by Len Germinara Beck Fee Barsanti is a student at the Nantucket Lighthouse School. He’s written his first book of poetry Watching Life Unfold. I’ve had the pleasure of being one of the first people that he’s shared it with. It’s full of insight and wonder and will be available […]
Nantucket History & People
First Island Phone
by Amy Jenness, author of On This Day in Nantucket History, available at Mitchell’s Book Corner On June 22, 1929 the telephone company “cut over” from an outdated magnetic telephone system at its Fair Street building to a battery system housed in a new building on Union Street. The new […]
NHA Special Lecture: Marquesas Islands
The Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) is pleased to present “Pacific Parallels: Marquesas Islands and the Essex Crew,” a special lecture by anthropologist Emily Donaldson, this Monday, June 15 at 6 pm at the Whaling Museum, 13 Broad Street. From the Essex crewmen’s near brush with French Polynesia’s Marquesas Islands, to […]
Miracle of the Bipede Bicycles in Nantucket History
• This Week in Nantucket History – by Amy Jenness – author of On This Day in Nantucket History, available at Mitchell’s Book Corner • In an Inquirer & Mirror article on bicycling, Max Wagner wrote on June 13, 1896, “The miracle that the bipede has wrought all over the […]
A Nantucket Murder Mystery – Nantucket Sawbuck
• by Sarah Teach • Money, power, lust and blood converge in Nantucket Sawbuck, a novel from island-based writer Steven Axelrod. Instant millionaire Preston Lomax is the kind of guy who cheats on his wife with her own sisters, gleefully stiffs his business associates, impregnates then abandons his housemaids, and […]
Civil War Shipwreck
• by Amy Jenness – author of On This Day in Nantucket History • On June 10, 1865 a ship carrying soldiers who had fought for the North in the Civil War under General William Tecumsah Sherman went aground on Smith’s Point. The ship, SS Satacona, grounded in a thick […]
Nantucket Whalers in Europe
by Amy Jenness author of On This Day in Nantucket History On June 1, 1796, the British brig Swallow received a “Letter of Marque,” which gave it the authority to capture French ships. The Letter of Marque and Reprisal is a government license authorizing privateers to attack enemy vessels (Britain […]
WWII Came Close to Nantucket
• by Amy Jenness, author of On This Day in Nantucket History • In May of 1942, the German Navy sent 8 submarines to prowl Atlantic waters and destroy ships belonging to their enemies. The grouping, one of the Germans’ famous “wolf packs,” was called Pfadfinder and the impact of […]