HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 1

Historic Nantucket
A Publication of the Nantucket Historical Association
Spring 2009
Volume 59, No. 1

350th
Anniversary
of Nantucket’s
Early Settlers

Nantucket’s Native
Foodways
Nantucket’s
“ImmemorialHighways”

Nantucket
RealEstate: 1659
Indian
Placenames
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 2

NANTUCKET
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION

Board of Trustees
Historic Nantucket
A Publication of the Nantucket Historical Association Spring 2009 | Vol. 59, No. 1
E. Geoffrey Verney, PRESIDENT
Janet L. Sherlund, 1ST VICE PRESIDENT
4 Nantucket’s Native Foodways
Kenneth L. Beaugrand, 2ND VICE PRESIDENT
Thomas J. Anathan, TREASURER DEBRA MCMANIS
Melissa C. Philbrick, CLERK
Nature’s gifts provide tasty fare and
C. Marshall Beale foreshadow the great Nantucket
Robert H. Brust
clambake.
Nancy A. Chase
Constance Cigarran
William R. Congdon
Nancy A. Geschke
8 Nantucket’s
FRIENDS OF THE NHA REPRESENTATIVE “Immemorial Highways”
Georgia Gosnell, TRUSTEE EMERITA
FRANCES KARTTUNEN
Nina S. Hellman
Hampton S. Lynch Jr. Indian trails and cowpaths were given
Mary D. Malavase
names that remain on maps today.
Sarah B. Newton
Anne S. Obrecht
Elizabeth T. Peek
Christopher C. Quick
10 Nantucket Real Estate: 1659
David Ross MARK AVERY
FRIENDS OF THE NHA REPRESENTATIVE

Melanie R. Sabelhaus A semiseptcentennial [350th] note

Nancy M. Soderberg on Nantucket’s early European
Bette M. Spriggs settlement.
Isabel C. Stewart
Jay M. Wilson

William J. Tramposch 15 Book Review:

executive director
FRANCES KARTTUNEN
editorial committee
Mary H. Beman
Native American Placenames
Thomas B. Congdon Jr. † of the United States, by William Bright
Richard L. Duncan
Peter J. Greenhalgh
Amy Jenness
Cecil Barron Jensen COVER: From the Executive Director 3
Robert F. Mooney Helianthus tuberosus
WILLIAM J. TRAMPOSCH
(Jerusalem artichoke)
Elizabeth Oldham
Nathaniel Philbrick Winterthur Exhibition Preview 21
Bette M. Spriggs BEN SIMONS
James Sulzer
Greater Light Restoration Update 20
Ben Simons
NHA News 21
Editor

Historic Nantucket welcomes articles on any aspect of Nantucket history. Original research; firsthand accounts; reminiscences of
Elizabeth Oldham island experiences; historic logs, letters, and photographs are examples of materials of interest to our readers.
Copy Editor ©2009 by the Nantucket Historical Association
Historic Nantucket (ISSN 0439-2248) is published by the Nantucket Historical
Eileen Powers/Javatime Design Association, 15 Broad Street, Nantucket, Massachusetts. Periodical postage paid
at Nantucket, MA, and additional entry offices.
Design & Art Direction POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Historic Nantucket, P.O. Box 1016,
Nantucket, MA 02554 –1016(508) 228–1894; fax: (508) 228–5618, info@nha.org
† deceased
For information log on to www.nha.org Printed in the USA on 25% recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks.

 | Historic Nantucket
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1
Nantucket’s Arrivals
T his year, Nantucket
celebrates the 350th
anniversary of the ar-
rival of its first European
settlers, those intrepid English
families who came to the island in
the fall of 1659 with names that have
resonated down through history—
Coffin, Folger, Starbuck, Macy, Swain,
Hussey, Gardner, Bunker, and their
fellows. Before the English appeared,
Nantucket’s other, earlier settlers, the
“ancient proprietors,” or Wampanoag
Indians, welcomed the newcomers
and shared the island’s secrets with
them. It was a remarkable early ex-
ample of the way that the island has
been hospitable to all newcomers,
and opened its arms to “arrivals”
from near and far. The theme of ar-
rivals will be a guiding principle for
our 350th anniversary programming,
as it is one that resonates well be-
yond Nantucket’s shores, and is a
symbol of the larger American expe-
rience.
This issue of Historic Nantucket
celebrates both the Wampanoag
community and the early English set-
tlement. Debra McManis, the NHA’s
2007 Verney fellow, offers a glimpse
into native foodways, giving a sense
of the incredible variety of foods and
preparations that were part of sur-
vival in old Nantucket. Mark Avery,
NHA manager of historic properties,
takes us on a tour of the early English
settlement, and debuts his map of
early Sherburne, an updated revision
of Henry Barnard Worth’s map. Dr.
Frances Karttunen, who has pio-
neered the study of Nantucket’s di-
verse populations, discusses early
3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 3
FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
BILL TRAMPOSCH
Native roads and paths, and also ex-
plores the history of Nantucket’s Na-
tive placenames.
We at the NHA are pleased to offer a
wide range of events and programs re-
lating to the 350th anniversary. During
Preservation Month in May, we will
host a full schedule of lectures about
the early settlement, walking tours of
Old Sherburne and town, and other
special programming. We have dedi-
cated this special issue of Historic
Nantucket to the anniversary, and are
parterning with other island organiza-
tions, including Nantucket Preserva-
tion Trust, in our offerings. We also
expect to welcome hundreds of de-
scendants of Nantucket’s mighty clans
in the Whaling Museum and the NHA
Research Library.
We are also proud to host our first
major traveling exhibition, Winterthur
Museum & Country Estate’s Harbor &
Home: The Furniture of Southeastern
Massachusetts, 1710–1850. This sum-
mer’s major exhibition will offer an il-
lustration of Crèvecoeur’s observation
that virtually all Nantucketers were ex-
“Pieces of wood in Nantucket
are carried about like bits of the
true cross in Rome...[and] to
their very chairs and tables,
small clams will sometimes be
found adhering,as to the backs
of sea turtles.”
—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
perts at fashioning and carving wood.
The Winterthur exhibition places new
light on a largely unstudied region of
New England furniture—the area
falling between Boston and Provi-
dence, which includes the Cape and
islands. It will feature thirteen pieces
from the NHA collection, including
gifts of the Friends of the Nantucket
Historical Association and the Max and
Heidi Berry Acquisition Fund. These
beautiful examples of the Nantucket
decorative arts should be seen in the
light of Melville’s comical description of
Nantucket, where wood was so scarce,
and the ocean so near, that “pieces of
wood in Nantucket are carried about
like bits of the true cross in Rome. . .
[and] to their very chairs and tables,
small clams will sometimes be found
adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles.”
William J. Tramposch
Executive Director
Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 4

N a n t u c k e t ’ s N AT I V E

FOODWAYS B Y D EBRA M C M ANIS

“RICH IN DIVERSITY BUT SCANT IN WHAT WENT INTO A POT AT ONE TIME” WOULD SIMPLY,YET
APTLY, DESCRIBE THE CULINARY PRACTICES OF THE WAMPANOAG PEOPLES LIVING ON NANTUCKET

AT THE TIME OF ENGLISH SETTLEMENT IN 1659.YET, THE INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE INVOLVED IN

ACQUIRING AND PROCESSING WHAT WENT INTO THAT POT WAS HARDLY SIMPLE.IN NEW ENGLAND,

THERE WERE MORE THAN A HUNDRED VARIETIES OF HERBACEOUS PLANTS, FRUITS, AND NUTS IN

COMMON USE BY THE WAMPANOAG, AS WELL AS THE CULTIVATED CROPS OF MAIZE, BEANS, SQUASH,

PUMPKINS, ROOTS, AND MELONS—AND EVEN A VARIETY OF CULTIVATED WILDFLOWERS.ALL OF

THESE NATURAL PRODUCTS WERE UTILIZED FOR FOOD, MEDICINE, AND TRADITIONAL ARTS BY THE

WAMPANOAG TRIBES LIVING NEAR THE SHORES OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND.

