News and Events for Nantucket Island
The Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) biological collections’ oldest specimen is the Wood Fern (pictured above). Maria Louisa Owen, an expert in mosses and moss-like plants, collected this fern in 1879. This was during the height of “Pteridomania” – also known as the Victo- rian fern craze – which was sweeping […]
~ 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 […]
NASA Astronaut Daniel Burbank will be a special guest at the Nantucket Red-Tie Soirée on Sunday, July 10 from 7 to 10 pm at the Sankaty Head Golf Club, a fundraiser for Maria Mitchell Association (MMA). Astronaut Burbank will speak with guests about NASA and his experiences living and working […]
~ by Katherine Brooks Maria Mitchell Association ~ Have you heard a piercing shriek in the night accompanied by a flurry of white light? Although it sounds like the making of a summercamp ghost story, what you might be observing is the barn owl – unique in its aesthetics with […]
~ by Rebecca Nimerfroh ~ If you are ever lucky enough to look up at the Nantucket sky on a clear summer night, no doubt you will be taken aback by what you see; thousands upon thousands of stars, twinkling back at you from thousands of light years away, enveloping […]
August 1 marks the 197th birthday of Maria Mitchell, who was born at 1 Vestal Street in 1818. To celebrate her life and legacy, the Maria Mitchell Association invites the public to an afternoon full of free activities and refreshments on Friday, July 31. The MMA campus on Vestal Street […]
~ by Amy Jenness, author of On This Day in Nantucket History, available at Mitchell’s Book Corner ~ On August 1, 1818, Maria Mitchell was born into the Nantucket Quaker family of William and Lydia Mitchell whose family lines went back to the island’s original white settlers in 1659 and […]
Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) has announced the winning names of their annual critter-naming contest. This year, participants went to bat to name a rare calico lobster and an African tortoise. From 149 choices, MMA’s staff selected the name Mze (pronounced M-zay) for their Bell’s hingeback tortoise. “Mze is a Swahili […]
In continuation of their family-friendly tradition, Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) recently announced their annual naming contest. Last year, a pair of seahorses had the honor of being named (Hide and Seek) by an 8-year-old MMA patron. For this season, the MMA brings to the stage two very different critters: a […]
