News and Events for Nantucket Island
• by Frances Ruley Karttunen – author of Nantucket Places and People series • For three decades Town Crier Curtis Barnes walked up Main Street ringing in Daffodil Weekend, the Fourth of July, the lighting of Christmas trees on Main Street, and Christmas Stroll. His English Air Raid Patrol hand […]
The Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) is pleased to present Nantucket Legends: Foggy Facts and Fictions, the major 2013 exhibition examining some of the most curious stories of Nantucket’s past. Legends such as the first Nantucket Tea Party, R. H. Macy’s red star tattoo, Tony Sarg’s sea serpent hoax, the origin […]
Dr. Richard Koehler, an experienced laparoscopic surgeon, joined the Nantucket Cottage Hospital staff in 2012 as the first additional surgeon in nearly three decades. Dr. Koehler is a fulltime general surgeon who has 20 years of experience in advanced laparoscopic surgery, the modern technique in which operations in the abdomen […]
by Frances Karttunen Newtown Cemetery, also known as the Old South Cemetery, faces Sparks Avenue and is bounded on the west and south by school property. When it was designated as a burial ground in the 1700s, however, it was on the extreme south edge of town, surrounded by empty […]
by Amy Roberts There are very few windows into Nantucket’s little known nineteenth century engagement in the China Trade. As small pieces of a vague past, there are portraits of Nantucket captains and their families completed by Chinese artists, intricately painted porcelain platters, personalized creamware jugs, and earthenware figurines brought […]
When the Civil War began in 1861, Nantucketers responded with heroic dedication to the call for volunteers to support Union troops. Even in the face of pacifist island traditions, nearly 400 Nantucket men enlisted in defense of the Union forces, with more than 70 ultimately losing their lives in the […]
by Amy Roberts Celebrate the folk music tradition with two distinct and original concerts featuring San Francisco folk prodigies, The Barbary Ghosts, on August 20 and island favorite, Bill Schustik, on August 23, presented by the Nantucket Historical Association in the Nantucket Whaling Museum on Broad Street. Armed with a […]
by Sarah Teach During the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, privateers sailed around Nantucket’s coastline. This Thursday, August 16 at 3 pm, the weatherly, fast, and heavily armed Clipper Schooner Lynx will be sailing into Nantucket Harbor. The 122-foot square top sail schooner Lynx will fire a […]
During the golden whaling era in the early-to-mid-1800s, hundreds of ships passed by Nantucket each day. The area saw more than 700 shipwrecks, bringing it the nickname “graveyard of the Atlantic.” Before rescue became an organized effort, most shipwrecked sailors were doomed to die; so it is no surprise that […]