A GIFT FROM ALICE AND JAMES BREED IN HONOR OF ALICE ROGOFF RUBENSTEIN SUPPORTS THE PUBLICATION OF THIS ARTICLE ON WAMPANOAG CULTURE.

 | Historic Nantucket
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 5
Fish,fowl,and game supplemented by roots, nuts,
fruits, berries, and other natural foods formed the diet of Nan-
tucket’s ancient proprietors. On island, the menu frequently
tended toward fish, mollusks, eels, and the occasional seal or
whale, with probably more than one type of each served during a
single family meal. Deer and wild game, whether hunted on-is-
land or traded for on the mainland, offered the menu some vari-
ety and valuable protein, but by the time of English settlement,
the native population density was reaching its peak, and wild
game—such as the deer, raccoon, rabbit, and shrew—were in-
creasingly difficult to come by. More numerous were the various
water fowl that took flight over and around the island during sea-
sonal migrations. Cranes, loons, quail, geese, ducks, and the pas-
senger pigeon (now extinct) were some of the many birds that
rotated seasonally throughout the native Nantucket diet.
In 1662, Mary Starbuck in her “Account Book with the Indians”
recorded “fish and feathers” as commodities exchanged for pay-
ment by the Indians for such items as ammunition, flints, nails,
iron pots, molasses, and cloth. Fish and down (the English made
beds with the feathers) served as currency for at least fifty years
until those things bargained for and desired by the Wampanoags
began to cost significantly more, and, consequently, the bargain-
ing power or weight of those “feathers and fish” no longer satisfied
the exchange. The price exacted would soon require heavier
stakes in whale shares, which the Wampanoag successfully ex-
changed for English commodities upon their return home from
whaling voyages.
In pursuit of food commodities, Indian dogs were useful during
island hunting expeditions and helped to flush out migratory
flocks, particularly in wetland areas or dense thickets. But beyond
their hunting skills, the English observed “great affections” dis-
played by the natives for their “small dogs.” Not surprisingly, the
family dogs received scraps during mealtime much as dogs do
today. Although the practice of consuming dog meat was by no
means customary, as a last resort family pets were at times sacri-
ficed during a village food crisis.
“As the fowl decreases the fish increases,” observed an English-
man recounting the hunting and fishing ways of the Wampanoag.
Native fishing “followed the spring, summer and the fall of the leaf
. . . for lobsters, clams, flouke, lumps [limpets],
or plaise [plaice] and alewives, afterwards
for bass, cod, rock, bluefish, salmon, lam-
preys, and such.” The men and older
boys fished along the shore and in
the ponds while the women and
children collected shellfish, crabs,
and snails by the sea and turtles
near ponds.
During spring and summer,
the Wampanoag diet was en-
riched with the addition of fresh
greens, such as the tender shoots
of marsh marigold, fiddle fern,
cattail, milkweed, and rose hips
growing near ponds throughout
the island. Wild leeks en-
hanced fish prepara-
tion, and
perhaps wild
garlic, although
direct evidence of
that is found only on Cape
Cod. Early corn, prized for its
milky quality, was available in
limited quantities in July. The
corn harvest peaked during
the “Ripe Corn Moon” in Sep-
tember. Roger Williams observed
that corn porridge, or “samp,” was the
most common ground-maize dish
among the natives and considered it the
“wholesomest diet they have.” In sea-
son, “pumpions” and squash were often
mixed in the samp and other cornbreads. Indian bread “pone”
(similar to johnnycake) was the most popular corn dish and was
prepared by “pounding corn fine, sifting it, adding water . . . cover
with leaves and bake it in hot ashes.” This cake, or pone, could
sustain a male Wampanoag all day and was usually carried in a
small sack hung around his neck or waist. Although popular his-
tory often repeats a handful of well-known corn recipes prepared
by American Indian tribes, the impressive volume of culinary
variations applied to corn might have gone unnoticed by the Eng-
lish. Many recipes have certainly been lost today; however, a
woman of the western Iroquois tribe is on record as having “de-
tailed to an inquiring anthropologist a hundred and fifty recipes
of various kinds without exhausting her mental cookbook of
maize dishes.”
Traditionally, maize was considered the sustaining “mother”
crop for all the farming tribes in North America, thanks to the
abundance of its carbohydrates. Yet, the two bean plants, consid-
ered by the English as “properie,” or native to New England be-
cause they grew with such proliferation, were the common green
bean—which includes many varieties such as the kidney, pinto,
and white bean and has edible leaves— and the scarlet runner
bean. Bean plants were literally just a step removed from the
“Maize Mother” plant: bean seeds were planted next to the corn
after the stalks had begun to grow so that the bean tendrils could
attach to them; and the bean’s overall nutritional value, whether
eaten as green pods or as fresh or dried legumes, was of equal im-
portance to early tribes as the carbohydrates found in corn. Culti-
vation of these crops was carried out by the women, and,
according to early observer William Wood, “wherein they exceed
our English husbandmen, keeping it so clear with their clamshell
hoes, as if it were a garden rather than a cornfield, not suffering a
choking weed to advance his audacious head above their infant
Opposite (clockwise from top left): Jerusalem artichoke, rose hips,
mixing bowl, wild strawberry, gathering basket, ground nuts.
At left: Vitis labrusca (fox grape); above: Fragaria virginiana (wild straw-
berry), watercolor illustrations by M. J. Levy Dickson from Nantucket Wild-
flowers (2001), Nantucket Garden Club, (2001).
Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 6
nantucket’s native foodways
corn or an undermining worm to spoil his spurns (roots).” The re-
lationship between maize and beans extended into the cooking
pot when they were prepared together as “succotash,” because
the combination added variety and produced even more protein
when cooked together.
Squash seeds were planted with restraint by the native women
because the vines tended to take over the entire garden. Strategi-
cally positioned between the corn mounds, they kept the weeds
down and the soil hydrated. The varieties considered proper to
New England were the Boston Marrow and the Autumn Turban,
although there were said to have been many types grown. The
squash meat was often cut into small pieces and added to chow-
ders, breads, or consumed green when “immediately put on the
fire without any further trouble.” Wild groundnuts “as big as hen’s
eggs” grew in swampy areas near ’Sconset, and their seeds, simi-
lar to a pea, were “very delicable.” Roots, growing in the marshes,
were higher in minerals than plants grown upland because min-
erals seep down into the subterranean swamplands (this healthy
source of naturally occurring minerals is lost in most upland
farming techniques today). The edible roots of the water lily were
also gathered, perhaps even cultivated in some areas of New
England, and the English likened them to the taste of sheep liver.
The Jerusalem artichoke (a relative of the sunflower) was also
gathered, although it is actually a root and not an artichoke. It
was favored by the Wampanoag because it stored much better
than the potato. On Martha’s Vineyard, the Jerusalem artichoke,
sunflower, and watermelon were grown in “Indian gardens,” and
this could have also been the case on Nantucket. Surprisingly,
wild mushrooms to do not seem to appear anywhere in the tra-
ditional Wampanoag diet.
According to Nantucket’s
preeminent archaeologist Eliza-
beth Little, a comparison of the
foodways of all American Indians
living during the late woodland
period registers the Nantucket
Wampanoag about midway along
a spectrum, with purely fish- and
mammal-eating tribes (like the
Inuit) at one end, and committed
maize-eating tribes (like the Aztecs) at
the other. The healthy bones and teeth of
Nantucket’s Wampanoag testify to a diversi-
fied diet consisting of roughly equal parts
meat and vegetation—fish, mollusks, and sea
mammals being the primary food source, fol-
lowed by water fowl and wild game, then sup-
plemented by crops of maize, beans, and
squash. Fruits, nuts, roots, and greens were
Homarus americanus
(American lobster)
 | Historic Nantucket
added to the diet in all their many variations. Crop cultivation
and the gathering of roots, fruits, and plants were necessary to
supplement the nutritional needs of the densely populated vil-
lages of Nantucket.
The cyclical relationship between the Wampanoag’s day-to-
day diet and their highly concentrated efforts in gathering,
hunting, and harvesting seasonal food resources is at the root of
appreciating all native foodways. If a particular berry, seed, root,
plant, or meat was in season, it was by all accounts eaten, either
consumed fresh or dried for later use. Fortunately, most of the
fruits that supplied Nantucket natives grew wild and abun-
dantly. Evidence suggests that wild vines were often manicured
to encourage growth by the squaw. Strawberries, red and white,
were highly esteemed (as reflected in the naming of the
Wampanoag “Strawberry Moon”) and “is the wonder of all the
fruits growing naturally in those parts.” An Englishmen ob-
served, “The Indians bruise them in a mortar, and mix them
with meal and make strawberry bread.” When strawberry sea-
son was over, the children went on to pick blackberries and
blueberries, followed by fox grapes, beach plums, and other
fruits, until finally it was the season for cranberries, the last wild
berry to ripen. The succession of ripening periods for all the
wild fruits and berries determined not only the bread-of-the-
day but also the task at hand: fruit drying for later use. The
berries were preserved by placing whole fruits or mashed pulp
“with as much juice as the mass would hold” on bark slabs or
stones. The native women took great care in removing “interfer-
ing shrubbery” to ensure consistent dehydration. Apparently,
fresh grapes were also processed into juice by many
Wampanoag tribes, even though the English likened New Eng-
land’s indigenous grape “to a taste of gunpowder.”
Another fruit recipe favored among the Wampanoag was the
high-energy food, often described as “[Indian] emergency food,”
called cranberry pemmican. Preparation consisted of pounding
roasted deer meat into a powder, adding equal parts deer fat (in-
cluding bone marrow), and mixing the entire batch with some
dried cranberry powder. Nuts were also shelled and sun-dried,
often ground by mortar and pestle into meal or flour, to be stored
in “underground cupboards” along with all the other baskets and
sacks of preserved food. The grinding of corn was an on-going
event for the women of the village.
Fish and wild game were also dried for wintertime use. The
English observed that “[The natives] in this manner they dry
basses and other fish without salt, cutting them very thin to dry
suddenly . . . and having special care to hang them in their smoky
houses. When lobsters be in their plenty they were dried . . . erect-
ing scaffolds in the hot sunshine, making fires likewise under-
neath them, by whose fire the flies are expelled, till the substance
remain hard and dry.” Clams and oysters were also strung, sun-
dried and smoked, either eaten by the family or used as a com-
modity during trade.
Flavor enhancers, such as processed salt and sugar, were not
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 7
used by southern New
England tribes until
after English contact.
Although salt occurs
naturally in the liver
and fat of wild game, in
sea plants, and in the
juice of shellfish, it was
not used as a
processed additive,
and there is no word
for salt in the Algo-
nquian language.
Sugar was also absent
in the ancient Nan-
tucket diet (the pro-
Phaseolus coccineus (scarlet runner bean) cessing of maple sap
into sugar was tradi-
tionally a custom of
northern New England tribes living among maple trees). Even so,
natural sugar was consumed by all maize-eating tribes through
the process of roasting corn, which turns cornstarch into sugar.
Additional additives, such as oils and greases, were obtained from
whale blubber, fish liver, the fat and bone marrow of wild game
and fowl, and from nuts, such as the white-oak acorn, which ren-
ders a butter when processed.
“The crystalle drink,” or water, stored in leak-resistant gourds
and consumed fresh or heated over a fire, was the chief source of
hydration. The water might have been infused with flora, fruit,
bark, or herb, which was customary for many native tribes. How-
ever, any fish, meat, or vegetable juices that remained after food
preparation were used either as a broth in the next meal or con-
sumed as a warm snack. For the most part, milk and butter were
never appreciated nor embraced with the same fervor exhibited by
the English, even when made readily available through barter. In-
stead, early corn in the milky green stage provided a delicious sub-
stitute for making a creamier chowder or extra-moist bread (the
Spaniards actually mixed chocolate with their milky green corn).
Traditionally, native children gathered wild-bird and turtle eggs,
which their mothers dried and used as a thickening agent in soups
and chowders.
On Nantucket, steaming and roasting were the observed meth-
ods of cooking food.
The English noted that Nantucket natives did not know how to
boil. Perhaps not, but steaming and roasting might have been in-
tentional as cooking methods because they require less fuel than
boiling, and with few trees growing on-island, fuel efficiency
would have been a concern for the Nantucket natives. In Abram’s
Eyes, Nathaniel Philbrick cites Peter Gow’s mention of the roast-
ing/steaming method’s fuel efficiency, which he compares to the
tandoori cooking methods of India, where firewood is also ex-
tremely scarce. Whether the Wampanoag on Nantucket con-
sciously chose steaming and roasting over boiling because of the
dearth of firewood is uncertain, but their cooking methods were
congruent with their natural environment.
Today, the Wampanoag’s original feast, now known as the Nan-
tucket clambake, continues to bear witness to the island’s ancient
foodways. In Samuel Jenks’s 1827 article “Legend of Mudturtle,”
he describes how the “[Nantucket Indians] excavated the ground
to the depth of about three or four feet . . . within this subter-
ranean oven they kindled a fire and heaped on fuel until the
stones became duly [hot]…they threw in promiscuously their re-
spective contributions, gathered from the sea, the [beach], the
ponds, and the [soil]; overlaid the whole with a thick lid of sea-
weed. When this medley was thus sufficiently seethed, the cover-
ing withdrawn, and the feast ensued.” Hence, the Nantucket
clambake.
In the beginning, the Wampanoag foodways might have ap-
peared simple by English standards and customs, so much so that
the early arrivals took for granted that they would be able to
maintain a livelihood in the same perceived manner as the na-
tives—that is, “with small labor and great pleasure.” It did not take
long for the English to realize that they lacked what it took to sur-
vive in those conditions: an intimate understanding of their new
environment and the ecological awareness required to harness
the “profits and fruits which are naturally on this lland.” Because
New England’s famed “strawberry time,” or “time of plenty,” did
not last year-round, there was a lot to learn and to profit from the
ancient foodways and traditions of the Wampanoag, the island’s
original settlers.
DEBRA MCMANIS is an independent writer and researcher and the recipient
of the NHA’s 2007 E. Geoffrey and Elizabeth ThayerVerney fellowship. She is
currently writing a book about the history of Nantucket farms and rural life.
Select Sources
Cronon, William. Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the
Ecology of New England. New York: Hill and Wang, 2003.
Gookin, Daniel. Historical Collections of the Indians of New England.
Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Series 1, 1674.
Hedrick, U. P. A History of Horticulture in America to 1860. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1950.
Little, Elizabeth A. Nantucket Algonquian Studies. Nantucket:
Nantucket Historical Association, 1976–86.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Abram’s Eyes. Nantucket: Mill Hill Press, 1998.
The Plymouth Archeological Rediscovery Project (PARP), n.d.
Russell, Howard S. Indian New England before the Mayflower.
Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1983.
Schneider, Paul. The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard,
and Nantucket. New York: Henry Holt, 2000.
Worth, Henry B. “The First Whaling Merchant of Nantucket, as
Shown by the Starbuck Account Book.” Nantucket: Proceedings of the
Nantucket Historical Association, 1915.
Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 8

