Historic Nantucket, Spring 1990, Vol. 38 No. 1

SPRING

1990

V O L U M E 38

Remembered

No. I

From The President

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Helen W. Chase, Editor Diane Ucci, Assistant Editor Bruce A. Courson, Curator of Interpretation

Sesachacha & Sankaty Pond opening and erosion on Nantucket's eastern shore

By Wesley N. Tiffney ,]r. and ]. Clinton Andrews

Reflections of Tuckernuck Travel back on the catboat, called Three Sisters, and see Tuckemuck Island sixty years ago through the wondering eyes of a six-year-old.

By E. W. Coffin

Oldest House Nears Completion Two and one-half years of work reveal themselves as the Jethro Coffin house approaches a re-opening celebration.

By Mark Fortenberry

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Departments W hat's News at the NHA We couldn't do it without you...

Events of interest

Browsing at the Museum Shop 2

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elcome to our running four-year headstart on the second century of the Nantucket Historical Association! We hope you enjoy the new look of Historic Nantucket: it repre­ sents a big change and, in my opinion, one for the good. It was a challenge for our Historian and Editor, Helen Chase, Assistant Editor, Diane Ucci, and our Curator oflnterpretation, Bruce Courson. I am sure you will agree with me that they met it with flying colors.

Life is full of changes, and many are not as positive as this one.

Even when nothing appears to be happening, changes are taking place.

Consider Nantucket's long quiet period, from the end of the whaling days after 1860 until the summer resort era after 1890. During this time many homes went unmaintained because there was no money to keep them up. "Nothing was happening," and yet important changes were occurring.

The properties of your Association are changing even now. We have old buildings full of old things, and without maintenance they will disintegrate. That is our challenge as an organization. Beetles eat the posts and beams - even the chairs and tables; winds loosen shingles; rain leaks in; pipes develop leaks; plaster cracks; paint chips and peels.

Changes, changes... that we are pledged to stop.

Other change requires adaptation and acceptance, and we need your help as members and friends to address it. As we prepare for the next hundred years of preserving Nantucket's history, we will ask for your commitments of time and money. Please respond generously, as you have in the past. Meanwhile, enjoy your revitalized Historic Nan­ tucket as our first step into the next century.

Wynn Lee, Executive Director THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES H. Flint Ranney, President Mr. Robert Mooney, Vice President Mrs. Carl Mueller, Vice President Mr. Max N. Berry, Treasurer Mrs. Walker Groetzinger, Secretary Mrs. Arthur Jacobsen Mrs. C. Marshall Beale Reginald E. Levine Mrs. Dwight Beman Mrs. Earle MacAusland Mrs. Richard Brecker Mrs. William B. Macomber Charles C. Butt Joseph McLaughlin Kimberly Corkran-Miller Philip C. Murray John W. Eckman David M. Ogden Nancy Martin Evans Mrs. Judith Powers Mrs. H. Crowell Freeman Richard S. Sylvia Erwin L. Greenberg Susan Spring Whistler Mrs. Hamilton Heard, Jr. ADVISORY BOARD Mrs. Robert Bailey Mrs. Thomas Loring Mrs. Charles Balas William B. Macomber Mrs. Donna Beasley Paul H. Madden Patricia A. Butler Mrs. William Pullman Mrs. James F. Chase F. Blair Reeves Mrs. Herbert Gutterson Susan Tate William A. Hance Donald E. Terry Mrs. Robert Hellman Mrs. Mark White Mrs. John Husted John S. Winter Andrew j. Leddy Mrs. Joseph C. Woodle EDITORIAL BOARD Mrs. Dwight Beman Mrs. James. F. Chase Robert F. Mooney

H. Flint Ranney Susan Beegel Tiffney Mrs. Jane D. Woodruff Mrs. Bracebridge H. Young

WHAT'S NEWS AT THE NHA LOCAL HISTORY IN THE SCHOOLS riling home to Nantucket from her Friends' school in New York, Hannah Coffin announced, "Mother has in­ structed me in spinning flax, so that I have spun enough to knit father two pair of stockings ..."

A joint project between the NHA and the Nantucket Elementary School will in­ corporate Hannah's 1807 letter and other primary source documents into the local history curriculum at the Elementary School.

These documents reveal the activities and rhythms of everyday life and invite school­ children to make direct comparisons be­ tween their lives and those of people on Nantucket in past centuries.

Helen Chase, Betsy Codding, Bruce Courson and Jacqueline Haring from the NHA, together with Judith Powers, Elemen­ tary School Librarian, architects Marsha Fader and Barbara Timkin, and Eleanor Jones from the Learning and Resource Center, have been working since last October to identify ways to help teachers and students learn more about Nantucket's unique heritage.

The first phase, now in progress, is the collection of resources -- photographs,

documents and objects from the NHA's collections, and from other local sources, which relate to the various areas of study for each grade level.

Once assembled, these items, or facsimiles suitable for use, will reside at the Elementary School. Teachers will then be able to draw from these "re­ source boxes" to create lessons and hands­ on activities related to almost every facet of daily life in Nantucket's past. In the second phase of the project, the group will design an activity book for each grade level, starting with a prototype for grade one.

Recently, the Massachusetts Arts Lot­ tery Council awarded a grant to this Heri­ tage Education Project. These funds will reproduce the photographs and facsimile documents and will facilitate the produc­ tion of the first student activity book.

THE NEW NHA RESEARCH CENTER

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e hope that not too many of you have been inconvenienced by the "Closed for Renovation" sign posted on the front door of the Peter Foulger building. Behind those closed doors the NHA Research Center has been creating the additional space it has needed for several years. The changes to the first floor of the building are, of course, only temporary.

We all look forward to the time when the Peter Foulger will again be an exhibiting museum.

But temporary and makeshift as they are, the changes are for the better.

Having all the books in the Edouard A. Stackpole Library shelved together at last is, for example, a great improvement. The read­ ing room is also large enough now to accom­ modate as many readers as we have had at one time on our busy days in the past. Now, of

THE NHA WELCOMES NEW STAFF MEMBERS J o Sullivan joined our staff in May 1989, as Development Assistant to Wynn Lee. She is responsible for membership activities and plans, advertises and carries out special events and fund-raisers. Jo has been an island resident for the past four years but is origi­ nally from New Zealand where she received a Master's Degree in Archaeology.

Diane Ucci began with us in January 1990, as the new Executive Assistant to the Director. Diane has a Master's Degree in Edu­ cation and worked previously with the Edu-

cational Management Network as a consulting associate. She is Assistant Editor of Historic Nantucket organizes group tours, and also assists with public relations, scheduling and other staff activities.

Our new Assistant for Administration and Finance is Maurice Gibbs who came on board in March 1990. Maurice is a retired Navy meteorologist who most recently co­ owned a flower farm in Maui. Back now to live on Nantucket, he is a native islander and a familiar face to many.

