Martha Fish (1844-1916) kept a daily journal of her life at Cherry Grove Farm (the farmhouse is now 32 Hummock Pond Road) from 1873 to 1913. Her concise, prosaic entries record the entire cycle of life and work on the farm, including details about her family and the extended Nantucket community. In addition to raising sheep and chickens, Fish sold eggs and produce from the back of her own farm wagon, a predecessor of today's Bartlett Farm vehicle. When her husband, Abner, became keeper of the local poorhouse ("the Asylum"), Martha cooked and cared for the inmates. She also frequently helped to nurse friends and relations who were ill, and assisted at births and "watched" with the dying. Her journals convey the rhythm and routine of life in a rural community that still retained important aspects of its origins as a farming and sheep-raising settlement.

This embroidered narrative depicts Fish's produce wagon, her farm animals, and the routine of laundry that formed a permanent part of her life.