] ]]


NANTUCKET’S
“Immemorial
Highways”

BY FRANCES KARTTUNEN

Excerpted from a report written

for the Town of Nantucket’s Roads
and Rights of Way Committee, 2008
THE ENGLISH SETTLERS who came to Nantucket in the
second half of the 1600s brought with them an antipathy to authority
that had been fostered in the highly legalistic Massachusetts Bay
Colony from which they had decamped to the island. Many in the
first generation of settlers rejected organized religion, identifying
themselves—if pressed—as “electarians,” namely, people who elected not
to belong to any church at all. A faction of them also rejected the
authority of Tristram Coffin in his role as Nantucket’s Chief
Magistrate, and town meetings were stormy affairs. Peter Folger
spent some cold and miserable time one winter imprisoned for
insubordination in a makeshift jail. Taxes, moreover, were unpopular
with islanders from day one. Thus it is not surprising that
Nantucketers did not bother to formally lay out their streets,
roads, and highways.

 | Historic Nantucket
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM
During the presidency of John Adams, all the towns of the
young United States of America were required to submit to
the federal government a list of the streets in each town.
Here, there was little enthusiasm for the task. According to a
visitor to Nantucket, “Such is the simplicity of this primitive
place, and so small the resort of strangers, that the streets
which have branched out had never any names given to
them, until the assessment for the direct tax under Presi-
dent Adams.” In 1799, Isaac Coffin, Nantucket’s assessor, be-
latedly submitted a list of exactly one hundred streets in the
Town of Nantucket. In the process, he had to invent names
for some hitherto nameless streets. Most of the 1799 streets
still exist and their 1799 names have survived with them.
A copy of Isaac Coffin’s list was placed in the Nantucket
Registry of Deeds in 1818 and was available when a lawsuit
was brought in 1837 that had the almost inadvertent effect
of finally establishing the town’s streets as public ways
within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Benjamin Worth had come upon seventeen sheep loose
in the streets with no one looking after them; in his capacity
as field driver, he rounded them up and impounded them.
The owner of the sheep, Walter Folger, brought suit against
Worth. Folger’s position was that the entire island, with the
exception of lots that had been set aside to individuals, was
common, undivided land belonging to the Proprietors.
Since the streets had never been set off to any individual,
the Proprietors owned them, and Worth had no right to im-
pound sheep roaming loose in the streets.
The Supreme Court of Massachusetts saw it otherwise.
Field drivers in Massachusetts were authorized to impound
livestock, including sheep, “going at large on public high-
ways.” The question was whether there were public high-
ways on Nantucket. While acknowledging that there was
“no record of laying out of any highway in Nantucket,” yet
highways did exist “established by long continued use and
enjoyment.” In fact, the opinion continued, “the streets of
the town have been used as highways, from time immemo-
rial.” Hence, the Proprietors’ ownership of streets and high-
ways was subject to perpetual easement for the public.
Although there was no longer any doubt that the 1799
streets were public ways, a difficult question remained,
namely, “which and how many of the various tracks, which
traverse the island, have been so much, so long, and so un-
interruptedly used, as to show them to be highways.”
On the nearby mainland there still exist some trails that
date from before the arrival of the Mayflower Pilgrims.
These are known as “ancient ways.” One of them was used
by the Mashpee Wampanoag and is said to be “still dis-
cernible among the maze of contemporary housing devel-
opments.” Points along these ancient ways were marked
with prominent stones, upon which passersby piled more
stones or small branches.
Page 9
If there were such marked trails on Nantucket, they have
been lost, along with Nantucket’s Wampanoag population,
which fell victim to a lethal epidemic in the mid-1700s. With
no one left to maintain them, any markers that may once
have existed were obliterated by weather, trampling by do-
mestic animals, and clearance for agriculture.
A few Nantucket Indian deeds from the 1600s mention
paths, but they also mention cart tracks and even a “high-
way” in Quaise. The wheeled vehicles of the English settlers
probably followed earlier Indian footpaths.
I n NHA Bulletin 4 (1906), Nantucket attorney and histo-
rian Henry Barnard Worth concurred: “Quite likely the old
Indian trails were adopted as roads.” He went on to state
that “Many streets were opened by owners and adopted by
the public by actual use. The unfenced tracts on the island
were crossed by travelers at will, and roads to outlying points
were changing from year to year.”
Which brings up the vexed issue of the Proprietors’ Roads.
These were laid out in 1821 to guarantee livestock unre-
stricted access to grazing land and fresh water. In addition to
roads from the town to outlying places, the Proprietors’
Roads included strips of land along the shores and around
the island’s ponds and swamps. Though designated for pub-
lic use, the Proprietors’ Roads were not public ways; they
were private roads owned by the Proprietors of the Com-
mon and Undivided Land. Over many years, efforts to turn
them over to the Town of Nantucket were rebuffed because
acceptance of them would have made the town responsible
for their maintenance. In 1911, Worth wrote, “How extensive
a burden this could be can be appreciated by estimating the
circumference of these ponds and the lengths of adjacent
shore lines, when it would become apparent how many
miles more of roads the town of Nantucket would be obliged
to maintain, than at present.”
Now, nearly a century later, it seems next to impossible to
retrieve the Proprietors’ Roads, however attractive they
would be for public access to the island’s beaches and
ponds.
frances karttunen, a twelfth-generation Nantucketer, is a re-
tired professor of linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin and
author of many articles and several books, including The Other Is-
landers: PeopleWho Pulled Nantucket’s Oars, New Bedford: Spinner
Publications, (2005).
Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM
Nantucket Real Estate: 1659
A Semiseptcentennial [350th] Edition
BY MARK AVERY
As the bow of their heavily laden boat hauled up
on the beach at Madaket, an overwhelming sense of relief
must have embraced the travel-weary landing party. Safe de-
liverance from the sea and the comfort of arrival in a home
port are universally understood sensations, and were no
doubt experienced at this journey’s end, but here in this dis-
tant haven, “home” was yet to be secured.
The crossing, according to tradition, was not entirely calm,
which, owing to the lateness of the fall season, seems plausi-
ble. (The journey and arrival were romanticized in John
Greenleaf Whittier’s poem The Exiles.) Their vessel was most
likely an open, utilitarian type of craft called a shallop. About
twenty to thirty feet in length, shallow-draft, and having
both a sail and oars, it was common transport in coastal
New England throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. The shallop was designed primarily for use in pro-
tected inlets, bays, and rivers, not the famously rough At-
lantic waters beyond.
Stepping gratefully onto Nantucket sand that day, now 350
years ago, were Thomas Macy (51 years of age); his wife Sarah
(47); their five children (ages 4 through 13); Thomas’s partner
in this endeavor, Edward Starbuck (55); Isaac Coleman (aged
12); and by some accounts, James Coffin (18), the son of Tris-
tram Coffin, as well. The voyage began at Salisbury on the
Merrimack River—then part of the northern reaches of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony—through Cape Cod Bay and
around the Cape over Nantucket Sound to Martha’s Vineyard,
where they were joined by another passenger, a Vineyard man
And yet that isle remaineth
A refuge of the free,
As when true-hearted Macy
Beheld it from the sea.
 | Historic Nantucket
Page 10
named Daggett, who agreed to guide them across the treach-
erous shoals. Finally, they headed east to Nantucket Island, ar-
riving sometime around the end of October.
Standing on Nantucket after that ordeal, the travelers
must have taken pause, to survey the mostly barren, mildly
rolling landscape just beyond the curved ribbon of white
sand beach.
The view was not much different from what we see today
in the area now known as Warren’s Landing—a few clusters of
diminutive trees scattered about to the north; a large wet
meadow just to the south; to the east, endless hummocks
covered in golden grasses and green underbrush. A necklace
of dark-blue ponds, running north to south, occupied many
of the low points in the undulating terrain. For their intended
purposes, Macy and Starbuck must have hoped this distant
land would be perfect. They had come to settle, to build a
new community, to farm, raise livestock, to fish, and make an
entirely new life for themselves and their families, a scene re-
peated countless times throughout the seventeenth century
all along the coasts of New England. As in most instances, the
location chosen for this new settlement was not entirely un-
occupied, and when they arrived, Nantucket was already
peopled by more than a thousand native inhabitants.
Indeed, the English settlers and their families had been
through a similar course before, some twenty-four years ear-
lier, as part of the “Great Migration” to America. Departing in
1635 from Chilmark, part of Wiltshire County in southwest
England, Thomas Macy became one of the first settlers of
Newbury, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a few years
Free as the winds that winnow
Her shrubless hills of sand,
Free as the waves that batter
Along her yielding land.
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM
later, one of the founders of Salisbury just to the north, across
the Merrimack River. Starbuck originally came from Leices-
tershire in the West Midlands. He immigrated to America in
the same year as Macy, settling about twenty miles farther
north, in Dover, on the true frontier of the colony. Dover is
now part of southern New Hampshire, on a branch of the
Piscataqua River. From early records, both men appear to
have been successful and key members of their growing
communities.
By the end of 1658, however, it appears that both Macy and
Starbuck had come into some conflict with increasingly op-
pressive Puritan authorities; both had been summoned to ap-
pear before the court for unrelated reasons, and both had been
fined for what were called “great misdemeanors.” Whether as a
result of this friction with local power, a search for better eco-
nomic opportunities, or simply chafing at the swelling popula-
tions of their towns, Thomas Macy, Edward Starbuck, Tristram
Coffin, John Swain, and several other friends and relations en-
deavored to purchase the island of Nantucket from Thomas
Mayhew. Mayhew had purchased the islands of Martha’s Vine-
yard, Nantucket, and the Elizabeth Islands in 1641 from James
Forrett, agent to William, Earl of Sterling, and had moved to
Martha’s Vineyard shortly thereafter, founding the town of
Edgartown. (He also had to purchase it again from the gover-
nor of Maine, Sir Fernando Gorges, after he had made a claim
of ownership of the islands, and a third time from most of the
local Indian sachems.)
It is unclear how the island of Nantucket became the focus
of interest for the Salisbury/Dover group. Thomas Macy was
probably related to Mayhew, having described him in a letter
a few years later as “my honoured cousin,” and may have
heard about his interest to sell. Although fifteen years older
than Macy, Mayhew was born in the adjoining Wiltshire
hamlet of Tisbury, and documents recently discovered show
that at age 27, Thomas Mayhew completed an apprentice-
ship for a man named Richard Macey, also of Chilmark, Eng-
land. Richard may have been Thomas Macy’s great uncle.
In the spring of 1659, Tristram Coffin, Edward Starbuck,
young Isaac Coleman, and others not named, set out to visit
Nantucket and inquire about the possibility of purchase, sail-
ing first to Martha’s Vineyard to meet with Thomas Mayhew.
Terms were negotiated, and the party then sailed to Nan-
tucket, bringing with them Peter Folger, to act as an inter-
preter and to negotiate an agreement with the local Indian
population. Apparently, a survey of the island proved satis-
factory, and upon returning to Salisbury in the summer, they
held a meeting that resulted in the following agreement:
These people after mentioned did buy all right and Interest of the Is-
land of Nantucket that Did belong to Sir Ferdinando George
[Gorges] and Mr.James Forrett Steward to Lord Sterling,which was
Than hers, at duty’s summons,
No loftier spirit stirs,
Nor falls o’er human suffering
A readier tear then hers.
Page 11
by them sold unto Mr.Thomas Mayhew of Martha’sVineyard these
after mentioned Did purchas of Mr. Thomas Mayhew these rights;
namely the pattent Right belonging to the Gentleman aforesaid &
also the piece of Land which Mr. Mayhew did purchass of the Indi-
ans at the west End of the Island of Nantucket as by their grant or
bill of Sale will largely appear with all the privileges and appurte-
nances thereof—the aforementioned Purchasers are Tristram Cof-
fin Senr., Thomas Macy, Richard Swain, Thomas Barnard, Peter
Coffin,Christopher Hussey,Stephen Greenleaf,John Swain,William
Pile [or Pike], had the whole and Sole Interest Disposal power, and
privilege of said Island and appurtenances thereof.
On the same date, the second of July 1659, a deed was
granted by Thomas Mayhew, in which the now famous pay-
ment sum of “30 pounds sterling and two beaver hats” was
agreed. Mayhew also reserved for himself “the neck of land
called Masquetuck”(Quaise), “or the Neck of land called
Nashayte”(Polpis), and a “twentieth part of all lands and privi-
leges” in the affairs of the island.
On October 10, at just about the same time the Macy clan
was making its way to Nantucket, Thomas Mayhew deeded
the island of Tuckernuck, a small island just west of Nan-
tucket, to Tristram Coffin Sr., Peter Coffin, Tristram Coffin Jr.,
and James Coffin, for the sum of five pounds.
At another meeting, held at Salisbury in February of 1660, it
was agreed that each of the ten owners should take a partner,
and that these ten partners should have all the rights and
benefits of the original ten. At that meeting it was voted that:
Tristram Coffin Sr. partnered with Nathaniel Starbuck,
Christopher Hussey partnered with Robert Pike,
Thomas Barnard partnered with Robert Bernard,
Stephen Greenleaf partnered with Tristram Coffin Jr.,
Peter Coffin partnered with James Coffin,
Richard Swain partnered with Thomas Coleman,
John Swain partnered with John Smith,
William Pile [Pike] partnered with Thomas Look,
Thomas Mayhew Sr. partnered with Thomas Mayhew Jr.,
Thomas Macy partnered with Edward Starbuck.
Obviously, some of these men were not present at the
meeting; we know of course, that Thomas Macy, Edward
Starbuck, and James Coffin were on Nantucket that winter,
and the Mayhews were presumably on Martha’s Vineyard.
This arrangement may have been made through discussions
the prior summer, but not recorded until February.
English title to Nantucket now assured, a separate deed was
sought from the local Nantucket sachems Wanackmamack
and Nickanoose. Although negotiations had taken place the
previous summer, a deed was granted to Thomas Mayhew by
God bless the sea-beat island!
And grant forevermore,
That charity and freedom dwell
As now upon her shore!
From The Exiles, John Greenleaf Whittier, 1841
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 | Historic Nantucket
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 13

Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM
nantucket real estate: 1659
the sachems, and a separate deed for the twenty proprietors
was obtained on May 10, 1660, at a meeting on Nantucket. In
it, the sachems agreed to sell to the English the portion of the
island described as follows:
All yeWest end of ye afores’d Island unto ye Pond commonly called
Waquitttaquay, and from ye Head of that Pond to ye North Side of
ye Island Manamoy; Bounded by a Path from ye Head of ye afore-
said Pond to Manamoy: as also a Neck at ye East End of ye Island
called Poquomock.
Today, this would be described as all land west of Hum-
mock Pond (Waquittaquay), and all land north of a line, from
Head of Hummock Pond to Nantucket Harbor, at the Creeks
in Monomoy, and the Pocomo Neck, at the east end of Nan-
tucket Harbor. Also included in the deed was the right to
graze, hunt, and gather from the rest of the island in the non-
planting seasons.
It is clear that at the time that document was written, many
more English were present on the island. The original group
of arrivals from the previous fall had apparently fared well
over the winter, due in part to the assistance and cooperation
of local Indians. Shortly after landing, they set about con-
structing shelters for themselves, possibly making use of ex-
isting dwellings built by the Indians or by Vineyard men who
had been sojourning on Nantucket intermittently for a num-
ber of years to preach, trade, hunt, and graze livestock.
Thomas Macy installed his family just to the south of their
landing point, where he had found a good spring. Starbuck
located some distance away, perhaps sharing accommoda-
tion with James Coffin and Daggett, who stayed the winter to
hunt game, which was plentiful. References were made in
later town records to “the cellar built by Edward Starbuck,”
which indicates that his early abode may have been a partial
dugout with a peaked wooden or thatched roof above. This
type of dwelling was quite common in the early years of the
Massachusetts Colony, usually a temporary structure until
lumber could be obtained and a proper English timber-
framed house could be erected. (In Boston, at about the
same time, and only thirty years after its founding, records
suggest that the many abandoned early abodes and dugouts
dotting the town presented problems that needed urgent at-
tention.) Just as the first settlements of New England bor-
rowed place-names from their hometowns, the houses the
pioneers would build for themselves were based entirely on
designs and construction methods that they brought with
them, slowly evolving variations in their techniques, adjust-
ing to different materials and climatic conditions. Still, even
in the mid-eighteenth century, a hundred years later, house
construction in the colonies had changed very little.
Edward Starbuck left Nantucket in the spring of 1660, trav-
eling back to Salisbury and Dover to report on conditions on
the island, and returning to Nantucket with his family and at
least ten other families, before the May 10 meeting with the
sachems.
Among others present were Tristram Coffin and family, with
Thomas Mayhew and Peter Folger having come from the
 | Historic Nantucket
Page 14
Vineyard. It appears that Daggett had returned to Martha’s
Vineyard by then, and James Coffin left for Dover shortly after
his father and other family members had settled on the is-
land, though he returned to Nantucket several years later.
After that first winter, it became obvious that Madaket was
not suitable for a permanent settlement, and the families
began to relocate at a more hospitable location on the north
shore at Capaum.
The growing need for homes and services was addressed by
the new group of proprietors, who engaged Peter Folger, Tris-
tram Coffin Sr., Thomas Macy, and Edward Starbuck to meas-
ure and lay out all of the land, and ordered that new owners
choose their house lots within the limits of the plantation,
other than those already chosen. Each of the lots was to be
sixty square rods in size (22.5 acres), and the areas that were
best left as common land were to be determined. Land held
in “common” ownership was popular in New England as a
way of allowing all owners equal access to the land area,
mainly for grazing animals but used in some cases for grow-
ing crops, cutting timber, access to ponds, etc.
It was also decided that the proprietors would sell ”half-
shares” in the interests of the island to needed tradespeople
and other laborers (or mechanics, as they were called) re-
quired by the community, such as carpenters, fishermen,
millers, weavers, and so forth. The first of these was granted in
1662, to William Worth, a sailor. Over the next few years an-
other fourteen of the half-shares were granted, including
those to Peter Folger, Captain John Gardner, and his brother
Richard Gardner. These men and their families were required
to reside on Nantucket for three year as part of the contract. In
due course, many fairness issues arose from this arrangement
of power and financial sharing, and tensions did threaten the
harmony of the island, quite famously in the mid-1670s.
Early relations with the Indian population, however, were
generally cordial and respectful. Some of the community’s
leading individuals—Edward Starbuck, Thomas Macy, Tris-
tram Coffin Sr., John Gardner, and especially Peter Folger—
were very well thought of by the sachems and their people. In
the early years of the English settlement, cooperation be-
tween the two groups is well documented. Over the next few
years, some of the original twenty purchasers passed on their
interests to relations or sold them on Nantucket, and some
never relocated to the island. Within a decade, about a hun-
dred and fifty English called Nantucket home, and the new
community was fairly well established and continued to grow.
The new town, named Sherburne, was incorporated in 1671.
It would remain part of New York until 1692, when at the re-
quest of the proprietors it was formally made a part of Massa-
chusetts by an act of Parliament.
Beginning around 1700, what had been an open harbor at
Capaum Pond, began to silt up and the settlers set their
course eastward for the shores of the Great Harbor, where
Nantucket Town would be founded, and so named in 1795.
mark avery is the NHA’s manager of historic properties. He has prac-
ticed architecture and preservation on Nantucket for over two decades,
and served on the Historic District Commission for twelve years.
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 15

AN ENDOWMENT GRANT FROM THE JOYCE AND SEWARD JOHNSON FOUNDATION SUPPORTS PERIODIC ARTICLES IN HISTORIC NANTUCKET ON TOPICS OF DIVERSITY.

TheWheres
Wherefores
&Whences
of INDIAN
PLACENAMES
BY FRANCES KARTTUNEN

Native American Placenames

of the United States.
By William Bright.
(Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004).

[Note that for the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of
America and for Bright, there is no space or hyphen in “placenames.”
This usage is followed in this article—Ed.]

A
while ago, a query was sent to the Nantucket
Historical Association about the word
Naumkeg, which the inquirer thought to be
a Nantucket Indian placename. I was able to tell
him that Naumkeg (or Naumkeag) was, in fact, the
Abenaki name for the area where Salem was
founded. Further research revealed that the word,
said to mean “a peaceful place,” had been appro-
priated for a house and gardens in the Berkshires,
an inn in Nashville, Indiana, and as the street ad-
dress of a wildflower retreat in Atlantic Mine, Michi-
gan. Naumkeg, as some might say, has legs. [Note
that, below, Green and Sachse use the form “Abnaki,” which is an
acceptable alternative spelling.—Ed.]

Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:26 AM Page 16
Queries about Indian placenames are almost always about
locality (where is it or where was it?) or meaning. Somewhat
more rarely the question is “What was the language it came
from?” Here on Nantucket, the placenames are of Eastern Al-
gonquian origin. William Bright, in his reference book, uses
the abbreviation “SNEng. Algonquian” as a cover term for the
regional varieties of this indigenous language of Southern
New England.
The language specific to the Cape and islands has been
variously called Massachusett, Natick, and Wampanoag. It
is recognizably the same language as that of the Bible
translation by John Eliot that was printed in Harvard Yard
and published in 1663. Writing a century later, J. Hector St.
John de Crèvecoeur mentioned the presence of copies of
this Bible on Nantucket and, indeed, the Congregational
Society Library in Boston holds an Eliot Bible from Nan-
tucket with considerable annotation in the language writ-
ten into the margins.
Not only are the Indian placenames on Nantucket uni-
formly from this language, the number of them surviving to
the present is unprecedented even in New England. Writing
in Historic Nantucket in 1997, Dr. Elizabeth A. Little re-
marked that “Eighty-six recorded Indian placenames on an
island of one hundred and thirty square kilometers is a den-
sity of 0.7 names per square kilometer. By contrast, the
whole of Connecticut has a density of 0.04 recorded Indian
 | Historic Nantucket
Historical Map of Nantucket, by the Rev. Ferdinand C. Ewer, D. D.,
1869.
placenames per square kilometer.” Clearly, Nantucket offers
plenty of names for inquiry.
Available from the Nantucket Historical Association are a
number of resources for pursuing such inquiries, ranging
from the placenames mentioned incidentally by Zaccheus
Macy in his late-eighteenth-century “Account of the names of
the old sachems” (reproduced for ready reference in #7 of the
NHA’s Nantucket Algonquian Studies series); to Ferdinand C.
Ewer’s 1869 map of the island; to an unalphabetized list of
names sent to the Inquirer and Mirror by Myron S. Dudley
and printed on August 11, 1894; to a list in Henry Barnard
Worth’s Nantucket Lands and Land Owners, published in 1901
(reprinted in 1992); to a 1914 list extracted from R. A. Douglas-
Lithgow’s Dictionary of the American-Indian Place and Proper
Names in New England; to Dr. Little’s publications in the 1980s
and 1990s. What is more, in 1996 the Nantucket Island Cham-
ber of Commerce offered the public a list of twenty-seven
items (three sachems’ names, twenty-three placenames, and
a phrase) “compiled from a variety of sources from the Nan-
tucket Historical Association’s Research Library.”
In addition to these homegrown sources, the NHA
Research Library has two published books about placenames
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:27 AM
The language specific to the Cape and Islands
has been variously called Massachusett
Natick, and Wampanoag
not restricted to the island. One is Names of the Land: Cape
Cod, Nantucket, Martha’sVineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands,
by Eugene Green and William Sachse (Chester, Connecticut:
The Globe Pequot Press, 1983), and the other is Native Ameri-
can Placenames of the United States by William Bright (Nor-
man, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004).
These various resources offer different things. The Ewer
map of 1874 (NHARL MS 1000) situates the placenames but
provides no meanings (or glosses, as a lexicographer might
say, enclosing them between single quotation marks). On
the other hand, even though it was not his primary purpose,
in describing the limits of various sachems’ authority on the
island Zaccheus Macy did provide meanings for some of the
placenames he mentions—notably, for Miacomet (“meeting
place”), Tuckernuck (“loaf of bread”), Wesco (“white stone”),
and Weweeder (“pair of horns”). A childhood bilingual who
spent his whole life in close contact with Wampanoags,
Macy speaks to us from firsthand knowledge. His placenames
and the meanings he attached to them have been passed
down through a great many generations of English-speaking
Nantucketers as accepted wisdom.
Dudley sent his list of seventy-nine names (a mix of
placenames and personal names) to the newspaper hoping
that others might offer meanings beyond those eight he knew
(which were handed down from Zaccheus Macy more than a
century earlier).
Worth offered an eight-page list of seventy placenames,
providing glosses for some, but by no means all of them. He
included Macy’s glosses, but offered expansions and correc-
tions. In the case of Miacomet, he changed the gloss from
“meeting place” to “Meeting House,” making reference to the
historical existence of a Christian meetinghouse used for wor-
ship by the Wampanoag residents of the village of Miacomet
in the eighteenth century. Macy had offered the name “Water-
Page 17
,
comet” with the gloss “pond field” (which certainly fits the
chain of ponds from the North Shore to the North Head of the
Hummock), but Worth corrects this to Wannacomet with the
gloss “fine or beautiful field.” In addition, he mentions that
Madaket is said to mean “bad land,” but expresses some skep-
ticism by remarking “but why this should be applied here is
not clear.”
Soon, Douglas-Lithgow weighed in with an alphabetical list
of ninety-one Nantucket placenames, many with multiple
spellings. For the most part he concurs on meanings with
Worth and with Macy before him, repeating Madaket as “bad
land,” but backing off to “meeting place” for Miacomet and
apparently compromising between Macy and Worth by gloss-
ing Wannacomet as “beautiful water or rock.”
Green and Sachse’s little book is obviously for popular
consumption, with little drawings and anecdotes scattered
among the entries. Some of what they purvey as fact is far
from it. At the beginning of the Nantucket section, in their
entry for Abram’s Point, for instance, they state that Abram
Quary’s father killed two men in 1769 and died on the gal-
lows by Nantucket’s Newtown Gate. This is fiction derived
from Joseph C. Hart’s nineteenth-century novel Miriam
Coffin, or The Whale-Fishermen.
Given such an inauspicious beginning to their al-
phabetical list of Nantucket placenames, it comes as a sur-
prise that for the twenty-eight Nantucket Indian placenames
they offer not just glosses but Algonquian etymologies.
Some go astray, such as deriving Hummock Pond from
tètoukèmah “possibly related to Abnaki teteba ‘level’ +
kamighe ‘place’” when, in fact, the pond was named for the
minor sachem Wannanahumma, whose name was short-
ened to Nanahuma (as in Nanahuma’s Neck, the land that
divides the two arms of the pond) and then again to
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HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:27 AM Page 18
Humma, which was used by the sachem’s descendants as a
surname in the seventeenth century.
Another howler is their explanation that the Poot Ponds
were named for “hornpouts that local fishermen catch.”
Their take on Madaket is completely different from Worth’s.
They derive it from mat’uhtugh ‘without wood’ + auke
‘land.’ For Wesco they offer the following explanation of the
reference to a rock: “The shores of the village were rocky, es-
pecially close to the moorings of what is now Straight
Wharf.” (This is news to me, since rocks had to be imported
from the mainland to build the wharves and cobble the
streets of sandy Nantucket.)
This book by Green and Sachse is a fount of misinforma-
tion, yet many of their glosses, complete with etymologies,
do agree with Macy, Worth, and Douglas-Lithgow before
them. Despite its misleading ways, the book is rather inter-
esting for what it ambitiously attempted.
Elizabeth Little put together a list of seventy-seven Nan-
tucket placenames for the 1983 Algonquian Conference.
In 1997, she expanded it to eighty-four entries and pro-
vided two maps. The intellectual polar opposite of Green
and Sachse, Little was scrupulous to the point of eliminat-
ing from her lists a number of names that are clearly of in-
digenous origin but for which she could not account to
her own satisfaction. She also refrained from providing
glosses she was unable to vouch for. This makes both her
conference article and her 1997 Historic Nantucket article
frustrating for someone who just wants to know what a
particular placename means. Little, who provides in ex-
quisite detail the variant spellings of Nantucket placenames
and their early documentation, would insist that there are
no easy answers.
The late William Bright, professor emeritus of linguistics
and anthropology at UCLA, was more sympathetic to peo-
ple who want to know what a placename means and why
a place came to be called that. For years he was in charge
of the “placename department” of the newsletter of the
Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the
Americas, providing explanations that are succinct, lin-
guistically well informed, and engaging. In 2004, the Uni-
versity of Oklahoma Press published his Native American
Placenames of the United States. As a longtime fan of his
SSILA columns, I was delighted by the publication of this
book, and as a Nantucketer, I was attracted by the Univer-
sity of Oklahoma Press’s advertisement in which the word
Madequecham was part of the design.
In the End the dust jacket for the book does not
, tive American Placenames of the United States, however,
feature Madequecham, but Madaket occupies the upper
left corner of the back cover. Inside, Bright offers for
Madaket a derivation from matahquadt “cloudy, overcast.”
For Siasconset, which has previously been glossed as “at the
place of the large bone,” he suggests instead a derivation
that adds up to “at the place of many small bones.” An in-
triguing suggestion by Bright is that Miacomet, as a meet-
ing place, does not refer to the Christian meetinghouse
 | Historic Nantucket
once located there, but is
derived from an Algo-
nquian construction
meaning “where we
meet to fish.” For sure,
people have been fishing
off the beach at the end
of Miacomet Pond for
much longer (before and
since) than the interlude
when a meetinghouse
was located in the vicinity.
Like Little, Bright doesn’t reach to provide an etymology
or a gloss if there is scant or questionable evidence for
one. Despite our tradition of Nantucket as “far-away is-
land, land far out at sea,” he will only commit himself to
“of obscure origin, perhaps meaning ‘in the midst of wa-
ters.’” There is considerable, and to my mind healthy, use
