News and Events for Nantucket Island
~ by Amy Jenness ~ In the days following the Confederate Army’s attack and capture of North Carolina’s Fort Sumter in 1861, island residents worried that the South would also target Nantucket. In April a voluntary group of men called the “Island Guards” met at Mill Hill each day to […]
• 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 […]
• by Frances Ruley Karttunen • Nantucket’s Main Street exists in three distinct segments. The wide part from the head of Straight Wharf uphill between storefronts is known as Main Street Square. The square resulted from widening the street after the Great Fire of 1846. At the foot of the […]
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 […]
