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Nantucket Island |
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"'Just a sandy wind-swept island!' What more would you have it be,
With a turquoise sky above it, around it a sapphire sea?"
- Mary Eliza "Molly" Starbuck (1856-1938). Island poet.
Legend
To the native Wompanoags, Nantucket or 'Faraway Land' best described this small island 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. In 1659 Thomas Mayhew, who had secured a 1641 deed to the island from the Earl of Sterling, sold it to the first settlers for thirty pounds sterling and two beaver hats.
These Nantucket newcomers sought refuge from religious persecution by the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony. Quakers soon found haven here too and during the 1700s became extremely influential in local government and business. This period also saw Nantucket's rise to prominence as the world's busiest and wealthiest whaling port.
1. Steamer Island Home
In 1855 the Nantucket and Cape Cod Steamboat Company purchased the steamer Island Home. From stem to stern she measured 184 feet and weighed 536 tons. For 41 years the Island Home ferried passengers, goods and mail between Nantucket and Cape Cod. She sank off Rhode Island in 1902 after 6 years as a work barge.
2. Brant Point Light
For modern ferry-riders as for passengers once aboard the old steamer Island Home, rounding Brant Point Light means "We're here!" and will be docking soon in Nantucket. The original lighthouse, built in 1746, was the second oldest in the country after Boston Light of 1716. A wooden structure, it burned in 1758. Over the years, Brant Point Light has been rebuilt 7 times, the last being in 1901.
In mid-1773 three ships sailed past the lighthouse bound for London and for roles in the Revolutionary War. In England the Beaver, Dartmouth and Eleanor emptied their holds of Nantucket whale oil and returned to Boston laden with chests of tea. But the colonists refused Britain's heavily taxed tea and on the night of December 16th the Sons of Liberty tossed it overboard into Boston Harbor. Can you find one of the Tea Party ships in my print Historic Boston?
3. Whaleship
Considering the number of whaleships dispatched from Nantucket Harbor, this is one lucky whale! He breaches, no doubt pleased to see the stern of the ship as it sails away to the Pacific. The 2-3 year voyages would allow time for whalers to create "scrimshaw" or art carved on whale teeth as well as "sailor's valentines", intricate designs made with shells for their sweethearts back on Nantucket.
4. Great Point Light
Great Point Light was built in 1785 to aid seafarers passing along the busy thoroughfare between Nantucket's Great Point, then called Sandy Point, and Monomoy Island off Cape Cod. Nantucket was by that time a major port with a fleet of 150 vessels. In 1818, the lighthouse was rebuilt and in 1857 it received a third-order Fresnel lens that could throw its light 20 miles to the horizon. The tower was destroyed by a severe storm in 1984. Two years later the newest Great Point Light began her watch.
5. Rainbow Fleet
The Beetle Company of New Bedford built its classic version of a catboat in 1920. These sturdy gaff-rigged sailboats were a small version of the old catboats used to fish the shallow waters off Cape Cod. Duxbury sailors organized the first large fleet of "Beetle cats". Nantucketers created the most colorful, the Rainbow Fleet.
I have many sweet and salty memories of sailing our family's catboat across Duxbury Bay: the tug of the tiller, the purr of wind through the sail on a broad reach. In my print Sweet Dreams, look out the window and you'll find our sailboat at anchor in Bluefish River. I've also painted her near the brig Beaver in Historic Boston. But I never really sailed that little red boat into Boston Harbor. As the colonists would say about me as an artist: "She took liberties!"
6. Polpis Schoolhouse
This schoolhouse from 1881 replaced the original that had burned earlier that year. The 20 or so "scholars", as pupils were called, came by foot or wagon from the farms of Polpis, then Nantucket's largest agricultural community. If you love one-room schoolhouses, don't miss my print Last Day of School.
7. Sankaty Head Light
High on a bluff named "Sankoty" by the native Wampanoags stands this elegant brick and granite lighthouse. It was lit in 1850 and was the first in the country to be fitted with a Fresnel lens. This hi-tech French invention so intensified the beacon that Sankaty Head became the most powerful lighthouse in New England. The old lens is now on display at Nantucket's Whaling Museum.
8. Sconset
The village of Siasconset, or "Sconset" as it's known by islanders, was founded in 1676. Rose-covered cottages border the intimate lanes and were once home to fishermen. In my print, women gather at the old well that still stands in the village center. Visit "Sconset: it's good for your well-being.
9. Old South Church
The white steeple and clock tower rising high above Nantucket town belong to the Old South Church. It was built in 1809 and houses a Portuguese bell fabricated in 1810. The church is on Nantucket's Black Heritage Trail since both Booker T. Washington and T. Frederick Douglass spoke here.
10. Widow's walk
On the roof of a classic Nantucket village house two women look out to sea from the "widow's walk", hoping to catch sight of their husbands' returning whaleships. While at home, sailors could keep tabs on harbor activity from these wooden perches which were also known as "captain's walks".
11. Nantucket town and wharves
Downtown a grocer loads his horse-drawn wagon for early morning deliveries. Wooden wheels rumble and hooves click as he heads down Main Street over cobblestones brought to the island by merchant ships picking up whale oil. To avoid capsizing while sailing to Nantucket, the empty ships were loaded with these stones as ballast. At the harbor, tiny shingled buildings cling to Swain's Wharf, a reminder of Nantucket's earlier and vital shipping industry.
12. Three Bricks
This elegant house on upper Main Street is one of the "Three Bricks" built by whaling merchant Joseph Starbuck for his three sons. The three nearly identical mansions were constructed in 1836-8 in a transitional Federal-Greek Revival style and feature columned porches at their front entrances.
13. Jethro Coffin House
Also known as the Oldest House, this is the only remaining structure of Nantucket's original seventeenth century settlement. It was built in 1686 as a wedding gift for Jethro Coffin and Mary Gardner. Jethro was a blacksmith and his grandfather, Tristram Coffin, had been one of the island's first settlers.
14. Old Mill
Of the four original mills that once overlooked Nantucket, only this Dutch-style octagonal one remains. It was built of shipwreck timbers in 1746 by Nathan Wilbur, a Nantucket seaman who had visited Holland. This "smock mill" has a fixed body housing the wooden gears, and a rotating cap turns the sails toward the wind. Visit the island to "go dutch."
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