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It Happened in April - In Our Own Times THROUGHOUT HISTORY on Nantucket, April has been a month of destiny. Two World Wars of momentous import began in this month. Nantucket has seen the approach of both in a physical sense, and some of these events are within the memory of the older folks. As a starter, does one remember the announcement on Mack's billboard on April 6, 1917, that the United States had declared war on Germany - being posted across the square on Main Street? Or that April morning on the 13th in 1918, when the first airplane, a hydroplane- land ed in the harbor and came up on the beach just inside the old Petrel Wharf. And, four days later, four others of the unknown craft landed inside Brant Point, from the Chatham Naval Base. School was dismiss ed to permit the children to witness the event. Although one plane was damaged in landing there were no casualties. With the headquarters set up on Nantucket for the large Naval Reserve Force, under Lieut. T. J. Prindiville, during World War I, with the Springfield House as the dormitory, and the Nantucket Yacht Club as the recreational headquarters, opened on April 20,1917, and a fleet of small craft stationed here. The Nantucket Railroad disappeared, the rails and locomotive shipped to France for the American Expeditionary Forces. Daylight saving went into effect in March, 1918. On April 24 1918, Governor McCall signed the bill in the State Legislature which repealed the law excluding automobiles from Nan tucket. Only a few weeks later, the Nantucket voters accepted the repeal by the narrow vote of 336 to 296. It was a decision accepted with much reservation by the townspeople. During the first years thereafter, Nan tucket saw to it that the automobile adapted itself to the island. Now, Nantucket has been changed; we have retrogressed. There is a nice pat tern to this particular segment of Island history, which lends itself to a possible solution to our summer problem. In April of 1926, the old basin at Steamboat Wharf, known as the Adams' basin, was filled in, and an era in Nantucket's waterfront disap peared forever. Do you remember? - Edouard A. Stackpole
