony), the White man now felt secure by the Indian agreement." (The Story of Old Nantucket, William H. Macy). In Nantucket Lands and Landowners, Worth stated that the Sachem had three sons. Their interests were procured in this deed by swapping land in Nantucket and by the paymeny of five pounds. We do not know where and when the first house was built on Tuckernuck by a white man, but there is no reason not to believe that there was a small settlement built by the Coffins at the end of the 17th century or early part of the 18th century. Some of the old houses on the island today certainly have remains that go well back into the 18th century, but to date them precisely is an almost impossible task. In her diary Kezia Fanning refers to a trip to Tuckernuck in 1781: August 30, 1781: In a trip to Tuckernuck after visiting Peter Coffin's and Jacob Alley's (the latter not considered very neat). (Dr. Fanning's notes on her diary). Mrs. F. goes on to say, "We walked into the woods over the North of the island and back to Peter's (he lives on the East side of the Isle).
This shows that people were living on the island at least as far back as the 18th century.
NOTES ON TUCKERNUCK
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According to some early 17th century records, Nantucket abounded with trees. This, however, has been disputed, and although ancient oak tree stumps have been found in Nantucket peat bogs, there is no definite proof of their existence. It is, therefore, only safe to say that there were some indigenous trees on both islands. Consequently, with the exception perhaps, of the very first settlers, most of the wood had to be imported from the mainland. On the island are fine examples of virgin pine wood from the North. There are some wooden boards as wide as 2% feet at the Walker House (Peter Norton House) and the LaFarges (Brooks House) also have similar examples of flooring. Beams from wrecks were also used for the foundations and beams of these earlier houses. Houses on both Nantucket and Tuckernuck were often moved from one location to another, and what remains of an old house today may be very different from the plan of the original builder. They were relatively easy to move as the foundations were, from the earliest days, only piles of boulders found on the shore. The principal land industry on Nantucket and its surrounding islands, from the earliest colonizers, was "sheeping." Most of the moors became sheep pastures. Here are some excerpts from what is left of the Diary of Kezia Fanning. June 9, 1775: Dadda gone to Tuckernuck to wash sheep. June 12, 1775: Father went to Tuckernuck shearing. June 10, 1776: Folks gone to Tuckernuck to wash sheep. June 12, 1776: People gone to Tuckernuck to shear sheep.
In 1713, the county of Nantucket was given jurisdiction over Tuckernuck, "and taken from Dukes County. It was then called Tuckanug. Forman's descriptions of early whaling houses that existed in 'Sconset fit some of the smaller "fishing houses" found on the island today. He states: "Offshore whaling and retrieving dead whales flung up on Nantucket beaches had been the custom of Indians and Whites for hundreds of Years". The Indians were the first whalers in America and had an ap preciation of the value of blubber and oil. It can be concluded that it was also done on Tuckernuck, from the beginning of its settlement. George Black Coffin's boat house contained all the implements necessary for harpooning and "trying" the whale, and he was the last Tuckernucker to have successfully retrieved a whale from its shore.
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HISTORIC NANTUCKET
In 1780, the owners were ascertained for the purposes of partition. It was then estimated to be an island of 1,257 acres. Two years later J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur visited Tuckernuck and in his Letters from an American Farmer 1782 wrote: "To the west of the island (Nantucket) is that of Tuckernuck, where in the spring their young cattle are driven to feed; it has a few oak bushes, and two freshwater ponds, abounding with teals, brandts, and many other sea fowls, brought to this island by the proximity of their sand banks, and shallows; where thousands are seen feeding at low water. Here they have neither wolves nor foxes; those inhabitants therefore, who live out of town, raise with all security as much poultry as they want; their turkeys are very large and excellent. In summer this climate is extremely pleasant! They are not exposed to the scorching sun of the continent, the heats being tempered by the sea breeze, with which they are perpetually refreshed. In winter, however, they pay severely for these advantages; it is extremely cold; the northwest wind, the tyrant of this country, after having escaped from our mountains and forests, free from all impediments in its short passage, blows with redoubled force and renders this island bleak and un comfortable. On the other hand, the goodness of their houses, the social hospitality of their firesides, and their good cheer, make them ample ammends for the severity of the season, combined with vegetative rest of nature, force mankind to suspend their toils; often as this season more than half the inhabitants of the island are at sea, fishing in milder latitudes." During the revolution, when Nantucket remained uncommitted, with sympathies strongly divided, Tuckernuck was used on at least one occasion to hide Continental Privateers under the command of Captain Lot Barlow (Nantucket in the American Revolution, E.A. Stackpole). On June 14, 1782, Kezia Fanning wrote: "It is said that some of Barlow's men hid under houses, some in swamps and some got onto Tuckernuck." In Forman's Early Nantucket and its Whale Houses he recounts that "during the American Revolution . . . the father of a family in Tucker nuck, one day hid his beautiful and luscious daughter under a heap of flax in his garret because an English warship loitered in nearby waters." In his History of Nantucket, Obed Macy states that in 1835 "Tuckernuck is an island of about 1,000 acres inhabited by a few families." The map drawn by Eliza Gardner in 1829 showed 11 houses. On the North Pond were Daniel Dunham, James Alley, Anthony Chadwick, Ebenez Dunham. At the East Pond were the houses of William Brooks, Abel Coffin, Andrew Brooks, plus Uncle Black's Cave. Near the center were the houses of Peter Norton, Robert King, and Peter