Members will recall the appointment of Wynn Lee as Director of Development and Public Affairs in March 1989. In February 1990, the Board of Trustees named him Execu­ tive Director to fill the vacancy left by John Welch's departure at year end. Prior to his experience with the NHA, Wyn n served for ten

course, they will all sit at tables! The manu­ script collections and the Association's ar­ chives are finally housed in one environmen­ tally controlled room. The staff at last have adjacent offices, and the darkroom is in the same building as the photographs and the photo archivist. We have even arranged some space for anticipated collection growth.

To celebrate the newly renovated Re­ search Center, we held an open house on Friday, April 27. Approximately two hundred people shared our enthusiasm for the im­ provements in our library and research space.

years as Executive Director of the Mark Twain Memorial in Hartford, Connecticut.

Helen Winslow Chase succeeds Histo­ rian Emeritus Edouard A. Stackpole as Editor of Historic Nantucket. She grew up on Nan­ tucket and has been an NHA life member since 1944. She taught history and geogra­ phy, first on Nantucket, then in Wisconsin and Illinois. Her earliest writing assignments were publicity releases and feature articles on the NHA's first lecture series given in the l 950's.

Chase has traveled in the South Pacific to trace Nantucket connections with Pitcairn, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Hawaii and has lo­ cated American whaling manuscripts in Aus­ tralia and New Zealand. As NHA Historian, she lectures and writes about Nantucket his­ tory.

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Pond opening and erosion on Nantucket's eastern shore

Sesachacha & Sankaty Wesley N. Tiffney, Jr. and]. Clinton Andrews

History of Pond Opening on Nantucket Island Settlers on Nantucket, and elsewhere in coastal New England, may well have learned the practice of opening shoreline ponds to the sea from local Indians. This practice promoted runs of saltwater fish (eels, alewives or herring, and white perch) into and out of the ponds, depending on the habits of the individual species. While in the ponds, or running to or from them, fish could be caught by weirs, nets or hooks-and-lines in the summer and (in the case of eels) by spears wielded through the ice in the winter. The brackish ponds thus created frequently supported oyster beds and low salinities helped control oyster predators.

These fish and shellfish provided a handy year­ round supply of bait and food.

Pond opening has been practiced on Nan­ tucket for over three centuries until the present decade. In 1665, settlers and Indians cooperated to dig a permanent ditch from Long Pond to the nearby salt water at Hither Creek. A May 1876, issue of the Inquirer and Mirror contains the first account of opening a pond by breaching a barrier beach. From settlement to the present, it is likely that the other six major coastal ponds on Nan­ tucket (Squam, Sesachacha, Tom Nevers, Miacomet, Hummock and Capaum) have all been opened to the sea on a more-or-less regular basis. Until 1933, pond opening was an informal process,ac­ complished by groups of fishermen working to­ gether to dig ditches when pond levels were high enough to provide sufficient "head" for eroding substantial channels. From 1933 until 1981, the Town of Nantucket paid for heavy equipment to open ponds each year.

From 1874, when fish packed in ice were first shipped from Nantucket to city markets,until 1960 when excessive transportation costs made shipment unprofitable,sale of fish from the ponds was a lucrative seasonal industry. After 1960,eels, alewives and perch were in less demand for food, perhaps due to changing tastes. Nantucket's off­ shore fin-fishery declined and mainland-based fishing vessels provided their own bait. Oysters were imported or grown in farms. In 1981, pond opening ceased under provisions of the Massachu­ setts Wetlands Protection Act. Today, the seven­ teenth-century ditch connecting Long Pond with salt water is still open,and fish still run to and from the pond; but only a few people use these re­ sources.

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Pond Opening Controversy Even after the harvest and sale of fish were no longer commercially profitable,ponds continued to be opened. Proponents of the opening claimed that the practice was effective in controlling mosquitoes, setting free trapped aquatic life, and generally "cleaning out" the ponds. Some fishermen hoped to reestablish a commercial pond fishery. In other cases, the main reason for opening ponds was to lower water levels in ponds and their connected swamps to mitigate flooding of nearby homes and cot­ tages by seasonal high water tables. Some long­ term Nantucket residents also felt that pond opening formed part of their heritage and was one more tradition being usurped by meddling "off-island experts," particularly those in gov­ ernment or environmental management posi­ tions.

Those opposed to pond openings ar­ gued that the practice resulted in a significant reduction of Nantucket's limited fresh water supply, promoted salt contamination of well­ fields, and resulted in sand loss from breached barrier beaches to deep water. Many doubted that lowering pond levels was effective in deny-

ing stagnant water to breeding mosquitoes. Some opponents suggested that clear management ob­ jectives for opening be derived, stated and ap­ proved, or the practice be discontinued.

In 1981, the Nantucket Conservation Com­ mission, acting under provisions of the Massa­ chusetts Wetlands Protection Act, required that a detailed and extensive environmental impact state­ ment be prepared and approved in advance of any future pond opening. The Commission re­ jected the arguments of the opening proponents and was upheld on appeal to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Quality Engineer­ ing. No sanctioned pond opening has occurred since 1981. Hummock Pond was illegally breached by unknown individuals onJanuary 14-15, 1987, while several attempts have been made to open Sesachacha -- one such effort requiring interven­ tion by the police. Such incidents exemplify the emotional content of this issue.

A New Reason for Pond Opening In the last few years those in favor of opening the ponds have cited an additional reason in favor of the practice. They argue that sand carried out to sea by water rushing through the breached barrier beach contributes to protective offshore shoals, or directly nourishes beaches. This, they claim, decreases wave impact energy and/or provides more sand to beaches, thus mitigating erosion along Nantucket's shores. In specific, opening proponents cite a severe erosion cycle, beginning about 1981 (when Sesachacha Pond was last opened), that has endangered houses and the lighthouse atop the Sankaty bluff, about 1.3 miles south of the pond (Figure 1). They suggest that opening Sesachacha Pond again would help control or reduce erosion on this bluff, saving millions of dollars of private prop­ erty and the historic Sankaty Head Lighthouse.

Figure 1. The eroding Sankaty bluff and flat narrow erosional beach, Nantucket.

February 13, 1989.

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This contention has added new fuel to an already overheated controversy. Our purpose in this study is to evaluate the possible relationship between the sand that would be contributed to the coastal system by opening Sesachacha Pond and the catastrophic erosion of the Sankaty bluff.

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chacha Pond

Sesachacha Pond, on the eastern side of Nantucket, is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a narrow barrier beach . It is a large pond of about 280 acres. A fine Indian site just north of the pond contains an extensive oyster-shell midden, suggesting that the pond was either breached naturally on a regular basis or that Indians opened it to promote oyster growth and perhaps to encourage fish runs. Since English settlement the pond has probably been opened regularly. Sesa­ chacha has become the test case in the contro­ versy between the proponents and opponents of the opening for all coastal ponds on Nan­ tucket.

