News and Events for Nantucket Island
Commonly asked questions and misunderstandings about antiques… and the odd or end fascinating bit! Carved wooden cat’s heads are a rather obscure bit of nautical lore. The “cats head” is a wooden beam angling out from either side of a ship’s bow, used to weigh and let go the anchors […]
~ by C. Oscar Olson ~ “It is absolutely unprecedented to have three important historic items, each of which has been kept in their respective families for 200 years or more, to be auctioned in one sale.” That’s Rafael Osona speaking about an upcoming auction of truly historical proportions. This […]
~ by Katherine Brooks with MMA Curator & Deputy Director Jascin Leonardo Finger ~ Heads: the King of Denmark. Tails: the goddess Urania. “A blazing and fiery comet flashes upon us… it is not strange that a slight shudder comes to even an intelligent observer. For how much do we […]
by Amy Jenness In 1890, a group of island citizens said they were concerned about declining morals in the island’s youth: “It is a fact that the moral sentiment of the community is becoming tainted, and to preserve it from entire corruption, these gentlemen have conceived a plan, which, with […]
by Amy Jenness Maria Mitchell spent the first 11 years of her adulthood living a quiet life on Nantucket, first as a teacher and then as librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum. But that changed on a clear October night in 1847 when she saw a comet through her telescope and […]
Annye Camara took the long way ’round to get to Nantucket Island, but now that she’s been here full time for more than 17 years, it would be hard to imagine our community without her dedication and caring spirit. This Friday, July 22, she’ll be celebrating her 71st birthday in […]
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ Among the historic gray-shingled houses of Vestal Street and hidden in the gardens of the Maria Mitchell Association’s Hinchman House Natural Science Museum, sits a whale skull found thirty years ago at Cisco Beach. The bone belongs to a right whale: an […]
~ by Amy Jenness ~ In 1913 an Edgartown fisherman named Sam Jackson was dragging for flounder around Tuckernuck Shoal when he discovered a massive bed of quahogs and forever changed the island’s shellfish industry. For centuries local fishermen had harvested large clams, also known as quahogs, as well as […]
~ by Katherine Brooks, Maria Mitchell Association ~ Have you seen stones inscribed with these messages? “Northern Extremity of the Town’s Meridian Line” “Southern Extremity of the Town’s Meridian Line” These two stones are located near the Pacific National Bank and the Fair Street Quaker Meetinghouse in downtown Nantucket. The […]
