by Dr. Dorrit Hoffleit

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Ebenezer Porter Mason and His Childhood Impressions of Nantucket 1830-1835

by Dr. Dorrit Hoffleit Department of Astronomy Yale University EBENEZER PORTER MASON was a genius who, in his short life of just 21 years, accomplished more than most intellectually able men could do in twice or thrice that span. Born in Washington, Connecticut, December 7,1819, he lost his mother when he was only three years old. A letter written to his aunt, Mrs. Harriet B. Turner of Richmond, Virginia, when he was seven, indicates his early perspicacity:

Washington, April 8,1826

My Dear Aunt—

I thought you would be glad to hear from me, and as I have been learning to write, I thought I would write you a letter. A part of the winter I went to Mr. Saunders's School and studied Latin. I have read the books which you brought me last summer, and I like "Jack Halyard" best. I like "Evenings in New England" very well, and "Kings of England" nearly as well as Jack Halyard. Burr* sends his love to you, and we both wish to see you. B. likes "Poetic Tales," and "Robert and William," the best of all his books. Burr and I play with our bows and arrows, our hoops and our balls, and I should like to be old enough to have a kite. Please give my best to my cousins in Richmond. Your affectionate nephew Ebenezer Porter Mason

*His younger brother, David Burr Mason

From the time he was eight this aunt assumed the care and upbringing of this precocious but delicate child. Already at that time globes were his favorite play things, and he used a celestial globe to teach himself the constellations. At age nine he wrote his younger brother, "I am now studying Chemistry, French, English Grammar, Arithmetic and Composition. I am reading Scott's Recueil in French." A year later he acquired an English book, "Wonders of the Heavens," and at twelve Burritt's Star Maps became his constant evening companions.

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His father, Stephen Mason, a Congregational minister, was always ji poor financial circumstances, but did all he was able for his children. In 1829 he was called to the Congregational Church in Nantucket where he reunited his small family (he had remarried again in 1824) and Porter (the boy went by his middle name) followed in 1830. After his premature death in 1840 his Yale professor, Denison Olmsted, wrote the biography of this oustandingly gifted student, "Life and Writings of Ebenezer Porter Mason; Interspersed with Hints to Parents and Instructors on the Training and Education of a Child Genius" (1842).

Thus we have numerous letters the boy wrote his aunt and others, giving his impressions of the Island and even some poetry inspired by the Island. His chief interests even as a small child had been poetry and astronomy. Olmsted does not mention Maria Mitchell, only one year older than Porter; but Helen Wright in "Sweeper in the Sky" mentions that Maria occasionally took her friend Ebenezer Porter Mason with her to visit the library of her relative, Cousin Walter Folger. One cannot imagine two more kindred spirits than Maria and Porter. After Porter left the Island in 1835 Maria lost contact with him.

All of the quotations recorded here are from Olmsted's book. Porter's first letter from Nantucket, addressed to Mrs. Turner, was dated July 11,1830:

"My Dear Aunt— " I have so many things to tell you, that I hardly know where to begin. I had a very pleasant passage, and I can say that I was not sick at all on the voyage. I intended to go from New York on Friday evening, when I could have company; but that very day at dinner, I heard that there was a sloop going to Nantucket next morning, the very one which father and our family went in. I resolved to go in it, but it was now four o'clock in the afternoon and it was to sail at five. I had to pack up very quick and go on board. I arrived here Sunday afternoon after a passage of about two days. "All Sunday there was a brisk wind against us. When I came to the wharf, I was surprised to see so large a city. It was nearly as large as Richmond, and the population is between seven and eight thousand. The place is called Nantucket. The houses are nearly all of wood, and are painted any way, white one side, red another, green another, or some such way, and they are for the most part covered all over with shingles. They have walks on the top to get a view of the sea. "There are some trees on the island. In the town they are about as thick as on Shocco Hill in Richmond;

EBENEZER PORTER MASON

but in the country there are not any except a small grove for the cattle to find shelter from the storms. The soil is sandy, but when I rode out of town the grass was so green, and all was so pleasant, that I never thought of the want of trees and fences. There are a great many more ships and vessels here than in Richmond, most of which are engaged in the whale fishery. When I came into port they were so thick that our sloop could hardly enter. There have been several launches here since I arrived, one of which I went to see; but as they could not prepare it till several hours afterwards, I returned. There is but one steamboat here at present, called the Marco Bozzaris, which runs twice a week between here and New Bedford. "D. and I entered Coffin-school Monday June 28th. It is a large school, and a great many boys are idle and vicious. Nine of them were whipped yesterday afternoon. I now study Caesar, Arithmetic, Reading, and Writing. "Our house is large, and there are rooms in the basement story, in one of which D. and I have chisels and other tools, with which we make ships, hen-coops, &-tc. L. has a baby-house up stairs in her room in which are about six babies, which she instructs. D and I are both well, and Father and Mother are about half as well as we are. We have a hired servant named Martha. Her parents reside in a part of town called New Guinea, where the blacks live, and they are a very merry set of people; and now when I wish myself in Guinea I can easily get there."

The reader must not forget that it is the letter of a little boy, ten years old, that he is perusing; but while the style is simple and artless as became the age of the writer, the amount of information it contains respecting his new residence, his studies and employments, and the situation of his family, is as great as could well be contained in so small a compass. Conciseness and simplicity of style were indeed qualities which always characterized his writings.