When the water table is high, we have observed the pond level at as much as six feet above mean low water on the ocean side of the barrier beach. This represents a water volume of 2,710,400 cubic yards. In a successful pond opening, this large volume of water pours out through an initially narrow, machine-dug ditch with increasing force and velocity. The beach sand is easily carved away; and when the pond drops to the ocean's low-tide level, a channel some two hundred feel wide remains. Longshore transport of sand closes the opening, usually within two to ten days, depending on weather conditions, wave intensity and wave direction.

However, on two occasions, the pond remained open for about four months. When Sesachacha was opened regularly, our measurements indi­ cated salinities ranging from 10.2 lo 26.3 parts

per thousand (0/00) (1.0 to 2.6% -- normal ocean salinity is about 32 0/00 or 3.2%). On January 24, 1989, after nearly eight years un­ opened, the salinity was 3.1 0/00 (0.3%).

l:rosion at rh Sankaty Bluff The Sankaty bluff runs from Sesachacha Pond south to the town of Siasconset for about two miles and varies in height from a few feel to about one hundred feet near Sankaty Lighthouse.

At present, the northern one mile is actively eroding. The bluff is composed of marine sedi­ ments comprising unconsolidated sand, gravel, and clay derived from Pleistocene glacial tills deposited from 21,000 to 16,000 years before present (Oldale, 1981; Oldale, Eskenasy and Lian, 1985; Oldale, 1987). Some 16,000 years ago, continental glaciers began to melt and sea level to rise. Waves, driven by oceanic storms and tidal currents, aided by rising sea level, began to attack Sankaty bluff. This process has continued, often dramatically, at Sankaty in specific and on Nantucket in general to the present time (Flint, 1971; Tiffney and Benchley, 1987). Today, only a small part of the once-extensive Sankaty bluff remains.

Photographs and our observations suggest that erosion of the bluff does not proceed as a continuous or predictable process, but as a series of catastrophic episodes. Photographs show that the bluff was actively eroding between 1890 and 1900, but was again vegetated and compara­ tively stable in the l 930's O. C. Andrews obser­ vation). These cycles are not evident from long­ term erosion rates, perhaps due to lack of accu­ racy in charts used lo generate the rates, or lack of sensitivity in the sampling technique. Erosion records from historical charts show slight accre­ tion (1.5 to 2.5 feet) for the period 1846 to 1955, while information from aerial photographs shows

Figure 2. The barrier beach at Sesachacha Pond, Nantucket. The pond is on the left, the Atlantic Ocean on the right, and the village of Quidnet in the distance. January 18, 1989.

no change from 1938 to 1970 (Gutman et al., 1979).

A two-hundred-foot-wide slump on the bank face took place in 1974, and another more general collapse occurred in 1981. These events heralded a new major cycle of bank ero­ sion and retreat. Most of the bank, from south of Sesachacha Pond to south of the Sankaty Light­ house, was severely undercut by 1982, and it was clear that the vegetated face was due to collapse.

By 1983, substantial parts of the vegetated bank face had fallen to the beach and been washed away. Our measurements show an annual loss of 6.8 feet for the period 1981 to 1988 for a total loss of about 48 feet. Further observations during the winter storm season of 1988-89 sug­ gest that this loss may increase dramatically, and extend further lo the south, in the near future (Figure 1).

The extensive complex of Nantucket Shoals exists just lo the east of antucket Island, and a small part of this shoal system fronts the Sankaty bluff. The shallow water of near-shore shoals causes waves to break before their full force strikes the beach, thus decreasing their erosional power. We suggest that sometime during 1981, the near-shore parts of the an­ tucket Shoals fronting the Sankaty bluff began moving, or dissipating, resulting in deeper water close to shore. This, in turn, would allow higher energy waves to break directly on the shore, resulting in increased erosion. Periodic move­ ment of the shoals on, off or along shore and/or wavelike surges of sand along shore, may ac­ count for the episodic erosion of the Sankaty bluff observed by ourselves and others. Given the wave energies inherent in North Atlantic winter storms, no beach protective structures can stand up against these wave forces or control this erosion.

Some twelve private dwellings, many built between 1900 and 1910, but some as recently as the 1960's (average 1989 value about $1,000,000 each), are located in the area of maximum erosion just south and north of the historic Sankaty Head Lighthouse. Most owners have now moved their endangered buildings lo the backs of their lots. However, lots are shallow, the bluff slopes rapidly to a valley on its landward side, and the maximum possible move that can be accomplished by most owners is only about one hundred feet. One individual moved his cottage entirely off the bluff. No attempt has yet been made to move the lighthouse, now two hundred feet from the bank. Given the severe nature of the present erosion and bank retreat, it appears probable that, despite their recent moves, most property owners must soon face moving their buildings entirely off the bank or abandon­ ing them to fall over the cliff.

Given the situation, it is not surprising that property owners all along the Sankaty bluff are intensely interested in the suggestion that sand derived from opening Sesachacha Pond may mitigate erosion of the Sankaty bluff.

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Sediment Volumes Along Nantucket's Eastern Shore On January 18, 1989, we surveyed a profile of the Sesachacha pond barrier beach at the point of the 1981 outlet channel (Figures 2 and 3). At this point, the barrier was 325 feet wide from ocean to pond. Our measurements suggested a cross-sectional area of about 1,800 square feet for the barrier (Figure 3). We have observed a width of about two hundred feet for a channel resulting from opening the pond. Hence, we es­ timated that a full and successful pond opening would result in about 13,000 cubic yards of sand being washed from the barrier into the ocean.

For comparison, using a NOAA chart, we estimated the sediment volume of the north end ofBass Rip Shoal, a very small component of the Nantucket Shoals off Sesachacha Pond. We estimate that about 11,266,400 cubic yards of material are contained in the shoal segment, or about 867 times the quantity of sediment to be expected from opening Sesachacha Pond. Phrased differently, it would require 867 annual pond openings to create a sandbar equivalent to the almost insignificant north end ofBass Rip Shoal.

Finally, we estimated the annual volume of sediment eroded from the Sankaty bluff. We considered an area of the bluff of between about fifty and one hundred feet high, along the present region of maximum erosion, and used our measured annual erosion rate of about seven feet. The total annual loss is about 94,000 cubic yards or about seven times the amount of sediment that would probably be derived from opening the Sesa­ chacha Pond. The material eroded from the bluff, falling directly to the beach surface, may be considered direct beach nourishment. However, the beach under the actively eroding segment of the Sankaty bluff remains narrow and flat (Figure 1). Accretional or stable beaches show a shelf­ like area of deposition called a berm developing during the non-storm (usually summer) season.

Our observations indicate that the beach below the Sankaty bluff has shown no significant summer berm formation over the last decade.

Littoral Transport Direction Net longshore current movement and lit­ toral transport of sand are primarily driven by tidal currents and run from south to north along Nantucket's eastern shore (Gutman, et al., 1979).