of “possibly” and “perhaps” in this book.
Bright’s main authorities for what he writes about Nan-
tucket placenames are John Charles Huden’s Indian Place
Names of New England, published in 1962, and Elizabeth
Little’s article as it appeared in the 1984 Papers of the Fif-
teenth Algonquian Conference, edited by William Cowan of
Carleton University. Bright only learned about her Historic
Nantucket article with its documentation of seven addi-
tional Nantucket placenames after his book had gone to
press. It is a little frustrating to find that a half dozen or so
common Nantucket placenames are missing from his
book, although Bright’s omissions do not exactly corre-
spond to the additions to Little’s 1997 list.
While the Nantucket-generated placename lists
are strictly local, and Green and Sachse don’t look beyond
the Cape and islands, Bright’s book provides national cover-
age and puts our local placenames in a larger context. In
using this book, the inquirer trades some kinds of informa-
tion for other kinds, such as the migration of placenames
from their original locations to faraway places. Naumkeg
could have been a case in point. I would have thought that
had Bright’s book been at hand when I received the query
about Naumkeg, I would have been able to look it up and
instantly trace it to its Abenaki source. To my surprise, how-
ever, Naumkeg/Naumkeag does not appear in Native
American Placenames of the United States.
Multitudes of other fascinating names with locations,
meanings, and sources do appear within the pages of Na-
and I hope that the big red book in the reference section of
the NHA Research Library finds many readers.
frances karttunen, a twelfth-generation Nantucketer, is a
retired professor of linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin
and author of many articles and several books, including The Other
Islanders: People Who Pulled Nantucket’s Oars, New Bedford: Spin-
ner Publications, (2005).
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:27 AM Page 19
C U R AT O R I A L Ben Simons
Winterthur Museum & Country Estate Traveling Exhibition
Harbor & Home:
The Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710–1850
I n July 2009, the Nantucket Historical Association will
host its first major traveling exhibition, Harbor & Home:
The Furniture of Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710–1850,
on loan from Winterthur Museum & Country Estate. The Win-
terthur exhibition focuses on a largely unstudied region of New
England furniture—the area between Boston and Providence, which
includes the unique seafaring communities of the Cape and islands.
Nantucket furniture, influenced by the restraint and elegant crafts-
manship of the island’s Quaker community, is extremely rare, and has
never been studied with the scholarly intensity that Winterthur cura-
tor Brock Jobe and his colleagues have dedicated to produce the exhi-
bition and the accompanying catalog. Remarkably, of the seventy-plus
artifacts included in Winterthur’s exhibition, thirteen are from the col-
lection of the Nantucket Historical Association, including gifts of the
Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association and the Max and Heidi
Berry Acquisition Fund. The Nantucket appearance of the exhibition is
sponsored in part by Wilmington Trust FSB of Massachusetts. Major
additional support has been provided by Amos and Barbara Hostetter,
Jay and StephanieWilson, and Hampton and Helen Lynch.
The NHA collections featured in Harbor & Home will include the as-
tronomical tall-case clock made by island geniusWalter Folger Jr.; ex-
amples of the classic NantucketWindsor chair form, including the 1799
brace-back arm chair made by Nantucketer Frederick Slade (1777–
1800); an outstanding inlaid tilt-top candlestand and a cylinder-fall in-
laid Federal desk made by Nantucketer Heman Ellis (1770–1816); and a
4-slat ladderback Quaker Monthly Meeting side chair—to mention a
few examples.
One iconic Nantucket creation in the exhibition deserves special
mention:Walter Folger Jr.’s astronomical tall-case clock. DanielWebster
described this unusual individual during a visit to Nantucket with
HARBOR & HOME EVENTS
Wednesday, July 1 Thursday, July 2
Gary R.Sullivan,“Early Clock Members Preview Party
Making in Southeastern Harbor & Home:
Massachusetts.” The Furniture of Southeastern
Antique furniture and clock specialist Gary Massachusetts,1710–1850
R. Sullivan, coauthor of the exhibition cata-
Peter Foulger Gallery,
log Harbor & Home: The Furniture of
Whaling Museum
Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710–1850,
5:30–7:00 P.M.
will discuss examples of antique clocks in
Winterthur’s traveling exhibition, including
the tall-case clock made by Nantucket
geniusWalter Folger Jr.
Whaling Museum, 13 Broad Street
7–8 p.m., Free for NHA members
$15 general public, $8 Children
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “On the Island of Nan-
tucket met with a philosopher, mathematician,
and astronomer in Walter Folger, worthy to be
ranked among the great discoverers in science.
He preferred to live quietly in his home town
among his old friends.” Folger was one of Nan-
tucket’s most gifted scholars and inventors—a
true Renaissance man. Self-taught in the disci-
plines of navigation, mathematics, astron-
omy, surveying, and French, Folger pursued
his studies while working as a maker and re-
pairer of clocks and watches. His island ac-
quaintances were less polite, describing him
as being “as odd as huckleberry chowder.”
The extremely precocious Folger started
work on his astronomical clock in 1788,
using a standard Boston-style brass movement. He worked two
years on the clock, setting it in operation on July 4, 1790. The
eight-day, weight-powered, brass-movement clock not only tells
the time but indicates the year, month, and day; tracks the mo-
tion of the sun and its “house,” or Zodiac; the motion and
phases of the moon; and gives a regular reading of the high tide
at ’Sconset. Folger may have engraved the dial or had it en-
graved by local silversmith Benjamin Bunker. A document in the
NHA collection testifies that the mahogany case was made by
cabinetmaker Cornelius Allen (1767–1835), who was working on
Nantucket at the time. This remarkable invention, more of an
intellectual puzzle than a functional household item, has fre-
quently been cited as one of the most important American
clocks to have been made during the days of the early republic.
Friday, July 3
Exhibition Opens to Public
Harbor & Home: The Furniture of
Southeastern Massachusetts, 1710–1850
Peter Foulger Gallery,
Whaling Museum
Tuesday, July 28
Friends of the NHA Lecture
Brock Jobe, Professor of American
Decorative Arts, Winterthur Museum
Photos: Jeffrey Allen Photography
& Country Estate, will present Harbor
& Home: The Furniture of Southeastern
Massachusetts, 1710–1850.
Whaling Museum
13 Broad Street, 6 p.m.
Reception immediately following
Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:27 AM
RESTORATION UNDER WAY
AT GREATER LIGHT
The NHA must raise $210,000 to complete project by 2011
Restoration of the NHA’s historic property, Greater Light, is now
under way.
The NHA is grateful for the generous support already provided for the
project by gifts and grants from individuals, foundations, and the Nan-
tucket Community Preservation Committee and from Toscana Corpo-
ration, which supplied its services at a reduced cost. Fund-raising efforts
are now focused on the remaining $210,000 needed to reach the $1.2-
million goal to complete the restoration project by spring 2011.
To allow time to complete the fund-raising needed for the final inte-
rior finish work, the NHA made the decision earlier this year to divide
the Greater Light restoration project into three phases.
Following approval by the Historic District Commission of the archi-
tectural plans developed by Steven Blashfield, director of design at Chip
Webster and Associates, the NHA selected Twig Perkins Inc. as general
contractor. The company has worked on many historic restorations on
island, including the NHA’s Oldest House after it was struck by lightning
in 1988.
Exterior work began at the 8 Howard Street site in March 2009 when
Toscana Corporation lifted the building and excavated the existing foun-
dation. Since then, contractors have been restoring and rebuilding por-
tions of the foundation, replacing timbers, and strengthening the
building’s structural frame. By early summer, this first part of the proj-
ect will be completed, and Greater Light will have a secure foundation
and a weather-tight shell, including new shingles and a new roof. In def-
erence to the neighbors, no construction will occur in July and August.
Work will resume in the fall and continue through spring 2010 on the
 | Historic Nantucket
Page 20
NANTUCKET
HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
second part of the restoration—the interior rough work, which includes
installation of all plumbing pipes, conduit, and utility wires and cables
in the open-framed walls. Although now scheduled for fall 2010 to spring
2011, the interior finish work will commence when the NHA has com-
pleted fund-raising for the final part of restoration.
The Greater Light property was bequeathed to the NHA in the 1970s
by Hanna Monaghan, who, with her sister Gertrude, bought the prop-
erty in the early 1930s and converted the eighteenth-century barn into
an eclectic summer home and art studio. The Quaker sisters were part
of a group of artists who found inspiration on Nantucket and began es-
tablishing an art colony here in the 1920s. For a number of years, the
NHA operated the property as a house museum, but the need for ex-
tensive repairs necessitated its closure. The charming garden, however,
has been generously maintained by a benefactor and kept open for ap-
preciative visitors.
At completion of the restoration, the NHA will seek the remaining
$600,000 of funding needed to interpret Greater Light and develop pro-
grams that bring to life Nantucket’s emergence as an art colony and re-
sort. Much as it was enjoyed by the Monaghan sisters and their friends,
Greater Light will become a venue for lifelong learning in the arts and
small gatherings that extol the arts and culture.
For more information about supporting the restoration and interpre-
tation of Greater Light,including naming opportunities,please con-
tact JudithWodynski,director of external relations,at (508) 228 1894,
ext.111,or jwodynski@nha.org.
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:28 AM Page 21

