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This article first appeared In the Winter 2000 Issue of Historic Nantucket.

"That pride in our Island's history": The Nantucket Historical Association

By Aimee E. Newell

"History may be properly said to contribute to the necessities of our species, inasmuch as the experience of past generations is oftentimes the only criterion by which to judge of the consequences of present acts."
Obed Macy -The History of Nantucket 1835

Almost sixty years after islander Obed Macy published his History of Nantucket, a small group of island residents took his words to heart and met at the home of Mrs. Elizabeth Starbuck on May 9, 1894, "in accordance with the sentiment so widely spread and so deeply felt that a society should be formed at once for the purpose of collecting books, manuscripts, and articles of any sort, to illustrate the history of our Island." Under the leadership of first president J. Sydney Mitchell, the Nantucket Historical Association was incorporated on July 9, 1894, and quickly purchased the Quaker Meeting House on Fair Street, where the association held meetings and exhibited artifacts to educate island residents and visitors.

Nantucket, like the rest of the country, underwent a great deal of change during the second half of the nineteenth century. The formation of the Nantucket Historical Association was one way to preserve ties to a seemingly simpler past, while also providing a touchstone for longtime residents as tourists began to arrive in droves. As the NHA's secretary, Mary Eliza Starbuck (1856-1938) wrote in her 1895 report to the membership, "Nantucket salt, truly, has not lost its savor; but the old pungency is somewhat abated by modern admixtures."

From its inception, the NHA focused its attention on the island's glory days - the period from 1740 to 1840 when Nantucket was the premiere whaling port in the world. Many of the early gifts of artifacts were items associated with the island's whaling trade and its seafaring people. At the NHA's first annual meeting in 1895, the organization announced the acquisition of 295 donations of artifacts and manuscript material and an additional 120 loans of family heirlooms and papers. However, islanders were not confident about the prospective longevity of the group. Many early accession-book entries include the proviso, "If the NHA should cease to exist, these items should be returned to the donor." In 1916, Henry S. Wyer recalled his thoughts about the establishment of the NHA this way: "most of us, naturally, were pessimistic, or at least lukewarm." However, by the association's third annual meeting in 1897, the group had purchased a second historic structure, the Old Mill on Mill Hill, and public interest and confidence in the NHA had grown, allowing one NHA officer to remark, "There has been during the year a noticeable increase of local interest in the society . . . people generally have seemed to have no clear idea of what we wanted until they had seen what we had, and there were very few of the visitors . . . who were not reminded of something which they could and did contribute." And in 1916 Wyer went on to comment, "we, the skeptical of twenty-two years ago, have, thanks to the generous support of Nantucketers and their friends far and near, "builded better than we knew," and have ample reason for pride in our achievement."

The prosperity of Nantucket's "greasy" days of whaling allowed many families to establish substantial fortunes and furnish their homes with quality furniture, ceramics, textiles, and paintings during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of those artifacts were handed down for generations, eventually given to the NHA by a descendant of the original owner or maker. In her first report to the membership in 1895, Mary Eliza Starbuck encouraged islanders to "make an active search for all sorts of relics, particularly manuscripts, before it is too late and these valuable mementos are carried away from the island as trophies, or by progressive housewives "cast as rubbish to the void."

The founders of the NHA began amassing a historical collection with an open philosophy toward appropriate artifacts, directed by their mission to pursue the "collection and preservation of such memorials, books, papers and curiosities as may tend to illustrate and perpetuate the history of the early settlers of this island..." The NHA's first curator, Susan E. Brock (1852.1937), a native islander who traveled on her father's whaleships as a child, reported to the membership in 1903, .It has been well said that a historical society should be something more than a "strongbox" to hold collections. It must be a living institution . . . .. A year later, the NHA was successful in raising the money to build its first museum, located on Fair Street. One of the first poured-concrete structures in Massachusetts, the Fair Street Museum was attached to the first property acquired by the NHA, the Quaker Meeting House. Early photographs demonstrate the "catch-all" nature of the museum. The museum's exhibition was a relic of its time - a jumble of artifacts, important for their connection to Nantucket or its people, with few labels and little interpretation of the displays.

By declaring the preservation of Nantucket's history as their mission, the founders of the NHA laid the groundwork for establishing a rich collection of artifacts and manuscripts that relate to each other and to islanders past, present, and future. The strength of the NHA's collection lies in its connections between artifacts and the people who owned, used, and learned from them. In addition to manuscripts, photographs, and decorative artifacts, the association also collected historic structures. The twenty-five sites it now owns span a wide spectrum of time and function - from the Oldest House, a wedding gift in 1686 for Jethro Coffin and Mary Gardner, whose marriage ended a family feud, to Greater Light, an eighteenth-century structure renovated in 1930 by two Quaker sisters from Philadelphia, which helps illustrate the rebirth of the island in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries when artists and vacationers found a charming haven for work and play. The diverse nature of the NHA's properties ranging from historic houses to the Old Gaol and Fire Hose Cart House allows a fully textured interpretation of island history, using material culture and interweaving artifacts, written words, and stories.

The Whaling Museum, which has become the NHA's flagship property, opened its doors in 1930 in the old Hadwen & Barney Candle Factory building on Broad Street. The museum owes its existence to the generosity of Edward F. Sanderson (1874.1955), who first came to the island in the 1920s, enchanted by the island's domestic architecture. Sanderson also became interested in whaling history and quickly developed an extensive collection of the tools and gear necessary for a whaling voyage. However, Sanderson's collection grew "far beyond his hopes or anticipations," and the space available in his new house on Pleasant Street, so "he decided that its extent and value warranted its permanent establishment as a public museum." Fortunately for the NHA, Sanderson felt that Nantucket "was the place of all others where it should be kept and displayed for all time." At just this point, around 1929, the Hadwen & Barney candle factory was available for sale. Sanderson assisted in purchasing the building and kept it until the NHA could raise the necessary funds to own the building. He then presented the NHA with his collection of whaling gear, which still makes up the bulk of the exhibition on view at the museum in Sanderson Hall.

In 1964 the NHA received what its quarterly magazine, Historic Nantucket, called "the most important acquisition . . . since the conversion to the Whaling Museum of the old candle factory." Built originally in 1845 for William Hadwen (1791-1862) and his wife, Eunice Starbuck (1799-1864), the Hadwen House, located at 96 Main Street, was given to the NHA by Jean Satler Williams, whose family had owned the house since 1923. At the same time, Williams's husband, Winthrop, bequeathed to the Association his collection of scrimshaw, totaling over three hundred pieces of ivory.

Over the association's 105-year history, thousands of individuals have contributed to the NHA's success. The gifts of artifacts, money, and time form the heart of the association, allowing it to manage and interpret twenty-five structures and sites; educate residents and visitors; and provide supplemental programs, such as lectures, concerts, and exhibitions. Ninety years ago, Susan Brock's report to the membership expressed her hopes for the young organization: "Our society is, as its name implies, the custodian and conservator of the history of Nantucket, and we hope that its utility will be more appreciated from year to year, and long after its . . . present patrons have passed from the stage of action, we believe its work will abide among the most cherished possessions of the Nantucketers that are to be."

As the NHA approaches the twenty-first century, we continue to look to the future - collecting, preserving, and educating for generations to come.