Evidence for northerly flow and movement is provided by the existence of the six-mile-long tombolo and sand spit complex of Great Point, formed of wave and current deposited sedi­ ments, and found at the northern end of Nan­ tucket Island. Hence, the net movement of sediments eroded from theSankaty bluff is to the north toward Sesachacha Pond, and any sedi­ ment derived from opening the pond will also have a net movement to the north away from the Sankaty bluff. Indeed, if any area has received sand nourishment from breaching Sesachacha's barrier beach in the past, it is probably Quidnet,

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15 10 5. OCEAN (MLW)

POND o

100

200

Figure 3. Cross-sectional diagram of the Sesachacha Pond barrier beach surveyed January 18, 1989. Due to a dry season, pond and ocean levels (mean low water) are the same. immediately to the north of Sesachacha.

Conclusions After comparing the volumes of sediments estimated above and determining that net long­ shore current and littoral transport is to the north, away from the eroding Sankaty bluff, we con­ clude that openingSesachacha Pond would have very little impact on the sediment budget and sand dynamics of Nantucket's eastern shore. Even if, through some miraculous process, the entire 13,000 cubic yards to be expected from an open­ ing could be transported against longshore drift directly to the beach at Sankaty, it would consti­ tute only 14% of the sediment annually falling from the wave-undercut bank on the beach face -- and apparently doing very little to moderate the present cycle of severe erosion. For these rea­ sons, we disagree with the suggestion that re­ newed opening of Sesachacha Pond would help mitigate erosion along the Sankaty bluff.

We sympathize with Nantucket property owners trapped on small lots immediately be­ hind a massive and rapidly eroding sand cliff.

However, the fact remains that such cliffs on sea­ coasts, riverbanks, or lakeshores are short-term, inappropriate, and indeed dangerous building sites throughout the world. People should be encouraged to avoid developing such areas through educational programs and, as a last resort, through intervention by regulatory agencies.

The authors do not have strong feelings one way or another about opening Sesachacha, or other Nantucket coastal ponds, to the sea. How­ ever, they do suggest that the decision to open ponds, or leave them closed, be carefully and rationally thought out, based on observable facts derived from research into the physical and biological characteristics of the specific pond, and be in compliance with due process of law.

Acknowledgments Our sincere thanks are due to Gayle and Robert Greenhill for permitting us to survey the Sesachacha barrier beach on their property, to Mr. D. F. Beattie for assistance with surveying and discussion, and to Dr. S. F. Beegel for constructive criticism of the manuscript.

We further thank the American Society of Civil Engineers for permission to republish this paper.

Literature Cited Flint, R. F. 1971. Glacial and Quaternary geology. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. N. Y. 892 p.

Gutman,A. L., M.j. Goetz, F. D. Brown,j. F. Lentowski, and W. N. Tiffney,Jr.1979. Nantucket shoreline smvey.

M. I. T. Sea Grant College Report MITSG 79-7. Cambridge, Mass. 51 p.

Oldale, R.N., D. M. Eskenasy, and N. C. Lian. 1981. A geologic profile of the Sankaty Head cliff, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts. U. S. Geo!. Surv., Misc. Field Studies, Map MF-1304. Wash., D.C. __. 1985. Geologic map of Nantucket and nearby islands, Massachusetts. U.S. Geo!. Surv., Misc. Invest.

Ser., Map 1-1580. Wash , D. C. __. 1987. Wisconsinan and pre-Wisconsinan drift and Sangamonian marine deposits, Sankaty Head, Nan­ tucket, Massachusetts. In D. C. Roy (ed.). Centennial Field Guide Vol. 5, Northeastern Section Geological Society of America. Geo!. Soc. Amer, Boulder, Colo. P. 221-224, 481 p.

Tiffney, W.N.,Jr. and R. Benchley. 1987. Nantucket's Broad Creek opening. In 0. T. Magoon, H. Converse, D. Miner, L. Thomas Tobin, D. Clark, and G. Domurat (eds.). Coastal Zone '87. Am. Soc. Civil Eng., N. Y. P. 32553265, 4833 p.

This article is modified from a similar paper presented to Coastal Zone '89, The Sixth Symposium on Coastal and Ocean Management, Charleston, South Carolina, July 14, 1989 and published in !he proceedings of !hat meeting, Coastal Zone '89, 0. T. Magoon et al., Editors, American Society of Civil Engineers, N. Y, 1989.

A NUAL l·U '89 Sf. S RF 0 he Friends of the Nantucket Histori­ cal Association have established a pattern of considered and significant gen­ erosity to our collections, and we are de­ lighted to acknowledge two recent examples of their thoughtful acquisitions.

Joining the Friends' additions to our fine and decorative arts holdings is a re­ markable eighteenth-century slant-top desk.

In a fine state of preservation, the desk is attributed to Elihu Colman, a well-docu­ mented carpenter and housewright on Nantucket, in part because of an extraordi­ nary inscription on the underside of the sliding lid: "This desk was made by Elihu Colman who was born December/ 12th 1700. (sic) and is now in possession of Wm B Starbuck/March 23rd 1857."

In considering their purchases, the Fnends have never overlooked our research collections. Our Research Center is once again in their debt for the newly acces­ sioned log of the ship "Richard Mitchell."

Jacqueline Kolle Haring, Curator of Re­ search Materials, reports that the log stands out as a rare Nantucket document even in our rich collection.

Owned by a Nantucket family and sailed from the island with Nantucket masters and officers for many years, the "Richard Mitchell" made a whaling voyage from 1831 to 1834 under the command of Captain James Gwinn, Jr. The acquired log pro­ vides a complete record of that trip from Nantucket to the Pacific Ocean via Cape Ilorn and back again, thereby detailing a voyage made countless times by countless other Nantucketers. The "Richard Mitch­ ell" log is on view at the Research Center.

e cannot give you a final report on our 1989 Annual Appeal because, incredibly, contributions are still coming in! Our total is approaching $75,000 -- an unbelievable 141 % increase over last year -- from more than 450 members who realize that the Historical Association needs their financial assistance beyond member­ ship dues. We appreciate most sincerely the vote of confidence your commitment represents. Special thanks go to our life members whose generosity exceeded even our optimistic predictions, and to our trus­ tees, advisers and staff whose 100% par­ ticipation was especially important to the NHA at this time.

0 U TEE S WE EE R HEP id you realize that our largest fund­ raising event, the August Antique Show, is almost entirely the work of volun­ teers7 But organizing this popular and in­ come-productive social event is only one of the many opportunities for NHA volun­ teers. All of them are not as glamorous, or time consuming, as the Show, but all volunteer labor represent s a financial saving to a nonprofit organization such as ours!

This year we would like to begin an organized volunteer program.

Personnel costs are the largest expense in our budget, and such an effort would enable us to re-

duce them and develop projects we could not sustain otherwise. Volunteers contrib­ ute to our positive community image and increase appreciation of our endeavors to preserve antucket's history and character among the public at large.

Perhaps you have expertise in a field you think we could, or should, utilize. Just let us know. Volunteer work for the Nan­ tucket Historical Association will widen your circle of friends and give you a chance to further your own study of Nantucket history.

