News and Events for Nantucket Island
by Amy Jenness Despite its reputation as a 19th century antislavery stronghold, Nantucket’s first generations of European settlers owned slaves and the process of integrating the island has at times been a difficult one. In 1659, nine English families purchased large portions of the island and came here to establish […]
Commonly asked questions and misunderstandings about antiques… and the odd or end fascinating bit! One of the most common questions we are asked, almost on a daily basis, is what are these intricate lattice-work devices? When I press them to guess, people most often say a device to hang laundry […]
~ 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 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 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 […]
~ by Sarah Moreau ~ Whenever friends and family come to visit the island and ask for suggestions of where to go and what to see, the Nantucket Historical Association properties are always on the top of my list. The Whaling Museum is one of my favorites, giving you an […]
~ 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 […]
