Historic Nantucket, Winter 2001, Vol. 50 No. 1

NANTUCKET

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Spirituality

THE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES Arie L. Kopelman President

Peter W. Nash

Barbara Hajim

Bruce D. Miller

Patricia M. Bridier

First Vice President

Second Vice President

Treasurer

Clerk

Steven M. Rales Arthur I. Reade Jr. Alfred Sanford John M. Sweeney Richard F. Tucker Marcia Welch David H. Wood Robert A. Young

Thomas C. Gosnell Virginia S. Heard Julius Jensen III L. Dennis Kozlowski Jane Lamb Carolyn MacKenzie Albert L. Manning Jr.

Sarah Baker Rebecca M. Bartlett Laurie Champion Prudence S. Crozier John H. Davis JosephS. DiMartino Alice F. Emerson Mary F. Espy

Frank D. Milligan Executive Director

ADVISORY BOARD William B. Macomber Paul Madden Robert F. Mooney Jane C. Richmond Nancy J. Sevrens Scott M. Stearns Jr. John S. Winter Mary-Elizabeth Young

Nina Hellman Elizabeth Husted Elizabeth Jacobsen Francis D. Lethbridge Reginald Levine Katherine S. Lodge Sharon Lorenzo Patricia Loring

Walter Beinecke Jr. Joan Brecker Patricia Butler Helen Winslow Chase Michael deLeo Lyndon Dupuis Martha Groetzinger Dorrit D.P. Gutterson

RESEARCH FELLOWS Dr. Elizabeth Little

Nathaniel Philbrick

Patty Jo S. Rice

Renny A. Stackpole

EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Mary H. Beman Susan F. Beegel Richard L. Brecker

Thomas B. Congdon Jr. Charlotte Louisa Maison Robert F. Mooney Elizabeth Oldham

Nathaniel Philbrick Sally Seidman David H. Wood

PROPERTIES OF THE NHA Oldest House Hadwen House Macy-Christian House Robert Wyer House Thomas Macy House 1800 House Greater Light Old Mill Old Gaol

Old Town Building Thomas Macy Warehouse Fire Hose Cart House Quaker Meeting House Nantucket Whaling Museum Fair Street Museum Peter Foulger Museum Museum Shop

Bartholomew Gosnold Center and Annex Folger-Franklin Memorial Fountain, Boulder, and Bench Settlers Burial Ground Tristram Coffin Homestead Monument Little Gallery Eleanor Ham Pony Field Mill Hill

Cecil Barron Jensen

Helen Winslow Chase

Elizabeth Oldham

Oaire O'Keeffe

EDITOR

HISTORIAN

COPY EDITOR

ART DIRECTOR

Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket history. Original research, first-hand accounts, reminiscences of island experiences, historic logs, letters, and photographs are examples of materials of interest to our readers.

Copyright © 2001 by Nantucket Historical Association Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published quarterly by the Nantucket Historical Association, 2 Whaler's Lane, Nantucket, MA 02554.

Second-class postage paid at South Yarmouth, MA and additional entry offices.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket Box 1016 • Nantucket, MA 02554-1016 • (508) 228-1894; fax: (508) 228-5618 • nhainfo@nha.org For a map of our walking tour and historic sites: www.nha.org

NANTUCKEf WINTER2001

VOLUME 50, NO. 1

4 Interpreting . . Nantucket's ~

by Frank D. Milligan

.5 'Evidence a/Things Not Seen'': Greater Light as

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The Sewing Circles of Nantucket's Congregational, Methodis~ and 1es

by Angela Mazaris

by Aimee E. Newell

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by Kate Stout

A Brief IIi story of Religion

by Rev. Georgia Ann Snell

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24 25 l h\toric Nantucket Book Section Reviewed by Rev. Edward B. Anderson

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Religious Society of Friends y 'T'

by Lyn Danforth

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Lyrical watercolor seabird window shades by Gertrude Monaghan

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Interpreting Nantucket's Spiritual History HE I !ISTORY OF NANTUCKET'S "SPllUTUAL"

The interior of the Quaker Meeting House on Fair Street.

Photograph by Carol Bates.

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thought and its interplay with the intellectual and economic forces that shaped the island's growth for the past 350 years is a story of "ideas." It is a story that pertains to all Nantucketers including the Indians, African Americans, and Cape Verdeans whose oral traditions and historical records will someday more fully define our island heritage. The NHA exists to help residents and visitors make sense of the island's many historical and contemporary issues, which for the most part are matters of the mind. Ideas and not objects alone must lie at the heart of a worthwhile museum experience.

Nantucket's whaling story is well known. It is a story of an economic juggernaut that exerted worldI wide domination over an entire industry built in equal parts on the romance of the sea and the brutal exploitation of human beings. Its lesser known, but no less interesting, corollary emerges from the pages of this issue of Historic Nantucket, which take us inside the walls of Nantucket's homes, meeting houses, churches, social organizations, and benevolent societies. It was there that islanders attempted to reconcile their theological tenets and sense of social justice with Nantucket's frontierlike secular conditions.

This reconciliation was occasionally expressed as a call for a different NANTUCKET

and better life as expressed in the speeches and epistles of itinerant Quaker intellectuals like George Woolman, who implored Nantucketers to honor their "social duty" and condemn the exploitation of "poor honest people who labor to a degree of Oppression" in eighteenth-century America.

We need to integrate into our interpretive presentations the thoughts of those off-islanders as well as resident Nantucketers such as the Quaker minister and school teacher Narcissa B. Coffin, who championed "the fundamental principles which underlie the life and customs of Friends"; principles that she believed "were coming more and more to be acknowledged by all religious thinkers throughout the world." What were those principles and, more important, what impact did they have on what Nantucketers said and did?

In other words- did yesterday's Nantucketers "walk their talk"?

But we also need to widen our interpretive scope and examine the influences of non-Quakers such as the eighteenth-century reformers of the Great Awakening, and nineteenth-century social critics like Henry George, who sought to erase the distinction between the sacred and the secular. Our island predecessors were pushed and pulled by many intellectual forces in their religious and secular lives.

Those stories form the essence of intellectual history -the history of ideas on Nantucket- and the NI IA is committed to presenting these ideas through engaging publications, exhibitions, and interpretive programs.

The wonderful articles in this issue of Historic Nantucket point the way to this summer's reopening of our Quaker Meeting House and our role in helping island residents and visitors better understand the spiritual currents that shaped Nantucket's intellectual history.

- Frank D. Milligan WINTER

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((Evzdence a/Things Not Seen)):

Greater Light as Faith Manifested 'l

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HEN WE CONSIDER TI-IE INTERSECTIONS

of religion and art, what often comes to mind is the depiction through an art object of a religious figure or event.

Statues of Buddha, paintings of the Madmma and child, the frescoes adorning churches; these are the most obvious exan1ples of the artistic manifestations of spirituality. I want to consider here another aspect of religion and art, an angle that is harder to pin down, more difficult to identify and articulate. This understanding of the creative process and its relationship to the divine takes as its cues not what is represented by the art object itself, but rather, the belief system that inspires the very act of creation.

The stoty of Hanna and Gertrude Monaghan is well known to many Nantucketers. Arriving on island in the summer of 1929, the young Quaker sisters from Philadelphia discovered and fell in love with a late eighteenth-centuty pig barn that still sits on Howard Street, just outside of the town center. Persuading the owner, the grocer on Main Street, to sell it to them, the sisters transformed the structure into a studio space and summer home. They gutted parts of the bam, built stages and lofts, shipped in stained-glass windows, iron grilles, and cartons full of antiques. They called the building "Greater Light," in reference to the Quaker concept of the spirit that resides within each person, the "inner light." The house is still studied today for its architectural uniqueness and beauty, and for the diversity of treasures collected within.

By no means was Greater Light universally welcomed on the island. The sisters were harassed regularly by islanders who considered their renovation of the barn showy, excessive, and inappropriate. In a time when Nantucket's prominence as a summer holiday HISTORIC

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destination was far less developed than it is today, offislanders were regarded as "strangers" and treated with suspicion, if not derision. In addition, limited contact with the mainland had left the island cloaked in the vestiges of the Victorian era. Change of any sott was considered somewhat radical, and the idea of two "strangers " so dramatically altering a piece of the town's traditional architecture was more than many locals could bear. The sisters thus endured taunts, slurs, and a general lack of privacy as all of their doings were closely observed and commented upon.

Whether amazed by the sisters' architectural foresight or horrified by their disregard for tradition, people were clearly moved by the sisters' project. In her book Greater Light on Nantucket , Hanna Monaghan describes the reaction of many townspeople to the changes wrought upon the barn: "The sleepy little town woke up, not with an indifferent yawn , but with a decided jolt," she writes. Often the sisters would look up from their naps on the patio to find camera lenses

by '\.ngda Mazaris

Exterior of Greater Light.

Photograph by Rob Benchley.

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After purchasing the barn in 1929, the sisters returned to Philadelphia and built a scale model of the structure.

This mode~ which they carried back to the island in a hat box, seroed as the architectural plan /or the many changes they made to Greater Light.