We do make some requirements of our volunteers -- enthusiasm, for one! We also need commitment because some pro­ jects require completion within a set time frame. Others are flexible and can be performed according to individual sched­ ules. The options are many and varied.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU? In addi­ tion to a feeling of satisfaction from con­ tributing to the successful and smooth operation of the Nantucket Historical Asso­ ciation, we can offer you complimentary This entitles you to HA membership! unlimited free admission at our museums and buildings, free use of our Research Center, our publications, a 10% discount at the Museum Shop and invitations to all of our events!

AVAILABLE VOLUNTEER POSSIBILI­ TIES Carpentry and painting, ticket col­ lecting, serving at social functions, guiding and interpreting, photography, indexing ships logs, boxing and binding, office work and mailing, fund raising, Antiques Show organization, gardening If you would like to help, please write to Jo Sullivan, Development Assistant, Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554. Give us your name, contact address and phone and the type of work you would like to help us with. Or, better yet, call (508)-228-1894 (office hours).

Hildegard Van Lieu works with Betsy Codding, Assistant Curator of Collections, to pack textiles into acid-free boxes. Hildegard is one of the NHA's dedicated volunteers.

f

The staf at the Old Town Building could put to immediate use THREE (3) IBM-compatible 386 computers with high resolu­ tion monitors. At present, four staff members have to use their own computers in the office, and several are not compatible with the computers we already own!

Please help us all speak the same language.

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9

Travel back on the catboat, called Three Sisters, and see Tuckernuck Island sixty years ago through the wondering eyes of a six-year-old.

Reflections of Tuckernuck

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By E. W. Coffin

n a warm Saturday in late Septem­ ber, I first saw the houses on Tuck­ ernuck Island rise up over the cockpit coam­ ing or the old catboat, Three Sisters. The year was 1929, and I had just turned six years old. My father, Edward Brooks Cor­ fin, and his nephew, Arthur William Dun­ ham (we called him "Billy"), had departed from Nantucket's Old North Wharr that morning with supplies for Billy's mother, Mary Gertrude Dunham, her husband, Arthur Preston Dunham, Mary's sister, Margaret Thelma Coffin, and their mother, Mary Agnes Coffin, all or whom spent the sum­ mer months in their own homes at either end or Tuckernuck.

For a six-year-old this was a great ad­ venture. Ever since I could remember, my father had been telling my brother, The­ oron Tristram Coffin, my sister, June Anita Coffin, and me about growing up on the island with his two brothers and five sis­ ters. They lived in a house built by his grandfather, George Black Coffin, and his father, George Edward Coffin, with the help or neighbors and relatives. That my first trip to the island would include a visit to the house made this a very special occa­ sion indeed. Moreover, I had been given, six weeks before, my first pair or rubber boots -- a prized possession for any island boy -- so when I boarded the Three Sisters, I felt like a Howard Pyle buccaneer.

The Three Sisters had formerly carried the name Forest Prince. My grandfather had her built by one of the Crosbys at Osterville in 1895. Tired and leaky, the catboat had been laid up on Tuckernuck's North Pond beach in 1918. Two years later, my father removed it to the South Beach Boatyard in Nantucket and had the old boat rebuilt with new keel-garboards, a new stern post and new floors under the engine beds. The bill was $450, and father could not make the payment. Arthur P. Dunham, father's brother-in-law, purchased the boat by paying the bill and renamed it Three Sisters after his

10

daughters, Norine, Gertrude and Margaret.

The centerboard had been removed, the mast cut off two feet above the deck and a two-cylinder, ten horsepower Lathrop engine installed.

Starting this rusty engine required Billy's able arm power on that quiet morn­ ing sixty years ago. First, he filled the brass petcocks on top or each cylinder with gas from a small squirt can. Bill then reached down into the bilge for the spring-loaded handle on the heavy cast-iron 11y wheel.

Grasping this firmly, he rolled over the iron pistons by rotating the 11y wheel and sucked the primed gas into each engine head.

When he finally switched on the

hour and a hair because the tide was fair.

Father had often spoken or the swift tides which ran between Nantucket and Tucker­ nuck, and or the treacherous sandy shoals which could shirt in months and even weeks, isolating the island rrom the casual boat­ man. Anyone who is familiar with this area knows that sand bars off the northern and eastern shores cause the water depth to vary from three fathoms to three inches; and although the tidal range is only about three reet, the current runs more than three knots in some places. U you sail or row to Tuckernuck, you soon discover that a safe and comfortable passage is scarcely pos­ sible against the wind and/or tide. I recall my father's ranting on more than one occa­ sion when we were only halrway across in the motorless dory and the tide changed early or the wind came out dead ahead.

When we raised the eastern end or the island that summer day in 1929, the north shore bank and the sandy beach at its foot appeared rather lonely because there were no people around the boathouses or at the water's edge. As the Three Sisters ap­ proached the moored dory off the North Pond beach, a long, low cluster or build­ ings caught my eye. They were perched above the shore on the barren western end or the island.

As they faced Muskeget Island off to the northwest, a porch on the last house gave the structures a brooding look in the midday haze. South or the

Here we are: June, Wayman and Theoron in 1931 double ignition system or dry cell and magneto, he spun the engine 11y wheel over rapidly and was rewarded with a loud bang as the engine fired up. Large ripples rolled out from the catboat's hull across the mir­ ror-like surface or the Easy Street boat basin. Father quickly cast off the one line to the Old North Wharf, and the thumping engine began at last to propel the Three Sisters up to a speed or five knots on its journey to Tuckernuck Island.

As I remember, the trip took about an

buildings was a grassy plain which stretched far away to the southeast and added to my youthfol impression that I was looking at a sheepherder's ranch in the Australian out­ back. Father later told me that the build­ ings had not been occupied for some years.

He rea;.lled that the owner, a Dr. Bigelow, had died in 1926.

We made rast the Three Sisters to the anchor lines that had moored the Swanscot dory off the North Pond beach and trans­ rerred all our gear and provisions into it.

As we rowed up through the gut into the shallow salt pond full of eel grass, I could see the gray, weathered houses which rose up behind the stunted trees and beach plum bushes. To my young imagination they seemed to stare out through their flat black windowpanes and come alive with greet足 ings. "Hello, who are you?" "How long will you stay?" "What did you bring? " I won足 dered aloud, "Where are the people that live in the houses?" Billy replied, "Well, as far as I know, there are only four occupied and tonight with you and Ed, there will be five, as Byron Coffin is over for a few days, and Harry Dunham is living at his house at the East End." While Father and Billy rowed us across the Salt Pond to the marsh at the southwest end, I noticed that, unlike Nantucket, there were no piers where we could tie up or unload. All the material needs of life had to be handed off from the boat to the shore.

