When Governor Lincoln Visited Nantucket

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When the Governor of Massachusetts Visited

DESPITE THE FACT that Nantucket was known early in the 19th century as the whaling Capital of the world, it was not until September 5, 1825, that Governor Levi Lincoln, of Massachusetts, with some friends decided to visit this unusual appendage of the State. Accompanied by Hezekiah Barnard, of Nantucket, who at this period was the Treasurer of the Commonwealth, Aaron Hill, Postmaster of Boston, an aide named Colonel Davis, and Josiah Quincy, his secretary, the party boarded the Plymouth stage coach in Boston. From Plymouth the party journeyed on to Falmouth, where the Nantucket packet lay, with a head wind to delay the departure of the Governor's party. When they got under way they found only bunks below the deck to provide accommodation for the miniature voyage, and upon arrival at two o'clock the following morning they were alerted by a large thud and a swishing sound along the sides of the vessel. They were informed that they were on Nantucket bar and would have to await the rise of the tide to free the packet.

Several whaleships, anchored nearby, loomed as the sun rose. This brought forth from the Governor the following exclamation: "There is Yankee perseverance for you. Would they believe in Europe that a port which annually sends eighty of these whalers to the Pacific has a harbor which a sloop drawing eight feet of water cannot enter?"

After a visit around town and to 'Sconset, with a reception at the Commercial Insurance office, Governor Lincoln and his party returned by packet to Falmouth and thence to Boston via the Plymouth stage. This island town was the third largest port in the Commonwealth at this time, and the greatest whaling port in the western world, soon to be surpased by New Bedford during the next decade. But, in the period when Governor Lincoln visited, the island was enjoying the approach of its "palmy days", when the ships and the merchants were witnessing the zenith of the whaling prosperity.

While the 1830's saw Nantucket at the height of its whaling prosperity, there was no indication that the fraternity of Whalemen was to lose their position in the whaling world. First there was a bad fire along the waterfront in 1938, which caused much misfortune, but it took and major disaster to turn the tide in the fortunes of the island's prosperity. This came in the form of the Great Fire in July of 1846, which destroyed the entire waterfront as well as the business section of Main Street and extended several blocks to the west of the town's center. It was the most destructive conflagration ever to occur in this old Quaker town and its effect was immediate and lasting.