Above, remnants of

pointed at them from above the fence. There were those who were "for" the barn, and those who were "against," and the "againsts" rarely missed an opportunity to let the sisters know just what they thought of the house. One night, after retiring to her room to avoid the "peepers" surrounding the house and peering through the gate, Hanna listened to the following scene: There were voices outside the board fence. I sat up in bed. The light from the street @tered in through the leaded windows, making small circular patterns on the tile floor. I listened intently as a cheap tobacco smoke drifted in, mingling with the white summer fog.

"These people, " a deep voice thundered, "These people have not the interest of the old town at heart." ... I listened intently and out of the window flew my peace.

"Had they loved the old town they would have copied its houses. And," his voice was raised so that we inside could hear, "look, they have cut a hole in the middle of the house.... "

the model (top Left) and vanous details /or the house.

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There were, neverthdess, townspeople who recognized in Greater Light a thing of beauty, and offered the sisters support. In planning the garden, Hanna and Gertrude enlisted the help of "a charming old lady NANTUCKET

from Main street," who, people assured them, would not deign to set foot on the sisters' property. The garden lady, however, saw creation where others saw controversy, and transformed the Monaghans' yard from a pile of rocks and ashes into a space of natural beauty and serenity. She was, Hanna writes, "true blue through it all. She would come hurrying down the street, knowing of the eyes watching behind closed blinds in the houses as she passed. On she came, her basket over her arm with peony roots and iris tubers to plant. She would scuttle by the curtained windows as though snipers were after her, and arrive quite out of breath. " Believing that the sisters did in fact care very much for the character and aesthetic value of the island , the "charming old lady from Main street" was willing to risk the disapproval of her neighbors in order to hdp the sisters in their mission.

At first glance, the Monaghans and their creation may seem best considered within the framework of either Nantucket history or art history. In many ways they epitomized a moment on the island in which Nantucket shed the last remnants of its whaling industry and made the transition to a tourist economy. From an artistic perspective, the sisters filled their house with art objects from a wide range of cultures, locales, and time periods. Greater Light's inventory reads like an exotic travelogue: the house contained, among other things, six gold-plated Italian pillars, a Mohammedan harem curtain, a set of eight-foot-long Venetian plaques engraved with lions and bearing a coat of arms, a vase brought on a clipper ship from China, and a seventeenth-century camphor sea chest. The sisters also created an architectural style that, while referencing many others, was uniqudy their own. However, a full understanding of the Monaghans and their art requires an WINTER

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examination not just of the town, the house, and its objects, but also of the spiritual beliefs that drove the Monaghans to acquire and create the way they did.

Quakerism, founded by George Fox in mid-seventeenth-century England, was in many ways a response to the excesses of both Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. Fox felt oppressed by the layers of ritual and ceremony that surrounded the celebration of God's word, and became convinced that instead of bringing people closer to an understanding of the divine, those mechanisms actually served to separate people from it.

Fox spent years walking through the British countryside, seeking God's truth. The understanding that he eventually espoused, while rooted in the scriptures and the teachings ofJesus, differed sharply from most other Christian practices of the day. George Fox had come to the radical conclusion that to find God, one must look inward.

This then became one of the basic tenets of Quakerism: that God resides in each individual.

Quakerism held that spiritual enlightenment and an understanding of divine truth should not come from a priest or the clergy but from one's own direct and unmediated experience of the Holy Spirit. This spirit was housed in each person, and was manifested as the spirit of truth. Thus, any person could be moved directly by God. Men and women alike traveled both the British Isles and colonial America throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries preaching this faith that was fueled by an inner light- a God within.

Hanna and Gertrude Monaghan were raised as

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Quakers. Born to an educated family in Philadelphia at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Monaghan sisters were brought up in a household that encouraged intellectual experimentation while also holding in reverence the family's Quaker legacy. Hanna's mother often told them stories of their Quaker ancestry, as well as tales of prominent Quakers she had known: Lucretia Mott had been a guest of her family.

In many ways, Quakerism set the stage for the sisters' adventure on the island. Nantucket was long a bastion of Quaker thought and tolerance, and though the religious community had dwindled by the twentieth century, the island still held fast to its Quaker history.

The sisters both attended meetings at the Quaker meeting house and held meetings of their own at Greater Light. Quaker belief in the equality of men and women also meant that the Monaghan sisters were raised to

Clod..owise/rom left: Interior of Greater Light; view ofinterior/rom the second floor; /rom the patio looking out past the wrought-iron gates into the garden.

Photographs at top and lower left by Carol Bates.

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One of Gertrude Monaghan's many sketches found in theNHA Research Library.

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consider possibilities for their lives that were by no she argued, what help did art bring the world? To means universally acknowledged. In 1929, most young Hanna and Gettrude, though, an appreciation of artistic women were expected to marry and raise a family. creation and beauty seemed a natural extension of Hanna and Gertrude, however, remained unmarried Quaker tenets. If God resided in each person and, with and dedicated themselves to their artistic endeavors, the spirit of truth, moved those who listened, was not including the project of Greater Light, in a way that the art object a physical manifestation of this truth?

Rebecca Larson, in her book Daughters of Light, a probably would not have been possible had they had study of eighteenth-century Quaker women, notes that husbands and families.

However, traditional Quakerism prescribed a plain- Quakerism is essentially experiential. The power of ness of speech and dress that was meant to eliminate the God is not just understood, but is felt, experienced. In material vanities that estranged one from God. Larson's description of Quaker meeting, God is an The image of the seventeenth-century Quaker woman is almost physical presence, both overwhelming and comto some degree inseparable from the image of the forting those who have gathered together. Likewise, in unadorned black dress and bonnet. While dress codes the introduction to her 1969 biography of George Fox, became less stringent with the passage of time, there still Dear George, Hanna Monaghan describes her exciteprevailed in the early twentieth century a notion that ment at reading for the first time the manuscripts of simplicity was in order, and that unnecessary Fox's journal. "They, the early Quakers," she writes, decoration ran counter to God's will. For many "had unearthed dynamite, the power of God, and how Quakers, this meant too a rejection of art, to use it." Here again God is understood experientially: as valuing a thing based on aesthetic not as a concept, but as an actual force in the lives of merit seemed a flagrant disavowal of believers. For Hanna and Gertrude Monaghan , this the plainness and simplicity that force became the drive behind the design and construcbrought enlightenment. tion of Greater Light.

Hanna and Gertrude In Greater Light on Nantucket, Hanna Monaghan Monaghan broke this details the process of planning and bringing to fruition mold. From a young the sisters' vision for the barn. The story is riddled \vith age the sisters were affected by coincidences and near impossibilities. Monaghan tells, the power of the art object. for exan1ple, of purchasing on impulse two twelve-footMisquoting Keats to the high wrought-iron gates from a junkyard in shocked mother of a Philadelphia, before the sisters have even set foot on young Quaker friend, island. The gates, a seen1ingly impractical purchase for Hanna proclaimed, which Hanna is teased by her friends, fit perfectly into "Art is beauty, beau- the barn that they discover several months later. ty truth." To this , Moments like this abound in the book: Hanna drean1s her friend's moth- of stained-glass windows for her bedroom; the follower could only ing day, they drive past a building being demolished, repeat that art with stained-glass windows being given away. The sisfor art's sake ters decide that they must have an iron railing to run must certainly along the patio; the phone rings and a wrecking compabe wrong. ny is on the line, offering them an iron railing from a After all, work site.

The sisters do not regard these events as happenstance. Rather, they are considered evidence of a divine intelligence that guides their lives. Often, when faced with problems or complications, the sisters, instead of despairing, ask, "Why limit God?" They trust that God will deliver, and often He seems to. Interestingly, the sisters' concept of God is both internal and external.

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While the Monaghans believe in a divine order, an external shaping force, they also very much believe in the concept of God within. This inner light guides the choices that they make. There is then a "Divine Mind" that shapes both external realities and the internal choices that each person makes. Hanna Monaghan writes, "Is there a Mind which knows of the past and the future? Some might call all of this tale mere coincidence. I prefer to cling to the hope that the God of the Universe is Intelligence itself." And so, when Hanna is asked how she planned the house, she answers, "Mind knows." The inspiration comes not from her, but from the spirit of truth within.

Greater Light can thus be understood as a physical embodiment of a spiritual vision. Guided by an inner light, or "Divine Mind," the sisters found a way to articulate their belief that the beauty of God can be understood through the beauty of art. The sisters recognized in each art object that they collected an intrinsic truth and goodness. Likewise, in the house that became their own objet d'art, the Monaghans gave voice to their inner truths. In this way, the Monaghan sisters expanded a traditional understanding of Quakerism to include artistic manifestations of the spirit that resides within.

Hanna Monaghan, in Greater Light on Nantucket, describes an annual visitor to the property: There is a man who comes each summer to our door. He is nameless. Like some migratory bird, we watch for him each year.

"My stay on the island is not complete," he says, "without stopping here. It epitomizes to me the charm, the mystety, the old histoty, all here in this one spot."