When I stepped out of the dory onto the marsh bank, I could see a long-bodied Model-I Ford truck parked on the low bank above the pond. I asked Billy how the truck got over to the island, and he ex足 plained that two dories were lashed broad足 side together with heavy planks the width of the truck wheels. The dories were then positioned broadside to the Madaket shore, and the truck was driven aboard over the plank ramp. When the sea was calm and

A Model-A Ford being transported to Tuckernuck on two dories. the tide and weather fair, the two dories with the truck aboard were towed over to Tuckernuck and unloaded at a deep spot along the shore. Billy added, "This is the fourth vehicle to be brought over this way, and we called her Jumbo' because of the long wooden body." Billy also mentioned that some years before, his uncle, Byron Coffin, had brought over the first car, a two-door Model-I Ford.

Our first call with provisions was just south of where we had landed the dory, about eight hundred feet from the A. P. After a short visit Dunham homestead. with Auntie Gertrude and Uncle Arthur, we boarded Jumbo for the second supply run to the house of my grandmother, Mary Agnes Coffin (known to all as "Nana"), who lived at the east end of Tuckernuck.

Old Jumbo whined along in first gear most of the way because the road was rough, and every so often we would have to cross a ploughed ridge that had defined the fence line years before. About three years after my first visit, a driver hit one of the grassed-over ridges on the North Shore Trail and propelled Jumbo into the air one last time. When the vehicle landed, the frame snapped in two; and the passenger in the right front seat was ejected into a beach plum bush intertwined with brightly col-

ored poison ivy.

When a vehicle breaks down and is beyond normal repair, it is customary on Tuckernuck to leave it right where it died; and future traffic simply detours around it.

Jumbo sat on the North Shore Trail for years as the needy removed spare parts and the elements slowly rusted the metal and rotted away the wooden seats. Finally, all that remained were four iron wheel rims and the chassis which served as a trellis for bayberries and mayflowers.

As we motored down to the east end of Tuckernuck, Jumbo carried us past the abandoned one-room schoolhouse where the Smiths, Dunhams, Barretts, Coffins, Brookses, Chapels, Ramsdells and Sandburys had first learned that the world was round and Tuckernuck Island was not the center of the universe. Nantucket voted for the first time in 1867 to build a schoolhouse on Tuckernuck for grades one through six.

That same year, for $10.00, Eben Dunham sold the Town a small lot from his farm on which to locate the Tuckernuck school building. A one-room structure that had formerly been a fire station on Milk Street was transported to Tuckernuck in sections and finished off with a plastered interior and a chimney built into the south end for the stove. Prior to this, school had been

11

held in various houses on the island, and their owners received rent for the use of a large room. In September 1833, the In­ quirer and Mirror noted that the Nantucket School Committee made a trip to Tucker­ nuck Island to review its education pro­ gram. At that time the Committee placed an ad in the Nantucket newspaper for a female teacher to serve from May through October. A subsequent Nantucket School Report revealed that in 1852, Tuckernuck Island had twelve pupils enrolled for schooling.

Jumbo's horn sounded our arrival as we turned into the George E. Coffin home­ stead and came to a halt by the kitchen ell's east door. There stood my Aunt Thelma, of ample girth; from a secure position be­ tween her legs, her small dog Polly barked a feeble greeting.

Looking regal in her ankle-length black skirt and high-necked white blouse, Thelma's mother, my 68year-old grandmother, "Nana," greeted us warmly and asked for news from Nantucket where she spent the winter months on Lily Street.

Though this September day was hazy, I would later spend long periods in con­ templating the view from the Coffin dooryard.

On a clear day, one could see the Unitarian Church's golden dome on Orange Street seven nautical miles away. To the north­ east, eleven miles across the pale green shoal water of Nantucket Sound, stood the white conical tower of the Great Point Light, refiecting the sun on Nantucket's northern extremity. Looming up three miles away to the southeast beyond the treacherous break­ ers of Smith's Point opening was the look­ out cupola on the Great Neck Lifesaving Station, built in 1891 at the west end of Madaket Village.

We all climbed aboard Jumbo for the final leg of our journey to the old Coffin Boathouse near the west end of East Pond.

Jumbo rolled down the hill on the old "Dunham Road" towards Brooks Landing which was named after the family that had owned it since 1807. As the island's main landing and boat launching area, various Tuckernuckers had, in past years, built four boathouses on this beach section that were now owned by George E. Coffin heirs, Harry Dunham, Charles Brooks and Everett Chapel.

Four older boathouses had for many years been located on the East Pond north shore area further to the east.

As Jumbo moved along the hill, I looked up a small valley to the west and saw the island's only surviving icehouse situated on the north side of a small pond.

On a later trip, my brother and I explored this building and found it had a double wall, packed with dried eel grass. This, our father told us, was to insulate the ice from

12

melting quickly. The building was about eighteen feet by twelve feet and had not been used for the last ten years or more. At one time four icehouses were filled every winter for local use, and all were located at a small island pond, cut clean of vegetation so it produced clear ice.

Jumbo coasted to a halt on the low grass bluff about a hundred feet from the boathouses. Father walked down and un­ locked the door, and Billy brought in our box of food for the two-day stay.

We planned to return to Nantucket with the Three Sisters on Monday. Almost immedi­ ately, we departed again on foot with two big kettles and several gallon jugs for Uncle Byron's house a third of a mile to the west on the North Shore bank. There, we took on a supply of fresh water from his yard pump since the boathouse had none. On calm days, we would fetch the water by rowing up and back along the shore in a

steel barrels, showed hard recent use.

Alongside on the Ooor, a wooden Reming­ ton shell box with dovetail sides contained shotgun shell loading tools, cloth bags of lead shot and a colorful collection of shot­ gun shells which ranged from number nine shot up to BB loads of ten and twelve gauge.

A large round tin can labeled Hercules Hard Grain Powder completed the lot.

The main room on the right was decorated with oars of odd sizes, a hogs­ head barrel with a white cotton gill net piled in and around it, and a workbench with an iron pump which gave only salt water when it was primed. Baskets of wood duck decoys, three rocking chairs and some burlap bags of shore bird decoys were piled under an assortment of quahog rakes, scal­ lop drags and four or five wire eel traps.

Stacked under the two windows on the east end of the building were selected drift­ wood timbers and boards washed ashore in

The George E. Coffin homestead in 1925 heavy, old, Oat-bottom skiff my late grand­ father had built for Aunt Thelma.

The boathouse had two rooms. The small and low-posted kitchen was on the left as you entered, and on its west wall stood a cast-iron wood and coal range with the name "Home Clarion" in large letters on the oven door. A two-pane window looked out to the south over a cast-iron sink and counter. On the opposite side were a cot and a small drop-leaf table with two chairs.

In the right hand corner near the door were two double-barrel shotguns which gleamed of oil. One was a Lafever with large out­ side hammers from the black powder era.

For many years this ten-gauge Damascus twist barrel weapon had, in the hands of my grandfather, supplied ducks and brant for the market and food for a family of eight children. The other shotgun, a hammerless Ithaca twelve-gauge model with nitro-proof

past years. Scavaging driftwood from the shoreline in my dory would be one of my favorite pastimes on Tuckernuck in the years to come. We not only collected the wood for stove fuel, but saved the best for necessary repairs to the building. The toi­ let, I soon discovered, was to the east of the boathouse on the sand beach and anywhere that was a lee from the current weather.

