"Shearing Day" Historic Nantucket article from the Nantucket Historical Association

Originally published in the Historic Nantucket, Vol 56, No. 1 (Winter 2007) p. 17-18

Shearing Day by Leslie W. Ottinger

On June 25, 1833, in the journal that he kept for the voyage of the whaling ship Maria to the Pacific grounds, Charles Murphey penned a poem of fortyeight lines about “Shearing Day on Nantucket.” The Maria, under Captain Alexander Macy, had left Nantucket six months before, sailed around Cape Horn, and was at the time off the west coast of South America.

Murphey, a mate on the Maria and the veteran of several whaling voyages, had an active interest in writing poetry. His long poem, describing in detail a previous voyage on the ship Dauphin, was subsequently published in book form. The Maria journal also contains a similar poem of some 220 lines along with about a dozen others, one of which is Shearing Day.

In 1833, the shearing pens were located just east of Miacomet Pond. Each spring, free-ranging sheep were brought there from various areas over the island, washed in the pond, separated as to owner, sheared, and the lambs marked. Two quotes from material in the NHA Research Library add a contemporary context to the poem.

In a letter to his brother Thomas dated July 12, 1835, G. Andrews wrote:

It is much more pleasant living here than I at first imagined it would be; the inhabitants are a steady, staid set; and engage in but little recreation or amusement. The 4th passed over with little notice of its return and reminiscences connected with it. There were a few guns fired, and flags hoisted on the shipping, which were the only things that distinguished it from ordinary days. Sheep shearing days are the most noticed of their holidays. Three days are set aside yearly for the purpose. They commence about the 20th of June. The first day they wash their sheep and the other days they shear. There are rising of 12,000 sheep on the island. Formerly this event was celebrated to a great extent, but is now on the decline, although great numbers, both belonging to the island, and many from the main, still flock to witness the operation.

In the Inquirer, dated June 28, 1828, in an article headed “Shearing,” there is a description of the celebration itself:

In addition to the ceremonies, cheer and hospitality, connected with those immediately engaged in shearing, there is a large number of tents pitched a little to the northward of the sheepfold, for the special purpose of making pockets lighter and heads and stomachs heavier. In these tents is fancifully arranged a great variety of eatables and drinkables, so that the most fastidious palates and undistinguishing guzzles may be accommodated at a moment’s warning. And as a kind of pageant to add higher relish to the whole entertainment, the fiddle bow is drawn merrily for the amusement of the jolly sons of Neptune, and such lasses as may feel disposed to join the “mazy dance.” This is performed on a temporary floor, some ten or twelve feet in length and five or six in width. On this, different feats of activity are performed and various steps taken, which we are wholly unqualified to name, save the double shuffle and the Narragansett back-step.

Here is Charles Murphey’s poem dated June 25 (1833):

Now this is Shearing day Alack
And we are round Cape-Horn
And we shall surely miss of this
As sure as we are born

Now half the town and all Bull lanes
Drive up their Sheep together
And in the Sheep-fold shorn are they
Each Ram & Ewe & Wether

And some with lads about the town
On foot to town must tag on
And John-like away they drive
With Girls to Siasconsett

While others to the Shear-pen go
And round the tents do caper
And dance & cut all kinds of Quams
Before a Cat-gut scraper

The tents all filled with Cakes & Wine
And Liquors in galore
Of Beef & Port & Pigs & Fowls
They have abundant store

All nicely cook’d and all serv’d up
As rich as Milk & Honey
Where you can sit & eat your fill
As long as you have Money

But as the Sun keeps going down
The Steam begins to rise
And ’tis quite common there to see
Red Noses and bunged eyes

Now Sable night her curtain spreads
And rather cool the weather
And Beaus & Girls begin to think
Of Jogging home together

And he whose purse is fairly out
On foot to town must tag on
But he can ride who’s flush with cash
In Coach or Cart or Wagon

Now all the Siasconsett folks
Drive into town like thunder
And rattling o’re the pavements they
Make Gawky’s stare in wonder

Some with broken Chaise tied up
Some’s kill’d their horse a racing
But all such things on Shearing day
Sure there is no disgrace in

Now sing long celebrate the day
We’ll ride and dance and spose it
And next when the day comes round
May I be there to see it

I was not able to find the meaning of “Bull lanes” and I know no more about “Quams” than of “the double shuffle and the Narragansett back-step.” “And Johnlike away they drive” refers to the ride of John Gilpin and to the comic poem titled The Diverting History of John Gilpin, written by William Cowper and published in 1782.

Certainly, Charles Murphey would have had little use for the somewhat dire final conclusion of the Inquirer article:

Thus if . . . the annual shearing of the sheep upon this Island could be performed like the ordinary pursuits of life, that is without the appendages which are always attached to such ceremonies, the moral character of many would be less tarnished; and he who will be at the trouble to investigate the subject, will find that the fair promise of many hopeful lads is first sullied,and the charming buds of female delicacy are often first blighted, on days of public festivity and amusement; and he will also find that the wisdom of riper years,and even gray hairs, are not at all times exempted from the contagion of “great days”

Leslie W. Ottinger, a physician, retired to Nantucket in 1996. He contributed “ ‘Saw a comet star ablazing…’: Log of the New Bedford Whaling Ship Washington, March 6, 1843” to the Winter 2004 issue of Historic Nantucket.