Gertrude and

Ed. Note -Upon her death in 1972, Hanna Monaghan left Greater Light (and a trust to aid in its continued maintenance) to the Nantucket Historical Association.

For years the house and its remarkable contents were open to the public. Currently it is closed for structural repairs and stabilization. However, the garden is maintained by Gale Arnold in memory of her mother Betty Palmer for the enjoyment of Nantucket visitors and residents. A copy of Hanna Monaghan's book, Greater Light on Nantucket, is in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library.

Hanna Monaghan are seen here seated between their parents James and Anna.

Sources Rebecca Larson. Daughters a/Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad.

Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Monaghan once claimed that the story of Greater Robert J. Leach and Peter Gow. Quaker Nantucket: Light could have happened anywhere. She said, "We I The Religious Community Behind the Whaling Empire. are not writing about a locality, but a state of mind." Nantucket: Mill Hill Press, 1997.

Perhaps this is true. There is, however, no doubt that Hanna Darlington Monaghan. "Dear George": George the sisters' faith, as expressed in their remarkable creFox, Man and Prophet. Philadelphia: Hill House, 1970. ation, altered profoundly the landscape of the island on -Greater Light on Nantucket. Philadelphia: Hill which this story happened to occur.

House, 1973.

Nantucket Historical Association vertical (blue) file, Greater Light.

Preservation Institute: Nantucket, Greater Light reports (1983, 1996).

Angela Mazaris is a writer who lives on Nantucket

Island. She is currently working on the NHA's capital campaign. She also teaches and assists with educational programming/or the Maria Mitchell Association.

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((If we will but a1z effort make)): The Sewing Circles.of Nantucket's Congregational, Methodist, and Unitarian Churches b)'

VER SINCE MARY STARBUCK BROUGHT

Aimee L. Newell

Quakerism to Nantucket in 1702, island women have combined religious fervor with a social conscience in order to improve their lives and those of their neighbors. Although the Nantucket Society of Friends was torn apart by disagreements over doctrine during the early nineteenth century, its progressive ideals were carried forward by generations of Nantucket women, many of whom had been educated as equals with their brothers.

Nantucket's involvement in the American whale fishery meant that most island boys and men were away from home for years at a time, leaving their wives, mothers, and sisters to look after domestic and financial affairs.

When the Great Fire of 1846 wreaked havoc in Nantucket Town, causing millions of dollars of damage and spelling the beginning of the end of Nantucket whaling, island women banded together to rebuild their community, forming sewing circles at their respective

The reading class of the Ladies Union Circle.

Standing (l tor): Anne Hussey, Sarah Holmes Gardner, li:uie Davis, Emma Stevens, Eunice Brooks, Mrs. Nickerson, Susie Smalley.

Seated (l tor): Caroline Barney, Jennie Chase, Ann W. Chase, Anna Rule, Corrina Bearse.

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churches to assist with church debts and to strengthen the bonds of friendship on the island. The First Congregational Church Ladies Union Circle, the Methodist Episcopal Church Ladies Wesleyan Society, and the Unitarian Sewing Society were all formed during the late 1840s and early 1850s with a similar purpose - to raise money for their respective churches and to aid the needy, both at home and abroad.

That they all took the form of "sewing circles" is significant. The act of sewing kept idle hands busy and provided a means of earning money for the organizations. Frequent meetings enabled the women to engage in social discourse - trading news and gossip and strengthening their sense of community during an economically difficult period of Nantucket's history.

Sewing and benevolent works were accepted, even expected, outlets for women of the 1850s, since they were natural extensions of the roles of wife and mother.

But once they started raising money, the women gained confidence, leading to a sense of empowerment in their commwuty as they effected positive social change in the guises of church upkeep and assisting those deemed "in need" of aid.

The women of the First Congregational Church were the first of the three groups to organize (and 155 years later are still going strong), in January 1846. An "old debt" was "hanging over" the church in 1845, so the women held a fair, with the proceeds going toward the "liquidation of said debt." The fair was held on January 1, 1846, and raised $700. Pleased with their success, the women "decided to form themselves into a Sewing Circle." They elected officers and set out their nlission: "the object of this Society shall be to aid the church, and to do any benevolent work approved by its WINTER

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members, and to interest as many as possible in such work." Membership dues provided seed money with "married ladies paying 50 cents, and unmarried ladies twenty-five cents." Surprisingly, the women of the First Congregational Church allowed men to be members as well, although their bylaws did not assess a specific membership fee for the men.

Initially, the Ladies Union Circle focused on sewing items to sell at another fair, with the proceeds to be used to pay the debt due on the church's organ. Tills was a religious group, however, and the organizational documents demanded that "the Circle shall commence its meetings by the reading of a portion of Scripture.... " The constitution of the Ladies Union Circle both provides insight into the philosophy of the church and underscores the important function it served in terms of facilitating a sense of community for Circle members: "Believeing [szC] (as we are constituted to enjoy the relations of life socially) that whatever tends to preserate [szC] and strengthen those relations is conducive to the general happiness of Society; and as charity, sympathy, and Love, may be greatly enhanced by unity of feeling and action, we, the subscribers, do unitedly pledge ourselves to labour for such objects of benevolence as shall be deemed worthy of assistance .... " The social aspect of the group was quickly established. At the second meeting, in 1846, the ladies voted to serve ice cream for a small charge at the dose of the meetings, which would "facilitate the payment of the debt ." Membership requirements were also altered at early meetings, with dues increased to one dollar annually and the attendance of gentlemen limited to admission at 8:30P.M. (the meetings started at 7 P.M.)no doubt to raise more money by selling ice cream to them as well.

By the sixth meeting, in August 1846, the women had paid off the organ debt and voted to continue their efforts and "endeavor to have a sufficiency of money on hand in case of contingency." A committee was formed for "fire relief," and the first action taken was approval of a motion "that such fancy articles as were in the Circle should be given to the members who had been deprived of theirs." A "sale" was planned for Christmas Eve 1846. Many "useful and ornamental articles" were available and "met with a ready sale." The evening ended with social time and ice cream.

Despite the initial success of the Ladies Union Circle, in July 1847 the group voted to stop holding HISTORI C

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fairs and by late fall the minutes record that interest was "manifestly declining." To compensate for dwindling numbers, the remaining ladies redoubled their efforts, focusing on increasing membership and preparing a box for the "Missions." The minutes for 1849 indicate the group's feverish activity over the summer to quilt comforters for the box.

As the island's economy began its downward spiral, the Ladies Union Circle found its niche, sewing for missionary boxes and needy community members, reading appropriate religious materials aloud, and assisting their members and neighbors with paying pew taxes.

Records kept by the group throughout the late nineteenth century document their benevolent activities, which included making clothing for Civil War volunteers in 1861 and 1862; working for "the sick, suffering, and destitute Negroes among the 15,000 liberated by General Shem1an" in 1865, and sending two barrels of clothing to those suffering in Nebraska and at the Five Points Mission in New York in 1895. The ladies were equally attentive to the needs of their own parish, raising money to refit the minister's pew, repair the church dock, fresco the walls, even pay part of the minister's salary in 1872.

At the other end of Centre Street, the women of the Methodist Church organized the Ladies Wesleyan Society in April 1850. Formed "to promote the pecuniary interests of said church, and to assist as possible and practicable the poor and needy members of that church," all members of the church were invited to join the Ladies Wesleyan Society by paying an annual membership fee of twenty-five cents. The women of the

The Congregational Church Sunday school piC11ic, 1 August 1916.

From Left to right: Eunice Brooks, Ann Chase, Mrs. James Davis, Lydia Bunker Gardner, and Dell Russell.

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The Methodist Church's LAdies Wesleyan Sodety paid to insure the church's Appleton organ.

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Methodist Church did not rely on sewing as their primary means of raising funds. Instead, each member was required "to endeavor to increase the members and funds of the Society, obtain knowledge of necessities cases and report the same to the Society."

Like their Congregational neighbors, the Ladies Wesleyan Society opened its meetings with a Scripture reading and prayer. They also took up a collection at each meeting, to increase their treasury. The balance of this treasury was used to support the church and its activities, with a focus on music for the weekly services.

Handwritten entries in the Secretary's Book during the 1880s and 1890s record numerous expenditures for singing, insurance for the organ, and church maintenance. On May 7, 1891, the group voted to give fifty cents every three months for the organist. This was in addition to a previously approved outlay of one dollar per month for singing.

On February 7, 1889, the women agreed to pay for insuring the organ, but instead of clipping into their savings, they voted to have Lizzie M. Pinkham call on each member "to get the money" to insure the organ. By February 15, Pinkham was successful, collecting $5.25 for organ insurance, which provided three years of coverage. Other entries record votes supporting funding for a church janitor, contributions for "church expenses," carpet for the parsonage and vestry, wood and coal, and charity for community members in need. In 1891 alone, the Ladies Wesleyan Society gave $23 to the poor.