His uncle, the Rev. Mr. Turner, used occasionally to indulge his humor with him amusing himself with the sprightly repartees which his pleasantry would elicit. His young friend was fond of receiving such letters from his uncle, and always replied to them in a

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humorous though respectful tone. I subjoin a few extracts as illustrative of this element of young Mason's character.

To the Rev. J.H. Turner "Nantucket, Sep. 25,1830

"My Dear Uncle— "I received your letter of September 2d, and derived much amusement from it. As for Nantucket, so far from being the "jumping off place," it lies exactly over the centre of the earth. "I went to Siasconset a few weeks ago, a small town on the northeastern part of Nantucket. On the beach the sea rolls very high. It is eight or nine miles from town, composed of fishermen's houses, mostly whitewashed, where the fishermen stay in the fishing season. A few of the wealthy people have handsome gardens and cottages there, where they reside in the summer season. People here are very fond of puddings; they make blackberry puddings, whortleberry puddings, and puddings of nearly every thing they can be made of, including corn-puddings, which they manufacture out of green corn, and I like them very much. "I hope I shall not forget my obligation to you in your old age. My house (if I have one) and all its comforts must be shared with you, and my bed also. — I have not caught a whale yet, but the first one I catch shall be sent you.

"Your affectionate nephew, E.P. Mason."

To Mrs. H.B. Turner "Nantucket, June 3d, 1831

"My Dear Aunt— "I received your letter yesterday, and am much pleased to hear that you are better. I am now in the first class in school, and study Latin, Greek, Algebra, Geometry, Natural Philosophy, History, Rhetoric, Reading and Writing. I have given up French this quarter, because I could not get along with that, and my other studies. I got the first medal, or highest reward of merit, last quarter."

By the autumn of 1832, Porter had acquired considerable proficiency in Latin, Greek, French, and mathematics. He was thus well prepared for college. However, Yale set a lower limit of age fourteen

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for entrance to the Freshman class, and Porter was two years too young. According to Olmsted, "His friends, however, were desirous of obtaining for him more finished instruction, and more personal attention, than could be obtained in so large and promiscuous a school as that of Nantucket."

Hence the Rev. Mr. Mason sent him to Ellington, a new institution near Hartford, for preparing boys for college. There the boy "prosecuted his studies with great zeal." By 1834 the Rev. Mason unfortunately found himself in such financial straits that Porter had to leave Ellington. He returned to Nantucket as a teaching assistant in the school he had previously attended. He wrote to Mrs. Turner:

"Nantucket, Sept. 1834

"My Dear Aunt— "I am now busily engaged during the day in school, and like the employment pretty well, though I had rather be a scholar than a teacher. I have begun a course of History, and have finished the first volume of Hume, writing a compendium of all I read. "I have written no poetry since I left Ellington, except an acrostic for a man who wished one for his wife, and a few others at the request of friends. As Nantucket is so destitute of fountains and running waters, I can find here no Castalian spring for the accommodations of the Muses... "When the eye is confined to a narrow spot of earth, it naturally turns upward to the sky; and the star that shone on the crest of the wave must have made a more durable impression on his mind, and inspired him with a deeper reverence of the wonders of nature, than the same luminary could have done as it shone through the maples that shaded the place of his nativity."

Mason remained at this period only about two years at Nantucket, but this time seems to have passed very pleasantly and profitably. "He always (says Mr. Hollister) spoke of Nantucket with enthusiasm, as the spot where his mind had developed itself with the greatest rapidity. This he attributed more to the situation of the place than to any other cause. The peculiar habits of the islanders, (he said) living as it were in a little world of their own, the sun rising out of the water, and the stars reflecting upon its surface in the evening made an impression upon my mind that I could not forget."

In 1835, Mason's sojourn on the Island ended, unhappily. As Olmsted reports, "The Rev. Mr. Mason's labors at Nantucket were

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more arduous than he could sustain, and he was dismissed from his people with much uncertainty hanging over him and his family, not only in respect to their future prospects, but even as to their immediate support." Porter bade his farewell in verse before departing for Richmond for the summer:

Farewell to Nantucket "Thou art a barren spot of earth, A lonely island of the sea, And though thou'rt not my place of birth, Thou'st been a welcome to me. And now, when I must leave thy shore, I cannot go without a tear, To think I cannot see thee more, Nor tread thy fields to memory dear, 'Tis not alone thy soil I love, But heave a sad and sorrowing heart, That when from thee I far remove, From dearest friends I too must part. I go to distant, milder lands, But in my bosom cherish still, The fond remembrance of my friends — Thou sea-girt island, Fare thee well!"

When Porter presented himself at Yale in August for examinations for entering the Freshman class, Olmsted "was immediately struck by the superiority of his mathematical powers and attainments." The examiners were agreed that he would make a first-rate mathematician.

One of Porter's greatest joys that fall was viewing Halley's comet through the college telescopes. (It had been Olmsted and Tutor Loomis who preceded William Mitchell as the first in America to spot the comet on its eagerly awaited return.)

Olmsted has remained famous for having written many texts on natural philosophy and astronomy. One, "Rudiments of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy" went through more than 50 editions, and in all 200,000 copies of his various books were sold. When Mason had graduated from Yale and needed a job, Olmsted employed him for proof reading and helping to edit his latest book, "Introduction to Astronomy".

Mason did such a meticulously fine job that Olmsted encouraged him to write a treatise on practical astronomy to be used in conjunction with his own book. This work was intermittently interrupted by