Captain William Baxter, Love Baxter, and Shanunga

Shanunga — the well-known public house and shop on Broadway run by Betsey Carey in the mid-nineteenth century— became the summer home of Betsey Cary Junior (1806-83) and her husband William Baxter (1805-98) after "Mother Cary" died in 1862. In the off-season, William and Betsey lived in one of Nantucket's notable in-town mansions, 117 Main Street — built by Betsey's grandfather, Edward Cary, and sold by him to William's father, Reuben Baxter — but in the summer they were in the heart of 'Sconset, in one of the oldest fish houses of the village, reputedly moved to its present location at 10 Broadway from the ancient whaling station at Sesachacha. The former Betsey Cary cottage became known as Shanunga when the quarterboard from the ship of that name — wrecked at Torn Nevers in 1852 on its way from New Orleans to Boston with a load of cotton — was nailed above the front door.

When Captain Baxter retired from the sea after a voyage as master of the whaleship Martha in the late 1840s, he became a fisherman, and when the tourist industry began to grow he established a stagecoach line between town and 'Sconset that coupled transportation with entertainment — preposterous sea stories, playful misinformation, and a bumpy ride. Phebe Ann Hanaford, comparing him to another famous teller of tall tales, called Baxter "'Sconset's own Munchausen."

Captain Baxter provided the first mail delivery to the village, and Shanunga became the unofficial post office, where Baxter and his daughter, Love, sorted and delivered the mail, charging a penny for each item. In 1872, an official U.S. post office was established in 'Sconset, and Love Baxter was appointed the village's first "postmaster"; her father was paid an annual salary for bringing the mail from town in his carriage, nicknamed the "Lightning Express." Crowds of summer folk, alerted by the tooting of Baxter's horn as the coach came over the top of the hill on Main Street, gathered at Shanunga to collect their mail; the cottage's location near Pump Square helped to reinforce that location as the news center of town. Quaint Shanunga, with its famous figurehead on the lawn, served as the village post office until 1883.

Henry S. Wyer poked gentle fun at 'Sconset's favorite character in his poem "To Capt. William Baxter, of the 'Side-Wheeler' Swiftsure, Port of Nantucket":

N'er known to fail, your "lightning mail"
Made steady trips a score of Summers;
To those who on you pinned their faith
Your sage advice was ne'er misleading,
E'en though you brought them home-made news,
And last year's papers for their reading.

Captain William Baxter, with figurehead
P126

A digital exhibition by the Nantucket Historical Association