Nantucket :: Heaven on Earth!
I've never lived here and yet every time I step off the ferry it's like coming home. To me, this island is like Heaven on Earth! The quiet, peaceful island off the coast of Massachusetts is known for it's summertime residents - grown children from wealthy old New England families of years gone by, a few celebrities and politicians. It's a special place equal to none. You'll see no chain stores or restaurants. Nantucket, to me represents all that is quaint and charming about New England with a strong historical component. Residents of this tiny island are proud and loyal and welcoming. They are warm, welcoming and extremely hospitable. What I love most about the island is the slow pace and ease of life. Famous for its Whaling History, Nantucket strives to remain connected to her roots. Bordered by some of the most beautiful beaches, there is much here to do for the entire family. There are plenty of bike rental places, and walking tours. For foodies, the island boasts some wonderful restaurants as well as a vodka distillery and brewery. There are plenty of shops to satisfy the most severe of Shopaholics... This island truly offers something for everyone. If you happen to be in New England, particularly near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, you ought to give this historic and bucolic island some serious consideration.
For those of you who wish, here's a brief history of the Island of Nantucket that I've pulled from Wikipedia:
Beginnings
The earliest French settlement in the region began on neighboring island
Martha's Vineyard, named after
Bartholomew Gosnold's daughter Martha who died on board, en route. Nantucket Island's original
Native American inhabitants, the
Wampanoag people, lived undisturbed until 1641 when the island was deeded by the English (the authorities in control of all land from the coast of Maine to New York) to
Thomas Mayhew and his son, merchants of Watertown and Martha's Vineyard. The entire area of New York county had been purchased by
Thomas Mayhew Sr. of
Watertown,
Massachusetts, in 1641, buying out competing land claims. Nantucket was part of
Dukes County,
New York until 1691, when it was transferred to the newly formed
Province of Massachusetts Bay and split off to form Nantucket County. As Europeans began to settle Cape Cod, the island became a place of refuge for regional Native Americans, as Nantucket was not yet settled by Europeans. The growing population welcomed seasonal groups of other Native Americans who traveled to the island to fish and later harvest whales that washed up on shore.
[edit]English settlement and the history of whaling in Nantucket
The history of Nantucket's settlement by the English did not begin in earnest until 1659, when Thomas Mayhew sold his interest to a group of investors, led by
Tristram Coffin, "for the sum of thirty Pounds...and also two beaver hats, one for myself, and one for my wife". The "nine original porchasers" were Tristram Coffin, Peter Coffin, Thomas Macy, Christopher Hussey, Richard Swain, Thomas Barnard, Stephen Greenleafe, John Swain and William Pike. Seamen and tradesmen began to populate Nantucket, such as Richard Gardner (arrived 1667) and Capt John Gardner (arrived 1672), sons of
Thomas Gardner (planter).
[3]
Herman Melville comments on Nantucket's whaling dominance in
Moby-Dick, Chapter 14: "Two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires." The
Moby-Dick characters
Ahab and
Starbuck are both from Nantucket.
In his 1835 history of
Nantucket Island, Obed Macy wrote that in the early pre-1672 colony a whale of the kind called "scragg" entered the harbor and was pursued and killed by the settlers.
[4] This event started the Nantucket whaling industry. A. B. Van Deinse points out that the "scrag whale", described by P. Dudley in 1725 as one of the species hunted by the early New England whalers, was almost certainly the
Gray Whalewhich has flourished on the
West Coast of
North America with protection from whaling.
[5]
[6]
By 1850, whaling was in decline, as Nantucket had been supplanted by
New Bedford. The island suffered great economic hardships, worsened by the July 13, 1846 "Great Fire" that, fueled by whale oil and lumber, devastated the main town, burning some 40 acres.
[7] It left hundreds homeless and poverty stricken, and many people left the island. Another contributor to the decline was the silting up of the harbor which prevented the large whaling ships from entering and leaving the port. In addition, the development of railroads made mainland whaling ports (such as New Bedford) more attractive because of the ease of transshipment of whale oil onto trains, an advantage unavailable to an island.
[edit]Later history
As a result of this depopulation, the island was left under-developed and isolated until the mid-20th century. The isolation kept many of the pre-Civil War buildings intact and by the 1950s, enterprising developers began buying up large sections of the island and restoring them to create an upmarket destination for the wealthy in the Northeastern United States. This highly controlled development can be compared to neighboring Martha's Vineyard, the development of which served as a model for what the Nantucket developers wanted to avoid.
In the 1960s Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard considered seceding from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 1977, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard actually attempted (unsuccessfully) to secede from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The secession vote was sparked by a proposed change to the
Massachusetts Constitution, which reduced the islands' representation in the
Massachusetts General Court.
[8]
[edit]
I'll report from ACK with plenty of stories and photographs!XOXO
Jessica