Exhibition Highlights 2012

Hadwen & Barney Oil Refinery and Candle Factory; Island Home Resource Center; NOAA’s “Lost on a Reef”: The Wreck of the Two Brothers; the Restored Fire Hose Cart House

Overview

In 2012, the NHA’s major exhibition offerings will feature brand-new installations in the Hadwen & Barney Oil Refinery and Candle Factory as well as in the Island Home Gallery in the Whaling Museum. We will also present the world premiere of material from the wreck of the Nantucket Whaleship Two Brothers in collaboration with NOAA.

Hadwen & Barney and Island Home Resource Center

With 20,000 artifacts in the NHA collections, we are proud that a full 10% of the museum’s collections are currently on display (2 x the national average for museums). However, we aim to have an even greater proportion of the collections on display for the public to enjoy Nantucket’s historical treasures. In 2012, we will install an artifact-rich display in the Hadwen & Barney building, loading the walls and rafters with fascinating items that have been in storage in the collections until now. These items will address major themes of Nantucket history: Boom & Bust, Diverse Peoples, Business & Commerce, Island Characters, Intellectual History, and more. The Hadwen & Barney exhibition will also feature newly-commissioned illustrations by the author and illustrator team of Mark and Gerald Foster (of Whale Port fame) showing in vivid terms exactly “how it worked” in the refinery. The Fosters will create a large bird’s-eye view of the whole facility and the refining process, along with detailed illustrations of the oil lever press (“beam press”) and the seasonal oil refining and candlemaking process. The public will be able to learn in accessible graphic detail about how the building functioned as a working factory, something that has been cloaked in obscurity until now. Their eyes will also feast on a rich visual tapestry of artifacts from the collections installed lavishly in the spacious enclosure of the large brick factory, in the tradition of the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and other object-rich displays around the world. Another highlight will be a vignette of a “Nantucket Attic” created in the rafters of the factory evoking the great tradition of treasures housed in attic spaces and home museums on island.

The former Island Home Gallery will be reborn next year as a Resource Center for Nantucket history. The space will offer a relaxing atmosphere for visitors to settle into comfortable couches and corner chairs, and delve into the deep historical resources of the Nantucket Historical Association. Visitors will be surrounded by precious whaling logs, first-editions of Moby-Dick, and other treasures, while having the chance to explore the entire NHA collections through digital databases, to enjoy oral histories and videos, and to read digitized whaling logs first-hand. The Island Home Resource Center will offer a portal the NHA’s broader resources, especially the rich treasures of the Research Library, but also the historic properties, the 1800 House arts and crafts classes, and other areas of the organization’s programs and collections.

The new installations in Hadwen & Barney and the Resource Center will premiere for a Members Preview opening on Thursday May 24, 2012, and open to the general public on Friday May 25, 2012.

Two Brothers Premiere

In June, the Whaling Museum will showcase the world premiere exhibition of material from the wreck of the Nantucket whaleship Two Brothers, the final chapter of former Essex Captain George Pollard Jr.’s ill-fated seafaring career. Offered in collaboration with NOAA, the exhibition “Lost on a Reef” will present findings and artifacts from nearly two years of survey and research by maritime archaeologists from NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries on the shipwreck site of the Nantucket whaleship Two Brothers, wrecked on a stormy night at French Frigate Shoals on February 11, 1823. “Lost on a Reef”: The Wreck of the Two Brothers will open to the public on June 30, 2012.

Fire Hose Cart House Restoration

Following up on the overwhelming success of the restoration of the NHA’s Greater Light property at 8 Howard Street, the updating of the Fire Hose-Cart House at 8 Gardner Street is now under way. Built in 1886, forty years after the Great Fire of 1846 destroyed much of downtown Nantucket, the structure was one of many such firehouses built by town authorities to accommodate firefighting equipment.

The restoration project was made possible in part by a grant from the Nantucket Community Preservation Committee, and is in line with the NHA’s goal of restoring one historic property per year. The final vision for the Fire Hose-Cart House includes multiple updated displays and artifacts, as well as an interactive exhibit that will offer in-depth interpretations of the history of fires on Nantucket.

The first step in the restoration process was clearing out the structure and moving the artifacts to the Gosnold Support Center location for safekeeping over the winter. That process was made possible with the help of the Nantucket Fire Department’s Chief Mark McDougall and Deputy Chief Ed Maxwell and various members of the Nantucket Fire Department. The restoration process will last through the spring, and the property is scheduled to be reopened on May 26, 2012.