HISTORIC NANTUCKET Coffin. As stated in the beginning, the bulk of existing houses were built from then until 1900. Tuckernuck was at its peak for farming and fishing. Oxen were used for plowing, and cattle were raised on the moors of the island. An old saying passed down to us: "He (or she) is as wild as a Tuckernuck steer." Chicken, pigs and sheep were kept on the island, and horses gradually replaced oxen. In 1829, there was the "Salem" School house. It was replaced at the end of the century by a fire engine house, moved from Milk Street (Tuckernuck, Stark). In a report of the School Committee for the Town of Nantucket, 1881, there were nine pupils under the tutelage of Susan A. Barrett. She received $204 for her 34 week salary (Most teachers in the area worked 40 weeks.) and an extra $4.00 for her janitorial duties. The report goes on to say: "Village schools: all in good condition, pupils have entered from the High and Grammar schools well prepared." Children had to leave the village school after the 5th grade and continue their education in Nantucket. According to N a n t u c k e t A r g u m e n t S e t t l e r s , Nantucket and Tuckernuck were joined for the last time in 1869. "Isaac Folger drove over to Tuckernuck, the last person to drive a horse and wagon between the two islands before 'the opening.' " In 1840, "a system of telegraphing by visual signals between Nantucket and Woods Hole via the islands of Martha's Vineyard, Muskeget and Tuckernuck was inaugurated and maintained successfully for several months." [Nantucket Argument Settlers] In 1831, the Massachusetts Humane Society, a private organization, placed 14 Humane houses around the islands. "They were built that a shipwrecked person might find food and shelter near at hand." (Ship wrecks Around Nantucket) Within the houses were fully equipped dories, or "whale boats," basic sustenance for survival, and dry clothes. The Tuckernuck Humane house was constructed on the south side of the island. In 1887, the large lagoon, on whose shores it was built, became a closed pond. As the banks of that shore have seen much change, and much destruction by the sea, it has been moved back several times, as the pond disappeared, to its present position. Five years ago, a smaller lagoon appeared in front of the Humane house in its present locale. It is already tilled in with sand. In January 1889, the ship Antoinette went ashore on the southwest side of Tuckernuck. Her masts were cut off to prevent her from rolling over. The Muskeget life-saving crew pulled three miles in two dories to
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HISTORIC NANTUCKET
their assistance. They found the sea so high it was impossible to board the vessel. After landing at Tuckernuck, they proceeded to the Humane Society's boat which was hauled overland a mile and a half and launched. Still impossible to land, they pulled back to Muskeget, loaded the breeches buoy on board, and safely landed the crew. (Shipwrecks Around Nantucket) The conclusion, therefore, is that the large lagoon which had become the South pond, hindered a quick launch of the Humane house's boat into the sea. No life saving station was originally planned for Tuckernuck, and the one closest to our island was established on Muskeget in 1883. This was completely destroyed by fire in 1889, and its headquarters was moved to North Head on Tuckernuck Island. Isaac P. Dunham leased the dwelling to the U.S. Life Saving District from February 1890 until 1896, by which time the one at Muskeget had been rebuilt. A book could be written about Tuckernuck heroes and their daring sea rescues around the treacherous shoals and water of the islands. Shoals are dreaded around the islands to this day, and upon nearly every major one, there has been a wreck. As of 1915, the list of wrecks had compiled more than 500 vessels. Here are just a few of the many references to the brave men, found in Wrecks Around Nantucket: 1871: Cash awards to the following men from the Massachusetts Humane Society for rescuing the schooner Mary H. Brooks wrecked near Smith's Point, October 29, 1871; Thomas Sandsbury, Joseph Fisher, Henry C. Coffin, John Appleton, John Coffin, James G. Smith, Isaac P. Dunham, Valentine Small, Warren Ramsdell. 1874: Cash awards to the following men from the Massachusetts Humane Society for boarding in a dense fog, a man of war in Muskeget Channel, firing guns for assistance: Thomas Sandsbury, Isaac Dunham, George Huxford, James Smith, Andrew Brooks, Charles Brooks, John Smith, Marcus Dunham, Zimri Cathcart. 1874: Cash awards to the following men from the Massachusetts Humane Society for rescuing the crew of the schooner "John Farmer", wrecked on Tuckernuck, March 29, 1878; Thomas Sandsbury, James G. Smith, James C. Sandsbury, George B. Coffin, Andrew B. Brooks, John B. Dunham, Edwin R. Smith, a Silver Medal each, for rescue of shipwrecked seamen in the vicinity of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, March 31, 1879. (To be continued in the July issue)
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Built 1692 The Old Swain House, Polpis Destroyed by Fire, 1902
