News and Events for Nantucket Island
~ by Amy Jenness ~ Siasconset’s new Marconi Wireless Station received its first signal from the Nantucket lightship on August 12 in 1901. The two crews established a connection and then the ‘Sconset station asked the lightship crew: “How are you all? What’s doing?” The lightship crew responded with the […]
~ 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 […]