(Usually a few pages from a Sears & Roe­ buck Catalogue were taken along for light reading.)

In the main room the two doors on the north wall joined in the middle and opened out on Nantucket Sound. My fa­ ther and Jim O'Hara, an old Irishman with a heavy brogue, would sit in the twilight with those double doors open and gaze out over the calm Sound as they puffed on their five-cent White Owl cigars and recalled various Tuckernuckers.

They could not

have been happier, I realize now, sitting in a men's club on Fifth Avenue.

There was a homemade wooden lad­ der in the northeast corner of the boat­ house that led up to a cozy loft area where I slept that first night, and many nights thereafter, on a mattress laid out on drift­ wood lumber and oars. Foggy days ended there at twilight under an old quilt that smelled of mice, and I can still remember the hoarse groan of the fog horn on the lightship, nine miles north on Cross Rip Shoal. This fog signal incited the gray seals Lo sound their dog-like howl, and their chorus serenaded me to sleep.

In 1983, when I was tearing down the kitchen pan of the boathouse, I found a message on a board nailed in the west end: "This building moved from North Pond to East End 1888." My father told me that this section of the boathouse had once been a single horse barn up in the North Pond

I

the ingredients and the rest of our provi­ sions from the A&P Store on Gardner Street (now the Christian Science Reading Room) in Nantucket. The list was always about the same: a cardboard box of Quaker Oats, Len or more cans of White House evapo­ rated milk, a bag of potatoes, onions, a box of rice, two or three pounds of salt pork, five pounds of pea beans, a quart of molas­ ses, two pounds of white sugar and a pound or two of fresh ground A&P Boka coffee. If the quahog buyers in Nantucket (Walter Glidden's or Miller's Fish Market) had a good market for Father's quahogs, the additional money would give us a large smoked shoulder ham with the supplies.

At one point our family very nearly moved to Tuckernuck year round. father's temper made him a legend in his own Lime, and it was almost impossible for him to hold a steady job. Finally, a retreat to the quahog and eel grass Oats of Tuckernuck

•

f,

George E. Coffin (011 the right) and frie11ds silti11g 011 the boathouse steps. area and that his father, George Edward Coffin, told him he had rebuilt the boat­ house in 1909. Spread between the kitchen and the boathouse walls, I uncovered a 1909 New York Herald Tribune for insula­ tion.

Just down the beach about a hundred yards east of the boathouse, there was pan of a wrecked vessel that for years furnished hard-pine firewood for heating and cook­ ing. A basket of this fuel would make the old stove red hot; and when the stove cov­ ers glowed, my father would usually yell al me to stop "poking the wood to her."

One of father's favorite quick foods was a pan bread made from flour, water, salt and baking soda and cooked on top of the old range in a covered cast-iron skillet.

In about thirty minutes, we had fresh bread with a heavy brown crust. Before voyaging over to Tuckernuck, we usually purchased

was seemingly his only recourse to earn a living for his family. I !is decision that he could support us on Tuckernuck caused concern in town, however, when he went lo the principal, Mr. Burgess, and suggested that the school commiuee could arrange our education either by boarding a teacher with us or having the Coast Guard al Madaket Station transport us back and forth in their powerboat each school day. Father's pro­ posal sent Mr. Burgess 0ying to my mother with the firm reply that neither the town nor the U.S. Government would accommo­ date the idea in any such manner. So ended our last chance to grow up on Tuckernuck Island year round. l often wonder if he planned for all five of us to live in the boathouse, or rather on the hill in the old Coffin house of his youth.

There were at this Lime about twentyone island homes: some were neatly re-

paired and looked after by summer people, while others, abandoned and preserved by poverty, were in need of shingling and repair. At the time of my first trip to Tuckernuck, there was one year-round resident, Harry Elwood Dunham, who lived at the east end of the island in an Indiana­ style house of the early 1880's. Harry's uncle, Edward B. Dunham, a Tuckernuck native, had built this sturdy home upon returning to the island from Richmond, Indiana, where he had been employed as a house carpenter and lumber dealer. lsland lore has it that he shipped the house from Indiana as a prefab, and its architectural style and materials tend to bear out this opinion.

On the south side of the Dunham house was a lean-to shed built with an outside door. It was here that the U.S. Government installed a crank-operated Bell telephone box in 1901. The installation of a telephone system to the Muskeget Island Lifesaving stations via Tuckernuck Island had from the year 1889 been an annual request of Sumner Kimball, the service super­ intendent in Washington, D.C. When operated, this phone system rang at the Madaket Life Saving Station on Nantucket where a surfman was always on duty. From here you could, upon request, be relayed into the Nantucket telephone system. The underwater telephone cable was laid in 190 l from Madaket near the western end of antucket across the Opening to the south­ east end of Tuckernuck Island.

From 1840 until the advent of this system, a visual telegraph operated peri­ odically from Nantucket to Tuckernuck via During Muskeget to Martha's Vineyard. the daylight hours, at a preset time, each station focused a spyglass on the next, and semaphore arms mounted on a tall spar would spell out the news. Needless Lo say, very liule, if any, gossip passed over this eye-squinting arrangement even in good visibility.

Though that first trip to Tuckernuck with my cousin Billy in the Three Sisters is a vivid memory, I soon found that the usual means of transportation was in father's eighteen-foot dory. After he loaded it with bushels of quahogs raked from the Tucker­ nuck flats, we would set out with oar or by sail for Warren's Landing al the west end of Nantucket. I recall that, many times, we were so well loaded, we rowed silting on the quahogs, level with the thwarts. At the Landing, the dory would be anchored well off on two rodes to await father's return with a hired truck. Once ashore, we would then walk up the rulled sandy road to the junction of the main route from Madakel lo Nantucket. I!ere we hoped to catch a ride with someone going toward home. My fa-

13

The Madaket lifesaving station which was the telephonic connecting point between Tuckernuck and town. ther never owned or operated a car on Nantucket until he was past fifty-five. I think I had to walk the four and one-half miles to town only twice because the two or three cars which passed were already filled with people.

We were living at this time in an old one-and-a-half story cape-style house at 2 West Silver Street which we rented from the owner, Grace Brown Gardner, for $12 a month. A coal-wood range in the kitchen heated the house, and a tall cylinder-type parlor stove commanded the front room.

The parlor stove had four small mica win­ dows in the loading door that glowed and pulsed an orange color from the fire within.

In the dark of the room at night, you felt you had unknown company. Kerosene lamps with Rochester burners provided our light, and we exercised great caution when mov­ ing them from room to room. One cold water faucet at the kitchen sink furnished town water, and we children bathed on Sat­ urday night in a large galvanized wash tub set on two chairs in front of the stove which supplied ambient heat as well as hot water.