Not to be outdone by their neighbors, the women of the Unitarian Church formed the Unitarian Sewing NANTUCKET

Society around 1850 "to promote social intercourse in the Parish; and to assist in sustaining a liberal church in this community." The bylaws required a collection be taken at each meeting and established committees for "the Clothing, Fancy and other departm ents"; the "Annual Sale"; and "to see that the Vestry is kept in order." The group's major activities consisted of the annual meeting each September, the "Annual Sale" in August, and the "Parish Tea Party" held on New Year's Day. An anonymous poem, "The Se\ving Circle, its design, deeds, and prospects," written in January 1850 described the benefit of these meetings: "It is for social intercourse we meet I And each with kindly sympathies to greet. I Discordant feelings all to lay aside I For suffer might our unity divide ... The longest life; at best, but one short span, I Then for each other, let's do what we can."

Like their Methodist and Congregational sisters, the Unitarian ladies focused on raising money to support the upkeep of their church and to aid the needy in their community. By 1850, according to the anonymous poem, they had already tackled a remarkable nwnber of projects: When first we met, I think it was agreed That some be used for what the Church should need And some also of our means we'd use To promulgate the Unitarian views We've sent the Sunday School an ample share ...

We once the gallery with books supplied Nor has assistance ever been denied To those whose wants before the circle laid ...

Sometimes we've paid some poor lone \vidow's rent And to the Tract Society often sent Have purchased curtains, pulpit cushions, chairs .. .

We've bought a Bible, made some presents too .. .

We've done whate'er we've found to do.

I

During the 1880s, the women appropriated money to repair the floor and the furnace, obtain additional lights for the church, and donated "children's aprons" to the Children's Aid Society. They also fully supported their own activities, using money from the treasury to buy supplies for "fancy articles" to be sold at their annual sale, and voting to paint the "Ladies parlor" in 1884. The satisfaction that these activities provided is evident in the records. As early as 1850, the Unitarian women understood that "if we will but an effort make I WINTER

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we can do something and a fund create." A report on watched their beloved the society's 1880 "social tea party" explained that "all Nantucket tum into a ghost seemed to feel the interest of the Church was increased town, as friends and relaby such gatherings." In August 1886, the annual sale tions departed for mainland was successful: "Excellent sales were noted and shores and greater opportuCommittees very faithful and efficient." nities. But the groups also Emboldened by their success, the Unitarian Sewing provided their members Society plunged forward with their most ambitious pro- with a sense of control and ject, "to build or buy some place which could be fitted power over their communiI up for a "Parish house" where could be held all [their] ty and their lives. Working 'lj' church sales, feasts , and entertainments." According to together to raise money ~" a report on this project, written by Susan E. Brock allowed these women to many years later, the group had tired of the difficulties exercise direct influence U of mounting their tea parties in the Vestry, which "had over how the money was no modem conveniences whatever." used and how their respecThe ladies first approached the church trustees who, tive churches operated, according to Brock, "thought that what was good while also giving them the enough for our fathers should be good enough for us, authority to define concepts and thus consistently opposed all our progressive like social welfare and ideas." So, the ladies took matters into their own hands to shape community life. and began raising money for a new building by holding As one Nantucket sewing an annual fair and sponsoring numerous concerts and circle member explained, "entertainments." But the fund-raising activity that put "Although it little from our them over the top was an unusual idea that underscores large debt takes I Tis many the influence and confidence the women earned a little many a nickle makes I In woman's name, then, I upon you call/ For by her influence we stand, or fall." through their organization.

Each member had to earn at least one dollar for the treasury. As Brock explained, "it was not a common Aimee E. Newell is the NHA's curator ofcollections thing for 'young ladies' to enter business in any way and a frequent contributor to Historic Nantucket. Her except teaching and the majority of those involved in article, '"A genuine relic ofold Nantucket': Eliza Ann this scheme had never earned a cent in their lives."

I M<ÂŁ/eave', Mu,eum," appmed '" the Fal/2000 iuue Several women made candy, cake, or ice cream to sell.

One woman borrowed her father's wagon and drove "old ladies to and from the parties at ten cents a head," u at least until a local carriage driver threatened her with Anne Firor Scott. Natural Allies: Women's Associations the law for carrying passengers without a license! Yet another earned five cents at a time by running errands. in American History. Urbana: University of Illinois By 1894, the ladies had raised $4,000 and the search for Press, 1993. a suitable building began. In 1900 they purchased the This article is based on research conducted in primary current parsonage (behind the church at 10 Fair Street), and secondary sources at the NHA's Research Library. which became a home for Reverend Day and subse- Collections 41, 84,276,295 and the vertical (blue) file were especially helpful. The author also thanks the quent ministers.

The women of Nantucket's church sewing circles Reverend Edward B. Anderson of the Unitarian were reacting both to local hardship and national Church for access to that church's Sewing Society trends, as well as to changes in American gender roles records. and growing support for women's suffrage. The sewing circles of the Congregational, Methodist, and Unitarian churches provided a social outlet for island women who

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The Unitanan parsonage at 10 Fair Street is a classic Nantucket Quaker dwelling. built in 1746acquired through the efforts of the women's Sewing Society.

Photograph by Bob Lehman.

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Helping Hands by Kate Stout

l

HISTORIC

ARDSHIP. IT IS A WORD AS WELL AS A

condition that, until recent times, was prevalent on this remote island. Hard winters, lean times, war, all served to exacerbate the everyday difficulties of depending on time, tide, and fair winds to ferry in supplies - as well as opportunity - and ferry out the men who would travel worlds away for their livelihoods. Islanders had, and continue to have, great personal reserves against the physical hardships of life on a remote island. As Maria Mitchell observed in January 1857, during the third bad winter in a row: "We hear of no suffering in town for fuel or provisions. I think we could stand a three month siege without much inconvenience as far as the physicals are concerned."

Reserves against isolation and the consequences of poverty were something else again. Mitchell observes in her journal of the period that the island was "now sixteen daily papers behind the rest of the world." The severe storm had forced the closing of what social activity there was -"The Coffin School has been suspended . . . and the Unitarian Church has had but one service."

Drifting snow even made sledding difficult. "We know we cannot 'get out'," Mitchell writes, "any more than Sterne's starlings, and we know that 'tis best not to fret."

That stalwart position, however, was not shared by all, not for wont of wishing to make the best of a bad and tedious situation, but for wont of material as well as mner resources.

That same entry, on January 23, when the wind was howling and the "mercury [fell to] 20 below zero," Mitchell also wrote: "There are some families who are a good deal in suffering, for whom the Howard Society is on the look-out."

The Ladies Howard Society, as it was formally known, was a group of women on the "look-out" for indigent women and children of the island. Named for an eighteenth-century philanthropist, the Howard Society was officially incorporated in 1836, and was neither the first nor the last in a series of lifelines to the island's less fortunate souls.

NANTUCKET

In fact, the Howard Society really sprang out of Revolutionary War Nantucket. Mrs. Harriet Peirce, in her "A Brief History" of the group, wrote that "a few young ladies ... [devised] a plan by which the poor people of the town could have the benefit of some education for their children." She goes on: "This was around 1814, in the midst of the war with England ....

It was a period of great suffering: the bare necessaries of life were all that many families could secure.... " The group opened a school and quickly noted that "some [of the children] were quite destitute of comfortable clothing.... " The women then became something of a sewing circle, collecting material and making clothes for those in need. Because of this, they came to be known by 1817 as the Fragment Society. They continued their free school until public schooling came to the island in 1829, but the sewing continued unabated. Then, in December 1836, the Fragment Society merged with "the Benevolent and Charitable Societies to carry on the work of caring for the Island's poor," forming the Ladies Howard Society. The Howard Society wasn't incorporated until1856 .

Even so, it served the island for some seventy years, providing clothing and shoes and even, in 1872, mounting a campaign to provide "a home for destitute old ladies," laying the philosophical and social groundwork for such eventualities as Landmark House and Our Island Home. Indeed, in the 1919 NHA Proceedings, the Howard Society was remembered as a "large and important charitable society" whose members had "walked in our midst on their errands of mercy."

Indeed, the instinct to do "good works" on Nantucket has had a consistent and generous presence on Nantucket throughout its history. The fruit of those instincts has been numerous charitable associations aimed at relieving the suffering of the have-nots by the haves. Just as the ladies of the Howard Society worked side by side to bring some measure of education and relief to the island's poor, so did the Children's Aid Society, the Helping Hand Society, the Union Benevolent Society, the Relief Association, the Free Masons, and the International Order of Odd Fellows WINTER

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work to bring relief to the needy of many descriptions.

And that is just to name a few of those that predate the twentieth century.

Little is known about some the societies. The Helping Hand Society, for instance, was active in the 1880s, and made its business assisting "many feeble persons and worthy poor," as the author of a notice of its annual meeting wrote for the Inquirer and Mirror in 1887. Another, the Union Benevolent Society, also active in the 1880s, aimed its charitable activity at "indigent and orphaned children," according to a write-up of its 1885 annual meeting. The Union Benevolent Society collected and dispensed almost new secondhand clothing to needy children. It is relevant to note that both of these little-known groups were active in a period of economic somnolence on Nantucket- at exactly the point in time when the island had endured about a quarter of a century of decline.