News Notes & Highlights

NHA 2009 Exhibition Highlights
March 14–June 7
Keeping Time in Sag Harbor:
Photographs by Stephen Longmire
A fascinating photographic portrait of Sag Harbor, the early
whaling port on Long Island, by writer, photographer, and historic
preservationist Stephen Longmire.
Peter Foulger Gallery, Whaling Museum

May 23–December 31
Views from the South Tower:
Unitarian Church,1809–2009
The exhibition celebrates the 200th anniversary of the Unitarian
Church on Orange Street through artwork, posters, historic
photographs, pamphlets, and other artifacts, including a scale model
of the historic structure. Opening Reception, May 23, 4:00 P.M.
Whitney Gallery in the NHA Research Library, 7 Fair Street
Exhibition is open during Library hours.

May 31–August 31
Landmarks of Nantucket!
A student-curated photography exhibition. Thirty Nantucket
schoolchildren photograph what they consider their favorite
“island landmarks.” Funding provided by the Nantucket Golf Club
Foundation.
Hadwen & Barney Candle Factory, Whaling Museum
13 Broad Street
July 2 to November 2
Harbor & Home:The Furniture of Southeastern
Massachusetts,1710–1850
Winterthur Museum & Country Estate Traveling Exhibition;
see exhibition preview on page 19.
Peter Foulger Gallery, Whaling Museum

September 4–November 8
Camera’s Coast: Historic Images
of Ship and Shore in New England
The Whaling Museum will host Historic New England’s traveling
exhibition of classic views of New England maritime communities,
including Nantucket, based on the book of the same title by
William H. Bunting.
Hadwen & Barney Candle Factory
Whaling Museum, 13 Broad Street

May Is Preservation Month shore known as “Sherburne,”

