26
Historic Nantucket
Naming Streets and Numbering Houses A Personal Account William A. Hance The idea that all of Nantucket should have a system of locating houses and that the Civic League might take on the job was first raised by Mrs. John (Bobbie) Beale about mid-1980. At that time only Nantucket Town and a few streets out of town had street ad dresses. The main reason for extending a locator system was to facilitate emergency and police services. The days when policemen and firemen knew every house on the island were fast disappear ing, and summer recruits could not be expected to have the required knowledge. The most common types of out-of-town address were "Madaket," "Surfside," "Off Polpis Road," "Off Hummock Pond Road," etc.; houses in these areas could be miles apart. In 1982, the County Commissioners endorsed a proposal by the Civic League that an Emergency House Locator System be created, and I was appointed shortly thereafter to head up the effort. In pro ceeding with the assignment, it became apparent very soon that there were a lot of anomalies and problems to face. First, it was not practical to focus solely on the areas outside of town because several streets began within; and their numbering in town thus af fected the numbers used outside. Second, a brief examination of town numbers revealed serious shortcomings. Two streets, Madaket and North Liberty, had been numbered starting at both ends. Numbers of several streets, particularly those running southward from Main Street, went up, then down, then up again. Quite a few streets had houses with duplicate numbers; one street had three houses numbered "3." There was confusion resulting from the use of appendages to street names, most of which were unnecessary. For example, streets running northward from Main Street graduated into "Upper," "Extension," or both, or even changed names, as when Grave Street becomes Brush Lane. (The thought occurred to me that if Vestal Street went beyond Upper and Extension, we could name it "Vestal Virgin Street.") Streets running southward from Main Street often had a "Lower" prefix at some intermediate point, and sometimes an "Extension." (I considered that we might change "Lower Orange" to "Lemon," "Lower Union" to "Disunion" and "Lower Pleasant" to "Unpleasant.") A fair number of streets had