Another much more documented and longer-lived group, the Relief Association got under way during this period too. Incorporated in 1874, the organization began as most of the women's relief efforts did-in somebody's parlor, where a small group of concerned citizens met to discuss and "do something about" a problem they had identified as worthy. In this case, as HISTORIC

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Marie M. Coffin, then Relief Association secretary, writes in a 1970 history of the group, "Eight Nantucket ladies met at the home of Mrs. David N. Edwards for the purpose of adopting some plan for helping indigent, aged people ... [to make] their declining years more comfortable."

Although the Relief Association had dues, as most of the early charitable associations did, they raised money in time-tested ways-"by means of entertainments, ... parties, musicals ... " and the like. The Relief Association, from its earliest years, was relatively prosperous, showing $5,000 in the bank by 1880. In tum, they dispensed monthly allowances, sometimes $2, "which," Mrs. Coffin writes, "was considered good in those days." Still, the Relief Association was not impervious to the economic stasis of the early decades of the twentieth century and might not have survived had it not had its own "angel." Gulielma (Elma) Folger, who served as president of the Relief Association from 1912 to1930, infused the organization with cash on a kind of "as needed" basis. Genuine relief from financial worries did not truly abate, though, until the 1960s. Given a "block of stores on Federal Street," the association sold two properties in 1961 and the remainder in 1969, solidifying its future. By 1970, it boasted $200,000 in

Demonstrating a breeches-buoy lifesaving technique at a Masonic picnic, ca. 1920.

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available funds, and broadened its charitable efforts as a direct result. The interest was "used to help those at present on our monthly list, together with special gifts when needed and for Christmas gifts to about 16 people, " Mrs. Coffin noted. Proudly unaffiliated-the Relief Association, Mrs. Coffin wrote, was "entirely sectarian"-it continued its good works until1980.

Unlike the Relief Association, the Children's Aid Society was spawned in the vestry of the Baptist Church - good Christian women endeavoring to address and redress a societal woe, in this case the island's youth. In its constitution, the society proposed to "provide a Home for destitute girls, where they may be supported, watched over and so trained, that they may prepare themselves in a useful and respectable manner . ... "

Such an institution was established and it quickly became residence to "six children; two about 13 years old, and four a few years younger," according to a report in the Inquirer and Mirror. Organized in 1867 for the "protection, training and support of such girls as may be found needing this aid," these children attended public school and "Sabbath School." They were also taught the basic tools for such a "respectable" lifehow to sew and keep house.

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The Children's Aid Society eventually included boys. By 1924, the group was itself struggling to survive.

In the minutes for that year, it was noted that the "conditions under which the Society labored during the past few years remained the same. " In fact, they could only afford to look after a single child, a boy named Leonard Gould, who had been under their wing for at least a couple of years at that point. " . . . that seems to be all the responsibility the Society feels authorized to undertake, owing to the lack of funds necessary to attempt other work." Nevertheless, the society managed to hang on until 1948 when it voted to ask the Union Benevolent Society to accept its funds and carry on its work.

Often, though, the good works of such groups took on a meddlesome and morally superior tone.

The Children's Aid Society, for instance, got on its moral high horse in 1892 when, in an Inquirer and Mirror article, it announced a campaign against the "painful increase in profanity and impure language" it believed was all too common among Nantucket's youths.

And the 1901 inception of the Boys' Improvement and Industry Association speaks for itself. This was a short-lived attempt to improve the "morals, manners and habits" of the island's young men- a kind of presumptuousness that was destined to fail.

Still, those good ladies thought that by providing diversions in the form of training in manual arts, some entertainment, and a place to gather, they might forestall the inherent wickedness of idle boys. No more pennanent than their scrap-paper minutes heralded, the effort to make good men of dissolute boys lasted only seven years-and yet it identified a chronic problem in island life. Indeed, the Boys' Improvement and Industry Association might well be thought of as the forerunner of the Boys and Girls Club and the Teen Center in today's Nantucket.

Although all of these organizations were the work, primarily, of women, it was fraternal organizations that allowed men to exercise the spirit of giving within the community. Free Masons, the International Order of Odd Fellows, and, the youngster among them, Rotary Club International (the Nantucket chapter was instituted in 1950), all are benevolent societies that put comWINT E R

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munity service among their top priorities. Often maligned, and so dismissed, as "secret societies," they are among the most enduring of any of the island's organized efforts at benevolence. What "secrets" they have are internal, the stuff of initiation, modes of recognition, advancement and ceremonies - much as one might find in a college fraternity or sorority - not of secret doings. Indeed, the constitution and rules of all these fraternal organizations are available to the public.

The Masons held their first Nantucket meeting in 1771. They were mostly mariners, "and none blessed with a fortune." The charter for the local group, known then as now as Union Lodge, was granted by the Grand Lodge in Boston at a meeting convened at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern on April16, 1771. Some of the original Nantucket Masons began as Masons in England or in other U.S. cities, a prerequisite for a lodge being a certain nwnber of Masons of a certain rank. The Masons experienced the vicissitudes of any group enduring the ups and downs of a given community. The first Masonic funeral on-island was that of Jethro Coffin's grandson, also called Jethro, who died five days after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

They endured an "anti-Mason" period that shrank lodge memberships across the nation: in four years, from 1832 to 1835, only three men applied for membership to the Union Lodge; and then came the Great Fire. And yet, in over two hundred years - making them the oldest continuously operating organization, charitable or otherwise, on Nantucket - the Masons have been remarkably fixed. They acquired their first permanent home on Main Street behind the Pacific Bank building in 1802 and their current home (the lodge occupies the second floor) at the comer of Union and Main Streets in 1890.

Although Free Masonry is not a religious organization, membership is open only to men who believe in a "Supreme Being." Its traditional roots and moral imperative go back to the Old Testament and the building of the Temple of Jerusalem. Each member must subscribe to the organization's three main principles: brotherhood, relief, and truth. "Relief" is synonymous with alleviating suffering, not just among themselves but among the community at large. Traditionally, Masons aim their efforts at the care of orphans, the sick and the elderly, first among their own and then in the community.

Hamstrung in recent years by costly and necessary HISTORIC

NANTUCKET

renovations to their Main Street building, local charitable initiatives have been limited. They are known, however, for their cache of medical equipment, mainly hospital beds and wheelchairs, which are made available to those in need. They also designate $4,000$5,000 annually to a Relief Fund, which is earmarked for local "people who are hard up," says current treasurer Paul Bennett. Most Masonic giving, however, is dispensed at the state and national level (to the tune of more than $1 million per day).

Like the Masons, the Odd Fellows hailed first from England where, in the late 1700s, a group met with the express purpose of extending a helping hand to needy members of the community at large. This was considered odd behavior at the time (charity began- and ended - at home) and so the men were dubbed Odd Fellows. By 1845, when the local chapter of Odd Fellows was established on Nantucket, charitable deeds were not only common, they were a way of life. At that time, the Odd Fellows, like the Masons, were a natural complement to the benevolent work orchestrated by the women of the Children's Aid, Howard, and other charitable societies of the day.

Today, the Odd Fellows continue that largesse, giving away $12,000 in scholarships annually, assisting individual families in need, lending a hand at community events, and working the hospital health fair every year.

The women's arm of the Odd Fellows (there is a women's arm of tl1e Free Masons, too, the Order of the Eastern Star, but its Nantucket chapter was disbanded several years ago) is called the Rebeccas, or as it was spelled in its earlier years, Rebekahs. A small but lively revival of this group was instituted in 1999, and it is charged with the same community-service goals as its male counterpart.

The upstart among the island's fraternal organizations is Rotary Club International, which celebrated its fiftieth year in 2000. By Nantucket standards, Rotary is still new, and yet is, locally, by far the most community conscious. Unlike ilie Masons and the Odd Fellows, Rotary membership is based on active participation in ilie life of ilie island's business community, railier ilian broilierhood per se. Whereas ilie Masons and ilie Odd Fellows put the welfare and well-being of their broiliers first, Rotary makes the community its number one priority. As one Rotarian put it, "Our function is to raise money and pwnp iliat money right back into ilie com-

Opposite: Members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Nantucket officers and past grands, ca. 1940s.

Back row (l tor): Archibald Cortwnght, Alonzo Chase, Reggie Reed, George Sykes, Andrew Brady.

Middle row: Maurice Norcross, Ed Ray,

Byron L. Coggins, Hermon Johnson, Herbert Smith, Norman Giffin.

Front row: Walter Sisson, LeBaron Ray, Lincoln Porte, Thomas Beckers/a//, H. B. Walker,

Sterling Ymca.

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their comfort, is a spiritual as well as financial help, for it means that someone cares."

Fund-raising/or Rotary: Ken Beaugrand and Louise Rogerson

Kate Stout is the editor and publisher of the Nantucket Map and Legend and a frequent contributor to Historic

gnlling sausages over Stroll weekend

2000. 1

Nantucket.

Photograph courtesy of Nantucket Map and Legend.