In recognition of Preservation
Month, and in celebration of the
350th anniversary of English set-
tlement on Nantucket, Mark
Avery, NHA manager of historic
properties, will lead a series of
three walking tours exploring
the origins of Nantucket’s first
English settlement and its archi-
tectural styles.
On May 7 and May 21, Avery
will present a two-hour walking
tour, “A Walking Tour of Old
Sherburne,” leading visitors
through the early English settle-
ment on Nantucket’s north
the location of the original set-
tlers’ first village. The two tours
will depart from Tupancy Links
parking lot on Cliff Road at 1:30
P.M.
On May 15, Avery will lead an
additional one-hour “in town”
walking tour, “A Walking Tour of
Nantucket’s Earliest Houses,”
through historic downtown
Nantucket, to explore the collec-
tion of early houses moved from
Old Sherburne that predate the
town around them. This tour will
depart at 1:30 P.M. from the
Whaling Museum at 13 Broad
Street. Tickets are $10 for adults,
$4 children (ages 6–17), free for
NHA members.
Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1
News Notes & Highlights
Kerry Hallam’s artwork for the 2009 Nantucket
Wine Festival
Nantucket
Wine Festival
The NantucketWine FestivalWine Auction
Dinner will take place Saturday, May 16,
2009. “This dinner auction is an important
one, because all of the proceeds benefit the
Nantucket Historical Association,” said NWF
president and founder Denis Toner. “This
year we are presenting by far the greatest
combination of food and wine in the history
of the NWF. We are fortunate to have guest
chef Daniel Bruce of Meritage—at the
Boston Harbor Hotel—who is celebrating his
twentieth year of presenting food and wine
pairing dinners at the Boston Wine Festival,
and has achieved national recognition for
his skill in this difficult culinary art form.
“The auction will feature the best selection
of wines ever showcased—including a rare
and exceptional bottle of 1870 Chateau Lafite
that is in impeccable condition and referred
to by Robert Parker as the greatest pre-phyl-
loxera Bordeaux he has ever tasted. All in all,
this promises to be an evening that will rock
the tent rafters at the White Elephant and do
a lot of good for the NHA. Don’t miss it; seat-
ing is limited.”
You may still purchase tickets to the May 16
Wine Auction Dinner directly from the NHA. If
you plan to attend the Wine Auction Dinner
and would like to reserve your space early,
please contact Stacey Stuart at (508) 228 1894,
ext. 130.
 | Historic Nantucket
3/27/09 11:28 AM Page 22
32nd Annual
August Antiques Show
Show moves to Bartlett’s Farm for 2009
The 32nd annual August Antiques Show will begin on July 31 and
run through August 2. The committee is delighted to announce that
a new location has been chosen to showcase the event’s outstand-
ing dealers: the show and preview party will be held under a mag-
nificent white tent at Bartlett’s Farm, 33 Bartlett Farm Road. As in
past years, the prestigious Antiques Council will manage the August
Antiques Show.
The major fund-raising event for the NHA’s preservation and edu-
cation programs, this year’s show is chaired by Olivia Charney, and
will be dedicated to the memory of Heidi L. Berry, a member of the
NHA board of trustees from 2003 to 2007, past president of the
Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association, and chair of the Olivia Charney
Friends lecture series.
Antiques Show week will begin on Tuesday, July 28, at 6:00 P.M., with
a lecture by Brock Jobe, Professor of American Decorative Arts, Winterthur Museum & Coun-
try Estate. Sponsored by the Friends of the Nantucket Historical Association, the lecture will
be held at the Whaling Museum with a reception immediately following.
For the sixth consecutive year, the August Antiques Show Preview Party is being sponsored
by Eaton Vance Investment Counsel, and will be held Thursday, July 30, 6–9 P.M.
The August Antiques Show hours are Friday and Saturday, 10 A.M.–5 P.M. and Sunday, 10 A.M.–
4 P.M., Bartlett’s Farm, 33 Bartlett Farm Rd. To learn more about the 32nd August Antiques Show
or to reserve tickets, please call Stacey Stuart at the Nantucket Historical Association (508) 228
1894, ext. 130, or visit www.nha.org.
Early American Arts
and Crafts Classes
at 1800 House
Art inspired by history
The educational programs at the 1800 House are dedicated to
celebrating and reviving Nantucket’s rich tradition in historic
decorative arts and crafts. Two-thousand and nine marks the fifth
successful season for the Early American Arts and Crafts classes
at the NHA’s historic 1800 House, 4 Mill Street.
Beginning on May 26 and running through mid-October, over
fifty courses are being offered in centuries-old techniques taught
by artisans from Nantucket and throughout New England. Some
of the classes include: Sailors Valentines, Carved Whirligigs on a
Whale, Découpage Under Glass, Bentwood Willow Chair, and
Theorem Painting. This year, the 1800 House is offering a number
of new courses and instructors, as well as one-day and holiday
workshops.
Class size is limited in some instances and reservations and pre-
payment must be made in advance. Discounts to NHA members;
course fee includes all class materials.
Please go to www.nha.org/1800house for full course listing and
registration information.
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:28 AM Page 23
Weekly Tours of the Oldest
House Kitchen Garden
Hour-long tours begin May 23
Offered every Friday from 1 to 2 P.M., informa-
tive garden tours will be offered May 23
through September 4 at the Oldest House, 16
Sunset Hill Lane.
During the hour-long tour, guests will learn
about the herbs and plants and their uses in
this replicated 1700s kitchen garden. In addi-
tion to the garden, guests will enjoy viewing a
small apple orchard appropriate to the pe-
riod. The Oldest House and Kitchen Garden
will be open for the season May 23–June 26,
Monday–Sunday, noon–4 P.M.; and then daily
through September 6, Monday–Sunday,
noon–4 P.M. From September 7 to October 12,
the house and garden will be open Thursday–
Monday, noon–4 P.M. The garden tour is free
for NHA members, $6 general public. Oldest House Kitchen Garden Tour 2008
Exceptional
events begin with
unforgettable
venues…
Celebrate your historic milestones sur-
rounded by Nantucket treasures. The Nan-
tucket Historical Association properties are
wonderful locations for weddings, welcome
parties, rehearsal dinners, receptions, cock-
tail parties, and corporate events. Surround
your guests with elegant art and important
objects that bring the story of Nantucket’s
past to life at our world-class museum. Lo-
cated in the heart of Nantucket Town, the
museum can accommodate both small and
large gatherings—a perfect mix of state-of-
the-art and old-world design. Your guests
will also enjoy breathtaking views of Nan-
tucket harbor, town, and beyond from the
rooftop observation deck.
Please call Susan Beaumont at (508) 228
1894, ext. 131, for details about hosting a
memorable party in the Whaling Museum or
other NHA properties.
NHA Membership
Reminder
The NHA relies on membership to provide
the vital core support for our curatorial, re-
search, preservation, and educational activi-
ties. We receive no state, local, or federal
operating funds. If you know of someone in-
terested in becoming a member, or need ad-
ditional information for your own
membership, please call (508) 228 1894, ask
for Beth at ext. 116. Important benefits at
every level are: unlimited admission to our
Whaling Museum and historic properties, a
subscription to Historic Nantucket, the NHA
Calendar of Events, discounts at the Museum
Shop, and the use of the NHA Research Li-
brary – to name just a few!
IN MEMORIAM
The editorial commit-
tee of Historic Nan-
tucket lost a longtime,
devoted member with
Photo: Beverly Hall
the passing of book ed-
itor Tom Congdon on
December 23, 2008. A
graduate of St. George’s
School in Newport, R.I., andYale, he re-
ceived his master’s degree from Columbia
University Graduate School of Journalism
after serving in the U.S. Navy aboard the
battleships USS Iowa and USS Wisconsin.
During a distinguished career that started
with the Saturday Evening Post and in-
cluded many top publishing companies,
Congdon began his own publishing firm in
1978. He worked with such notable authors
as Peter Benchley, Russell Baker, David Hal-
berstam, TennesseeWilliams, and others,
in a literary career spanning more than four
decades. A devoted husband, father, and
grandfather, his wit, knowledge, and gen-
tlemanly manner are greatly missed.
Survivors
The solitary dooryard oak
Still holds from summer’s deep green cloak
A scattering of leaves. Now dry
And dull, they hang against the sky.
These leaves, outlasting all the rest,
Refuse to fall, endure to test
The winter.To wind-whipped twigs they cling
With withered stems—until the spring
Erupts again in green, gives birth
To seeing, brash new growth
And, lacking room for both,
Crowds tattered, life-worn leaves to earth.
Tom Congdon, 1958
Spring 2009 | 
HistoricNantucketSpringFinal:Layout 1 3/27/09 11:28 AM Page 24

MAKE THE
GIFT OF
A LIFETIME
in 2009 with a tax-free charitable IRA
Join the members of the Nantucket Historical Association who are
taking advantage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of
2008 which allows you to make a tax-free transfer of your excess
retirement assets to the NHA only in 2009.
If you are age 70½ or older,you can rollover up to $100,000 from a
traditional or Roth IRA directly to the NHA.This amount would be
excluded from your income and taxes and count toward your
mandatory IRA withdrawals.In addition,your heirs would not be
burdened later by the substantial taxes associated with inheriting
an IRA.
Making a gift to the NHA during your lifetime lets you see the
results of your philanthropy.Gifts may be directed to the permanent
endowment,the Annual Fund,or to a specific area of interest,such as
Greater Light,theWhaling Museum,the Research Library,
1800 House,or educational programs.

For further information, consult your financial

professional or contact Judith Wodynski.
508 228 1894, ext. 111
email: jwodynski@nha.org

Periodical

Historic Nantucket POSTAGE PAID

at Nantucket, MA
and Additional
P.O. Box 1016, Nantucket, MA 02554-1016 www.nha.org
Entry Offices