Signs of the Times: Nantucket Signs Exhibition of the Nantucket Historical Association

Multiple Locations
1927 to 1960

The Western Union office was variously located at 27 and 42 Main Street, 6 Federal Street, 11 Centre Street, and had a branch in ’Sconset. Run by six or eight people in the summer and only two in the winter, the office was a hub of communication in the days when telephone calls were still prohibitively expensive. A telegram typically cost only about fifty cents. One of the tasks of telegraph office workers (Francis Pease, Reggie Reed, and other islanders worked there as boys) was to run the telegrams “up to the Roberts House, or wherever the recipient was staying.”

A48-3c

Francis Pease was a boy working in the Western Union office under manager Benson Chase when the underwater cable broke. A relief vessel was anchored off Madaket to receive telegraph relays. Franny remembers receiving bagfuls of telegrams from the boat and having to distribute them in a hurry until the cable was fixed.