Historic Nantucket.

Inquirer and Mirror.

NHA Proceedings. munity where it appears to be most needed." Current treasurer Flint Ranney says that Rotary has dispensed "anywhere between $16,000 and $35,000 a year" over the last four years to numerous local organizations. In 2000 alone, they gave out $16,000 in scholarships to graduating Nantucket High School seniors. Rotary also runs a fuel-assistance program. The electric company and Harbor Fuel alert them when someone is having difficulty paying a bill. Rotary never knows who the recipient is - that remains strictly confidential - but Rotary funnels cash to the utilities that is in tum applied to the outstanding accounts of needy islanders. While they do participate in the international efforts of their organization-the fight against polio, to name one--the Rotarian motto is "service above self," and that service begins at home on Nantucket.

From a timeline point of view, then, organized benevolence has spanned more than two hundred years on this little elbow of sand. Since the first settlers came ashore, looked around and saw all too clearly how alone they were on this island thirty miles at sea, and how much they would have to depend on each other to survive, helping hands have always been at the ready. The hardship of isolation necessarily gave birth to a continuum of selfless giving that was inspired not by self-glorification but by the clear recognition that there but for the grace of God go I. Although it was intended only to describe the work of the Relief Association, what Marie Coffin wrote, describing that group's "policy," resonates as a kind of moral constitution for the island throughout its history.

That policy, she wrote, "has always been to do good quietly, never telling who was being helped. A cheery call from our Treasurer, who puts into their hands a sum of money which we know can and will be used for

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NHA manuscript collections 60,71,72,73,74, 158, 244,335 Interviews re Rotary: Lucille Jordan and Flint Ranney.

Interviews reUnion Lodge: Paul Bennett, Gerry O'Hara, and Francis Pease.

Website: www.freemasonry.org Documentation is available on request.

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A Brief History of Religion on Nantucket S THE REFORMATION SPREAD THROUGH

Europe in the early sixteenth century, the Protestant interpretations of belief and scriptural validity brought chaos to religious life. When Henry the VIII established the Church of England it became the basis for the Protestantism that not too long after came to America. The Puritans, who were in existence by 1559, attempted national reform in England, but the Catholic Stuarts made things difficult for them and many fled to Holland. In the 1630s the Puritans began coming to America.

The New England colonies were founded predominantly by the Puritan settlers of Massachusetts and Connecticut, who then established communities in Maine, New Hampshire, and on Long Island. Under the leadership of Roger Williams, who fled from the Bay Colony, Rhode Island became a refuge for those seeking freedom of conscience. Baptists, Quakers, and other independent spirits flocked to Rhode Island, including those who were seeking freedom /rom religion.

Beginning in 1642, Thomas Mayhew of Martha's Vineyard made missionary forays to Nantucket, and in addition to claiming pasturage for his sheep managed to "Christianize" a good number of the native population.

By the time the first settlers came to Madaket Harbor that winter of 1659, many of the Indians were already converted . The Proprietors came to Nantucket in search of economic opportunities and a desire to be outside the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Puritans. They rejected religious politics and preferred nonconformist religious practices. They opposed the Puritan idea of collective discipline, and were advocates of toleration and sectarian diversity.

The Nantucket native population of between 2,500 and 3,000 welcomed the English settlers. During the early years, the Indian Christian movement grew, led by Peter Folger, who had settled on Martha's Vineyard and moved to Nantucket as a religious teacher, among HISTORIC

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I

his many other occupations. By 1674 there were nearly 300 "Praying Indians," as they were called, in three churches. One at was at Oggawame (or Jephtha's town, northeast of Gibbs Swamp); one at Wammasquid (Quidnet); and one at Squatesit (Polpis). Daniel Gookin , supervisor of the New England missionary effort, reported that there were four teachers at that time: John Gibbs (Assasamoogh), pastor; Caleb (Weekochisit) ; and two others, Joseph and Samuel.

The Praying Indians evolved from the Anabaptist beginnings fostered by the Mayhews.

Because Nantucket was then a patt of the New York Colony, the separation of church and state was already an accepted tenet of Nantucket's religious life. Even after the island was ceded to Massachusetts, this ethic

>y ~everend

-;eorgia Ann Snell

The Methodist Church, ca. 1900.

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was strongly adhered to by the settlers. At the end of the seventeenth century, nonconformity, diversity, and religious pluralism prevailed; private and public worship services were held but they were not formalized congregations with settled ministers.

In 1702 the English Quaker, John Richardson, came to Nantucket and addressed a large group of Quakers and other interested citizens at the home of Mary Coffin Starbuck, who was already committed to Quaker ideals. That meeting is considered to be the beginning of the highly influential Quaker movement on Nantucket. At about the same time, Congregationalists were meeting in homes in the old town of Clockwise /rom bottom left: Sherburne. Oral tradition has it that the first The First Congregational Congregational house of worship may have been in Church is seen here existence in 1711, an assumption based on a ca. 1880s bill for lumber that without its spire, cannot at present be Bennett Hall and located . It is known, the close, neighbonng however , that in 1725 town records ordered buildings we know today. that notices be posted at The Congregational Church, two meeting houses, preH.A.B.S. photo by Jack E. sumably the Friends Boucher in February 1968. Meeting House on upper Main Street and the A 19th-century view of Congregational Meeting the Old North Vestry. House, the Old North

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N A N T U C K E T

Vestry, which by then had been moved to Centre Street.

On June 24, 1799, the Reveren d William Beauchamp organized the Methodist Society in an upper back room in the Pearl Street residence of Ebenezer Rand. Methodism had arrived two years earlier when Rev. Jesse Lee visited in April and preached sixteen sermons. In 1798, when Rev. Joseph Snelling of Boston came to preach on Nantucket, there was such a large group of black people who wanted to attend but could not that Rev. Snelling went to the open air on Mill Hill where all classes, rich and poor, white and black, assembled. Nineteen people organized the Methodist Society, and services were first held in the Town Hall at the comer of Main and Milk Streets, until 1800. A new meeting house, built to seat 1,000 people, was erected on Centre Street at Liberty Street in 1823, at a cost of $14,000.

In 1809, a division in the First Congregational Church resulted in the Second Congregational Society being formed and a new meeting house erected on Orange Street. Reasons for the break are unclear but they may have been a protest against undue strictness, differences in matters of church governance, and the need for more space for a growing community. Calling their church the South Meeting House, the congregation became Unitarian in 1837, after a majority of the members signed a covenant used for admission into the Church of Harvard University, the old First Parish of Cambridge.

In March 1824, a meeting was held at Aaron Mitchell's house to form a Universalist Society.

The cornerstone of the new meeting house that resulted from that meeting was laid at the comer

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of Federal and Pearl (now India) Streets. A scroll with the names of the proprietors and principal builders, memoranda, a copy of the Inquirer, U.S. coins, and a lock of hair from the late lamented John Murray were placed in the cornerstone. It was a simple gothic structure, sixty by fifty feet, with ten gothic windows, each eighteen feet high. The sixty-four pews were painted a delicate straw color. The Universalist Society survived only until1834 when the building (completed in 1826) was purchased by the proprietors of the Nantucket Atheneum. The original building was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1846 and replaced by the existing library building.

The African Baptist Society was formed in 1825 and built its meeting house at Five Corners, the center of the segregated community. It was designed from the start to be a multipurpose space - primarily as a school and church, a lecture hall, and a social center.

The Black Anti-Slavery Society and the Colored Temperance Meeting used it as well. The deed specified that a schoolhouse be erected on the lot - with the intent to keep it there forever- confirming the importance of education to the black community. In 1835 another black church was founded, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, also known as the Zion Methodist Episcopal Church. The first known minister there was an escaped slave named Arthur Cooper.

He and his wife Mary were protected by abolitionists on Nantucket when agents from Virginia came looking for them.

The First Baptist Church was organized in 1839, and first met in Franklin Hall on Water Street until the Summer Street meeting house was built. The first pastor was the Reverend Daniel Round Jr. The congregation, as happened several times on Nantucket, split in 1896. One group removed to a York Street location, while issues were discussed. Eventually the group that had moved out was reinstated in the Summer Street building upon approval and recognition by the Massachusetts State Convention. A group that had been forced out formed the People's Baptist Church in HISTORIC

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1897, which lasted until 1902 when their Centre Street meeting house (formerly a Friends meeting house) was sold to John Roberts. The building became an annex to the presentday Roberts House.

In the mid-nineteenth century, the Episcopal â&#x20AC;˘ \:" Church came to Nantucket when the Reverend Moses Marcus came to Nantucket to perform the wedding ceremony of his son, who was living here after serving on a whaling ship and then being employed by the newspaper, the Inquirer. Rev. Marcus preached at the Methodist Chapel, the Second Congregational, and the First Congregational all on the same day. Realizing that he was the first preacher of the Episcopal faith to be on the island, he stayed and ministered to a new group that was interested in the denomination. The group organized and created Trinity Episcopal Church. A building was erected in 1839 on Broad Street, and was the last building on the north side of Broad Street to be

Top: Aviewofthe Unitarian Church /rom Stone Alley, ca. 1890s.

