News and Events for Nantucket Island
The Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) is pleased to announce that it is the recipient of a generous gift from Glynn Christian, a direct descendent and biographer of Fletcher Christian, the leader of the 1789 mutiny on the British Royal Navy vessel Bounty. The artifact is a piece of copper hull […]
~ by Amy Jenness ~ In 1849 three Folger brothers left Nantucket for the gold fields of northern California. By April of 1850 Edward Folger, age 20, Henry Folger, age 16 and James Folger, age 14, had reached the west coast of Panama after a ship voyage, rafting trip and […]
Commonly asked questions and misunderstandings about antiques… and the odd or end fascinating bit! What are those little brass torpedoes attached to long ropes? They are ship’s logs and were used by sailors to measure their speed under weigh at sea. Ever since sailors first ventured out of sight of […]
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 […]
