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Diary of a Nantucket Woman in Wales and Some Other Diaries. by Freda James
HOW MANY PEOPLE receive a diary as a Christmas gift, and how many make New Year resolutions to write in them every day, but after a few months or even weeks their good intentions are forgotten? Do you keep a diary? If you do it might become famous in 100 years' time, or if not famous it might find its way into a museum. Perhaps you think, as I do about mine, that it is too humdrum ever to find fame, but one never knows, as I have learned recently, about the every day diary of Abial Folger which was started 177 years ago, copies of which have already found their way into three museums.. Who, however, was Abial Folger, and why has her diary been preserved? To find out we must return to the War of Independence in America and to the little island of Nantucket, off the coast of Massachusetts. Here, whaling families led happy and contented lives until their ships were being commandeered, and some men were forc ed to fight which was against their principles as they were Quakers. Many of these families accepted the invitation of the Hon. Charles Greville (2nd son of the Earl of Warwick), to settle on the shores of Milford Haven, in Wales. It was intended that they should carry on their whaling and also help in the building of a new town. Charles Greville was the favorite nephew of his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who had inherited land bordering on Milford Haven, from his first wife Catherine Barlow. He had appointed Greville as his agent and gave him a free hand to build the town of Milford with large houses, a Church, an observatory, quays, etc. No one is quite certain how many families arrived at Milford Haven. The families had first left Nan tucket in 1785, upon invitation from Gov. Parr of Nova Scotia, to settle at Dartmouth, across the harbor from Halifax. Here they established a successful whaling port, until 1792, when an attractive proposal arrived from Charles Greville, inviting them as a colony to come to Milford Haven, in Wales. Thus it was that these migrant whaling families from Nantucket went aboard fifteen whaling ships, with complete outfits, household goods, and crossed the Atlantic, to arrive at Milford on September 22, 1792. The leaders of the group were Samuel Starbuck and Timothy Folger.