The Unitarian Church also hosts Shirai HaYam, Nantucket's Jewish congregation.

Below: the Baptist church ca. 1890s on Summer Street.

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The Union Chape~ Siasconset, ca. 1885.

Albumen pnnt by

Harry Platt.

Right: The origznal St. Paul's Episcopal Church on Fair Street, ca. 1865.

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destroyed in the Great Fire. For two years the congregation met at the First Congregational Church, but it essentially dissolved as Trinity Episcopal. Discussion among the trustees result! ed in the change of name to St. Paul's Episcopal Church (by vote of seven to six over St. John's), the church reorganized. A new building was built on Fair Street and used until1901 when the current building was built on the same site.

The Roman Catholic faith came to Nantucket in 1849 when Father Thomas McNulty of New Bedford celebrated Mass in three locations: Town Hall at the comer of Main and Milk Streets; the Quaker schoolhouse on Broad Street; and in Pantheon Hall.

St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church (formerly Harmony Hall) was consecrated on Federal Street in 1858. The present structure was erected in 1897.

Worship services were held in the Siasconset schoolhouse as early as 1875. In 1883, when the Union Chapel was erected, Roman Catholic services were held in the morning followed by a nondenominational service in the afternoon.

The twentieth century brought a number of other faiths to Nantucket's rich and varied religious history.

An Assembly of God Church was established early in the century and the Christian Science Society in 1903.

I There is a congregation ofJehovah's Witnesses, and the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and the Baha'i both have a presence on Nantucket today. In 1985 Congregation Shirat HaYam was formed for the Jewish population.

The Nantucket Interfaith Council is a thriving and I active society that is made up of clergy and laity from all N A N T U C K E T

interested denominations today on the island. The Nantucket Emergency Food Pantry was founded by the Interfaith Council in 1989, and in 2000 a Housing Coordinator was hired to help with the housing shortage for year-round people. The Nantucket Interfaith Council sponsors a Thanksgiving Eve service, a Martin Luther King Jr. Day service, and a Baccalaureate service for Nantucket High School graduates. Members of the council also take part in the Christmas service held during Stroll Weekend at the Methodist Church. The diversity of Nantucket's religious history is continuing with a spirit of cooperation and ecumenism that has been characteristic of the twentieth-century religious community. The story continues.

The Reverend Georgia Ann Snell is associate minister at the First Congregational Church and is one of Nantucket's five Selectmen

Ed. Note- This article is based on research conducted over a period of years by NHA historian Helen Winslow Chase, in preparation for a history of Nantucket's religious communities. Documentation is available on request.

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The African Meeting House T TOOK THE MUSEUM OF AFRO AMERICAN

history ten years from its 1989 acquisition of the African Meeting House on Nantucket to realize the restoration of the building. During that decade, numerous supporters - visitors, volunteers, donors, workers, passersby - were deeply affected by the broad spiritual importance of the project.

One of the project's early island advocates was the Nantucket Interfaith Council, which hosted the new owners' introduction to the island and supported their restoration efforts. The council's frequent financial and other contributions are a testimony to its commitment to the project. The public also responded with enthusiasm to efforts by the museum and Friends of the African Meeting House to keep the restoration and related issues in the public eye. Presentations included speakers, exhibitions, lectures, the serendipitous development of an island Black Heritage trail, an archaeological dig, musical events, and benchmark ceremonies.

It is astonishing to imagine that in 1989 few people knew about Frederick Douglass's connection to the island or the importance of the maritime trades to free blacks before the Civil War. The general population of the island knew little about the abolition movement; Captain Absalom Boston; the Reverend James Crawford, whose ministry at the African Church was the longest (forty years) in the history of island churches; or even about Eunice Ross, the young woman who integrated Nantucket public schools in 1847. Few people knew of the island's black cemetety. Public events supporting the restoration project deepened the understanding of our shared heritage, enriched the island's considerable history, and inspired curiosity to learn even more.

It is no accident that the project was supported over the decade by 2,000 small donations from individuals from every walk of life; it is an inspiration that almost all of the large donations have come from African Americans on and off island. Stories from the building's past deeply touch islanders and tourists alike.

The African Meeting House was built at the comer of York and Pleasant Streets in the 1820s by the HISTORIC

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Trustees of the African Baptist Society to house a school for the island's black children. Public schools on Nantucket were not yet fully established or adequately funded. Early teachers at the Meeting House were itinerant Baptist preachers from the mainland; when there was none available, school was not in session. The first teacher, Frederick Baylies of Cape Cod, was also active in establishing schools on Martha's Vineyard and in Rhode Island. Only one early teacher that we know of, the Reverend Jacob Perry, was black.

With preachers as teachers, it was not long before a worshiping congregation was established on the Sundays of the period that school was in session. In 1848, at about the time that island schools were integrated, the Baptist congregation was revitalized with the appearance on the island of the Reverend James Crawford, a former slave from Virginia. The congregation slowly diminished following his death in 1888. The doors were closed and the building sold in the second decade of the twentieth century. For four more decades, the building was used for entirely nonspiritual activities -workshop, warehouse, garage, storage, etc. By 1989, it was in profound disrepair, with memories of its use as a church faded and its use as a school forgotten.

Twenty-first-century visitors to the restored building are awestruck when they walk into this architectural gem; its quiet simplicity takes one's breath away, its acoustics are stunning. One needn't be artistic or religious to be affected by this place, and, so far, no one claims to be so accustomed to the spirit of the building that they no longer notice.

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Jelen Seager

The restored intenor ofthe African Meeting House.

Photograph by Claudia Kronenberg.

Helen Seager is a founder and former convenor of the Friends of the African Meeting House on Nantucket.

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Religious Society of Friends Meeting Today by Lyn Danforth

Members and Friends of the Sandwich Quarterly Meeting gathered at the new Maria Mitchell Administration Building, October 2000.

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HE NANTUCKET MEETING OF TilE RELIGIOUS

Society of Friends (informally known as Quakers) has a well-documented history on Nantucket dating from 1702 until it was suspended in 1944. Over the next fifty years, Meeting was held informally and records are few. For the past decade, minutes of the Meetings for Business have been kept, although not always regularly because there were too few members. With some inner drive for spiritual fulfillment, Meeting persists today. For guidance, Friends look to the model of Quaker history, its literature, larger Meetings in New England, and above all, the faithful support of other members on the mainland.

Despite the disturbing and gloomy history of the Religious Society of Friends during the second half of the nineteenth century when schisms divided Friends, Meeting never died. Its records were preserved for a period of years in Centerville, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island. It was in 1944 that members of the Nantucket Monthly Meeting regretfully decided to "suspend the activities of this meeting until such time as it may (again) become active on the island of Nantucket. . . . It is with hope that the powers residing latent in us

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because of our long heritage, may spring forth in some larger service." Those of us who attend meetings here regularly look forward to such a time when the critical core of members and attendees is large enough to be recognized as an official Meeting again.

Spurred on by such people as George and Daisy Newman Selleck and Bob and Jean Leach, in the mid1940s the suspended meeting began to meet informally every summer in the Quaker Meeting House on Fair Street. Later, the growing year-round group moved to the Maria Mitchell Association Library when the weather turned inclement. Today, because it now can be heated, we use the Quaker Meeting House as our permanent space.

Our guest books reveal that since 1980, when the first book was donated by Martha Hoopes Park Gibian in memory of her parents, summer meetings of about thirty people dwindled to as low as one or two on some winter mornings. The winter average today is more likely five or six people, but one never knows whom or how many to expect. At the moment, only two of us are year-round members. The numbers for other seasonal members and attendees fluctuate considerably, a situation all faiths share on this island. Regular attendees organize social and educational gatherings, invite speakers, and greatly enjoy and value visitors from other Meetings, as well as from other faiths.

From time to time over the years, the Meeting has been able to donate funds to special projects that tie into its wish to serve local as well as worldwide communities. Some of our recent gifts have been directed to the restoration of the African Meeting House and the project to change the Fair Street Museum into the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library.

This past summer a doctor Friend of one of our Meeting's regular attendees brought his family from Kenya for a visit. We sent him home with a donation for his hospital. So these efforts to reach out combined with the Friends' personal efforts to support and assist WINTER

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local and distant communities keep the Meeting focused on service- one of its most important goals.

The Nantucket Meeting is part of the Sandwich Quarterly Meeting, a collection of twelve Meetings in the southeast comer of the state that meet every three months in different locations. Meeting is usually in four parts: worship, business, lunch, and a speaker, and they are warmed by the renewal of friendships developed over the years. Those of us who are relatively new Friends find the Meetings enjoyable, interesting, and a valuable repository of information and modeling of the Quaker ways.

During the Sandwich Quarterly Meeting on Nantucket last October, the afternoon and evening boats were canceled and members of the Nantucket Meeting had to house seventeen overnight guests. The next morning our Meeting was overflowing with the visitors who expressed the joy of being together, of worshiping together, and of feeling close in spite of the geographic distances that separate us.

