News and Events for Nantucket Island
~ by C. Oscar Olson ~ It was a cold night in Boston on December 16. Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and the rest of The Sons of Liberty crept aboard a British merchant vessel and threw its entire shipment of tea into the ocean. The year was 1773, and this […]
by Amy Jenness Nantucket had access to local telephone service beginning in 1887, but the ability to make long distance calls didn’t occur until 1916 after the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company laid down 550 miles of doublearmored steel—the longest submarine cable in the country—between Wood’s Hole, Martha’s Vineyard […]
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 […]
