The Laws of Siasconset,
Engraving and Poem, 1797

The first image we have of ’Sconset was engraved in 1797 by David Augustus Leonard, a young, talented artist and writer who graduated from Brown University in 1792. He gives us a rare glimpse of the eighteenth-century village. His poem, The Laws of Siasconset, published along with his image of the village, which was engraved by John Spooner of New Bedford in 1797, describes the freedom of the fishing hamlet, where no priests or lawyers exerted control. Like Crèvecoeur, who had visited twenty-five years earlier, Leonard delights in the seafood, particularly the chowder. His depiction of ’Sconset at first glance might seem fanciful, but upon closer inspection the houses look authentic, as does the equipage, which includes a typical Nantucket boxcart, two chaises, and one fancy four-wheeled vehicle. The thirty houses are small and exhibit the warts that are evidence of their architectural evolution from even smaller fishing shacks. More than a dozen fishing boats are just offshore, and a few are on the beach, where men gather round the catch.

It appears that Leonard may have lived on the island for a time, employed as a schoolteacher; when the Inquirer reprinted his ballad in 1844, it was prefaced with the statement that it was written by “a Mr. Leonard, at that time a resident here, who wielded the birchen rod, and taught the young ideas how to shoot.”

Collection of the Nantucket Historical Association
Gift of Mrs. Charles B. Coffin
1933.22.1

The invaluable 1797 Leonard engraving depicts thirty ’Sconset structures and the quiet pattern of the settlement’s growth. In contrast to the New World architectural changes and manufacturing expansion related to the whaling industry that occurred around Nantucket Harbor over the previous hundred years, ’Sconset’s character remained resolutely Old World and medieval in the scale and simplicity of its houses, its agricultural culture, and seafaring nature. Over time, as the fishermen’s families moved to the village by the sea, interior and exterior comforts and amenities were introduced, including kitchen additions, called porches or “warts,” with proper cooking facilities; steep stairs replaced ladders to the loft; brick fireboxes with chimneys were built; walls were plastered; and small barns, vegetable and flower gardens, fenced-in pens,water barrels, fishing- and boat sheds, fish-drying racks, called “flakes,” and outhouses, called “necessaries,” were added.The improvements created a close-knit, self-sufficient, and vital agrarian community.

A digital exhibition by the Nantucket Historical Association