Nantucket Meeting is crucially important to those who attend. Friends who have been summering on the island for many generations have loved it. Throughout the year, people who have come to Nantucket in search of their roots join the Meeting while they are here. To be able to worship in the same place as their ancestors can be a very moving experience. Friends' memorial services and an occasional wedding of Friends are part of the rich heritage that we are fortunate to share and help perpetuate.

The Nantucket Meeting has appreciated a comfortable relationship with its landlord, the Nantucket Historical Association. Over the decades, Friends have worshiped in the old Quaker school turned Meeting House on Fair Street with the blessing of the association. The meeting room is clean, white, filled with light through its tall windows, and unadorned except by tin wall sconces for candles and rows of worn wooden benches dating back to the earliest Meeting Houses.

Unseen, but felt by some of us, are the Friends who have worshiped here in the past cheering us on into the twenty-first century.

Lyn Danforth is clerk of the Nantucket Meeting, proprietor of the Danforth House Bed and Breakfast on Main Street in Nantucket, amd a private care practitioner.

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Historic Nantucket Book Section Review by Rev. E.dward B. Anderson

Edited by Conrad Edick Wright.

Published by the Massachusetts Historical Society and Northeastern University Press.

Cloth; 272 pp.

HHOUGIIOUT THE AGES CULTIC INFLUENCE

has been so central to the perturbations of society that, absent familiarity with religious history, any claim to understanding the course of human events is ludicrous. While thirty years ago one might justifiably have concluded that this centrality of religion had begun to fade, current observation would surely reverse that conclusion. Religious belief is the storm stirring winds of conflict in every comer of the world. Impassioned sectarian strife is sweeping aside constitutional ideals and legal principles even in what might once have been advanced as essentially secular nations. As indicative of this trend, fifty years ago candidates for office in the United States pledged their political conformity. "I am not now nor have I ever been a socialist." Today they profess religious conformity.

In this religiously charged atmosphere, it is inevitable that more books on the history of religion be published and read. American Unitarianism 1805-1865, falls into the category of "limited interes~ collections of essays." Nevertheless, "limited interest" is far broader than it was when the Massachusetts Historical Society published the book in 1989. Conrad Wright's chapter on the early years of the Second Church in Dorchester tells a story so close to that of the Second Church in Nantucket, the former founded in 1808, the latter in 1809, that the magnitude of the identical social forces changing life in every comer of New England at the onset of the nineteenth century is quickly appreciated. These same forces are familiar to us today: population growth, changing technology, transportation innovations, immigration, urban growth, and education. It is almost forgotten that prior to the estabWINTER

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the twenty-first century American lishment of the public school, before culture is in the midst of still another laws limiting the hours children awakening that seems global in under fourteen could work in mills scope. We have contemporaries and factories to twelve hours a day, who, in the words of a nineteenththe poor were taught to read and century Arminian, "confound specuwrite by clergy in Sunday schools. lations with scriptures and act like Only when it became obvious that apostles." We also hear the rationaleducating all children was far ism of "bottom-line mentality" beyond the ability of the churches resonating from another nineteenthdid America slowly accept that century Bostonian: "There is no responsibility as a pragmatic, albeit purer morality than that of the moral, one as is dearly found in the counting house." tone of the early primers.

Despite its profession of authority Churches were the pivot around of reason, liberal religion has providwhich much was turning as the new ed leadership on the fringes as well as country took its place in an already in the center of this reawakening rapidly changing world. In their essay "Whose Right Hand of controversy. The history of Unitarianism in America paradoxiFellowship?" Jane and William Pease describe a crisis that arose in Boston's Hollis cally sheds light on the nucleus of the problem. Today's Street Church in the process of adapting to contradic- Unitarianism is neither aloof from, nor immune to, the tions between rising democratic principles and estab- religious awakening currently agonizing the nation. lished social class. The very issues that pushed John Though still, as in Emerson's day, typically eschewing Pierpont from his Dorchester pulpit in 1845 dislodged enthusiastic shows of revivalism, Unitarians find themHenry Edes from his in Nantucket in 1842. This is not selves split into "spiritual" and "rational" camps, a coincidence. National and local growing pains were "Humanists" and "Feminists", "New Age" and ubiquitous and identical.

"Platonists." One is tempted to parody the suggested In addition to the ethical struggle to adapt social conclusion of some scholars and ask, "Did religion origremedies that had developed over centuries to meet the inate in the breakdown of the bicameral mind?" or needs of the agrarian society and fit them to meet those does religion rest in the balance between spirit and reaof the emerging urbanized, industrialized world, anoth- son where what people think and what they believe are er deeper, reoccurring source of conflict had roots in not contradictory but compatible? If only we know religion. The First Great Awakening, as it is called, how to define "spirit" and "mind." involved Jonathan Edwards and the clash between Arminianism and Calvinism. The Second is the modiThe Reverend Edward B. (Ted) Anderson was minister fied continuation of the First inspired by George of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Nantucket for Whitefield's preaching, and the Third is the nineteenthtwenty-eight years until his retirement in January 2000. century transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Once having penetrated the ecdesiological terminology that is the self-imposed distraction of all religious histo- Ed. Note- For those, and there are many, who have a ry, the essential confrontation in all these awakenings, hard time figuring out what Unitarianism is all about, and many others, is that between reason and faith. The this collection provides some avenues for exploration, humanism of the Renaissance echoed the claim of earli- including two bibliographical essays on the extensive er movements to the ascendancy of rational thought resources in the holdings of the Harvard University and the religious awakenings in America reiterated libraries and the Massachusetts Historical Society. reaction to this claim. Extremes on both sides fired the \ American Unitarianism is in the collection of the new righteous exdusivism of the other. At the beginning of NHA Research Library at 7 Fair Street.

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This year's Support Our Strengths Year-End Appeal was a great success. We were extremely gratified by our members' response and are pleased to report that we met our goal. Details will appear in the annual report, due in April.

L'pdate on the Nantucket Historical

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ch Lib

The library opened its doors to the public on January 2, 2001. While books, furnishings, computers, and research materials are in place on the first and second floors, work continues in the basement; mechanical systems are being balanced and the floors are not yet finished. Once these and a few other tasks are completed, a final walk-through of the building with the contractor and architect will take place.

Staff and volunteers have been busy since November moving and organizing collections and adapting to the new space. Researchers eager to use library materials that had been inaccessible for two months have been impressed by the renovation, which retains traditional details in an attractive mix with contemporary convenience. Please visit us at 7 Fair Street, but approach carefully, as landscaping is a big job that remains to be done. £,

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As we usher in the new year, I am happy to report that the capital campaign has accumulated $13.1 million in gifts and pledges. I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone who has given so generously. We are beginning 2001 on a truly auspicious and encouraging note.

Of the 108 gifts received to date, gifts from members of our board of trustees constitute 56% of the total amount raised. Twenty-seven of the 108 are from foundations, three are corporate gifts, and two represent gifts from donor estates.

Work on the new Nantucket Historical Association Research Library is essentially finished, on budget.

As we move forward with the next stages of the campaign, it is particularly gratifying to see a tangible result of the planning and fund-raising we have done thus far.

I hope that you will join us for the dedication of the new library on Friday, April 27. Details will follow closer to that time.

Again, thank you for your support. All of us at the NHA are looking forward to an exciting year ahead.

-Peter Nash, Chair Capital Campaign

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The NHA has forged a new partnership with the Nantucket Wine Festival. Planned for May 17-20, the festival schedule includes seminars, winery dinners, grand tastings, and an auction. We will work with the organizers of the event to provide educational exhibits and lecture space in the Whaling Museum. In addition, the NHA will be the beneficiary of the festival's auction on Sunday, May 20. For further information about the partnership, please call Jean Grimmer at (508) 2281894, or visit www.nantucketwinefestival.com.

If only we had known ...

HE NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION WAS RECENTLY

surprised by a check from the estate of one of our members. We appreciate the gift immensely because it represents the strong feelings that many have for the NHA and its mission, but we feel short-changed because we never had the opportunity to express our gratitude for such thoughtfulness.

We were unable to let the member know how much the gift means to us. If only we had known, we could have said "Thank you."

So we encourage our members and our friends to let us know when they include the Nantucket Historical Association in their estate plans.

Not only can we express our appreciation, we can also make sure they are informed about all of our new developments.

We have established a Legacy Society to recognize those who include the NHA in their estate plans. Members receive an acknowledgment from the executive director, an invitation to a special recognition event, and acknowledgment in the annual report.

Have you named the NHA in your estate plans? If so, please use the fotm below to let us know. If not, may we send you a brochure on estate planning?

If you would like to personally discuss your giving plans, call Jean Grimmer, associate director/director of development, at (508) 228-1894. All contacts will be kept strictly confidential. ~----------------------------------------------------------

0 Please send me literature about making a will.

0 I have already provided a bequest /or the NHA in my wzll.

NAME {PLEA.-':.;1. PRINT)

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Mail this form to: Jean Grimmer, Nantucket Historical Association, P. 0. Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554-1016

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