• by Sarah Teach • For many Americans, seals are little more than a childhood memory of a visit to the zoo. But for residents of Nantucket Island, the blubbery marine mammals are quickly becoming a topic of discussion saved only for trusted company. At the core of a growing […]
Tag: history
Nantucket’s Last Indian?
• by Frances Ruley Karttunen • Entering or leaving the Nantucket Atheneum, visitors come face-to-face with the portrait of an aging man sitting barefoot at a table in his modest house, surrounded by baskets and his household goods. His back is to a window through which there is a view […]
Honoring Our Country’s Heros
Nantucket Holiday for Heroes, a grassroots association which strives to both honor and recognize our wounded warriors for their incredible service to our country, is holding its first event during Memorial Day Weekend, with a Wounded Warrior sailing team aboard the boat The Tyrone for Figawi. Additional summer season events […]
Newtown Cemetery
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 […]
Four Centuries of Domestic Life
by Amy Roberts Nantucket’s architecture provides great insight into the history of domestic life over nearly 400 hundred years. A walk along the historic downtown streets reveals captivating and contrasting architectural elements that echo the lives of island residents. From the colonial settlement era of the seventeenth- century to the […]
“When America First Met China”
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 […]
Nantucket in the Civil War
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 […]
A Week of History and Fun
While you’re busy enjoying the cool, clear ocean water this week, the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) will be swimming in activity! Think Baroque chamber music to celebrate alongside the unveiling of a newly donated and restored 1925 Steinway baby grand model “L” piano, topped off by a rendezvous with renowned […]
Painters Who Changed Nantucket
We live in a society that tends to peg businesspersons as the most influential in our world, often forgetting the impact that artists can plant among us. On Friday, June 29, the Artists Association of Nantucket (AAN) presents its 2012 exhibition, The Waterfront Artists: Painters Who Changed Nantucket. A compilation […]