When I was five, our landlady, Miss Gard­ ner, kindly installed a bathtub alongside the toilet in what must have been the old pantry off the dining room.

Father's ability to keep us fed in the winter with his shotgun, eel spear and quahog rake was common to many families on Nan­ tucket Island in the l 930's. His twelve­ gauge barrels were kept warm through most of the season punching lead shot into mi­ gratory ducks. On arriving home at 2 West Silver Street, he would often be loaded down with the food he had procured over a

14

two or more week period on Tuckernuck.

First, we would unpack his old strapped suitcase, bursting with ducks that were cleaned and ready for the oven. Our pre­ ferred eating choice, I recall, was the black ducks, then the mallards, the teal and fi­ nally the various whistlers. Second to be enjoyed were the many blue-black eels, skinned and coiled into various containers, such as old cardboard oatmeal boxes. Two or more burlap potato bags filled with quahogs always completed our provisions.

Father would open these quahogs within two days and pack them in clean one-quart milk bottles. My brother, Theoron, and I would then peddle them about the neighborhood for fifty cents a quart. What we did not sell, Mother would grind up, mix into a batter and fry in a skillet of hot fat. Fritters

were one of our favorite suppers.

In 1937, father acquired a four-horse­ power Johnson outboard motor which could usually be cursed into action by his ever­ varying descriptive language. Mounted right off the stern of the dory on two tapered blocks, Mr. Two-cylinder Johnson, when operating, would move us along at four knots. As we left the shore, I would imme­ diately race to the bow of the dory to avoid the backlash of the starting cord that father yanked repeatedly from the drumhead of the engine. If he was not successful in starting this motor after four or five tries, I would break out the bow oars to keep us from blowing back upon the shore. I can recall a trip or two when Mr. Johnson en­ joyed a free ride either over or back from Tuckernuck due lo his obstinate refusal to run. While Father rowed on the dory thwart aft, facing that thirty-pound outboard motor draped over the stern, he invariably deliv­ ered a colorful lecture on the Johnson Motor Company's products.

Such were a child's impressions of Tuckernuck Island in the l 930's. I realize now that I witnessed a period of great change in its history during my early years on the Island. Tuckernuck was no longer the working community of fishermen, farm­ ers and lifesavers it had once been, but neither was it yet the thriving summer colony it would soon become, a place of retreat from the Nantucket throngs and a change of pace from the daily job.

My father and other men of his gen­ eration were some of the last natives who supported their families by farming the sea with rake, net, trap, gun and spear. Cock­ tail gatherings and fishing for blues have now replaced their traditional way of life.

Now the eel spear and trap all too often hang forgotten in the shop corner, strange curiosities to the wondering eyes of today's six-year- old.

The author on board his dory for the trip to Tuckemuck. 1966

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Two and one-half years of work reveal themselves as the Jethro Coffin house approaches a re-opening celebration.

Oldest House Nears Completion

By Mark Fortenberry

months of examination and historical in­ vestigation, it was decided that "state of the art" restoration techniques were once again required to preserve as much of the original integrity of the structure with as little in­ trusion as possible.

Timber replacement was almost im­ possible due to the post-and-beam type construction, and removing any timbers would have required such extensive dis­ mantling that most of the surrounding fabric would have been destroyed. We therefore strengthened on-site as much of the struc­ tural wood as possible. If the timber need­ ing repair was situated on an outside wall, we removed exterior sheeting boards and, similarly, we repaired interior floor and ceiling joists by removing floorboards in order to work from the side hidden from public view.

OLDEST HOUSE RE-OPENS Members Opening Saturday, June 23 Invitations outlining hours and events will be mailed to members.

N

antucket's Oldest House has been standing for 304 years -- a long time

by American standards. It was built less than 200 years after Columbus sailed here in 1492. It is hardly surprising, then, that such a venerable building might need res­ toration. The almost three-year effort that is now drawing to a close is not the first time Nantucket has intervened to preserve this treasured structure.

The first "restoration" took place af­ ter a Coffin Family reunion on Nantucket in 1881. Tristram Coffin and his brother, 0. Vincent Coffin, stabilized the house by replacing some timbers, re-shingling the roof and sidewalls and re-pointing the chimney cornice which was showing signs of distress caused by exposure to the ele­ m ents.

In 1927, William Sumner Appleton of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities undertook the second restoration of the Oldest House. His main objective was to retain as much original or early historic structural "fabric" as pos­ sible, and he used "state of the an" tech­ niques for the time. Where, for example, original timbers showed obvious signs of

damage from moisture and powder-post beetle infestation, he did not replace them, but instead "sistered" clearly dated, 1927 timbers alongside to transfer some of the load to the new wood.

It was the severe damage caused in October 1987, when lightning struck the Oldest House, that prompted its the third and most extensive restoration. After many

Epoxy is molded to the end of a rafter, strengthening the member and allowing it to carry the full load it did when the house was built in 1686.

Many of the rafter ridge connections were shattered when the lightning blast lifted off the roof. These joints had to be rebuilt without removing the rafters. First, craftsmen drilled holes into what had once been the tenon end of the rafter, then they inserted fiberglass rods and secured them with epoxy.

Before the epoxy set, they covered the rods with a mold constructed to the outside dimensions of the original wooden tenon. The mold was then filled with more epoxy. Once the epoxy hard­ ened, the craftsmen removed the mold, leaving a perfect reconstruction of the origi­ nal tenon as shown in the photograph.

We treated each such repair indi­ vidually from start to finish. In areas of high visibility, specialists tinted the epoxy with a colored pigment to hide it from the untrained eye and minimize its intrusion on the aesthetics of the interior.

This article only touches on the com­ plicated and varied restoration and conser­ vation techniques used in the Oldest House project. Historic Nantucket, Summer 1990, will cover in greater detail the physical restoration carried out in 1989/90.

15

BROWSING AT THE MUSEUM SHOP

The Museum Shop extends the interpretive mission of the NHA and creates revenue for our programs. Its treasures are often reproductions and adaptations from the past two centuries of Nantucket history. Island craftspeople and artists who continue the traditions of this era also offer their work at the shop. Baskets, fine porcelain and period furniture are only a few of the items you will see as you browse.

As an example, we feature the desk made by Eldred Wheeler. Reproduc­ tions have increased in popularity as true antiques have soared in price and become quite scarce. The quality of craftsmanship in a fine contemporary re­ production rivals that of an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century piece, but at considerably lower cost! Tom Dickson, manager of the Museum Shop, has extensively researched reproduction furniture and concluded that Eldred Wheeler's work is the finest to be found. This summer, the Museum Shop will also display, for the first time, a line of lawn furniture that is custom made for the NHA.

The Museum Shop 18th and 19th Century Reproductions and Adaptations Featuring Fine China, Furniture, Brass and Silver Adjacent to the Whaling Museum, Nantucket (508)-228-5 785

Members of the Historical Association are entitled to a 10% discount upon presenting their membership card.