TRUST MEMBERS STUDY THE ISLAND LIFE OF NANTUCKET

Perhaps the most recognized architectural symbol of Nantucket, the Congregationalist Church Steeple.

Eager numbers of symposium members swelled Nantucket’s population in October. In glorious days of sun, showers and gusty wind, we walked its streets, visited its homes, handled its artifacts, and immersed ourselves in its whaling past. The silver-gray clapboard buildings, elegant shops and restaurants, cliffs and beaches saw symposium students from across the country; and all of us came away with comprehension of an island life that, though largely vanished, has left a deep impression on the American character.

The resounding success of our island adventure was due to the place, of course, since Nantucket is remarkable. But most visitors to that remarkable place aren’t given such superb guides.

Pat Butler, Executive Director of the Nantucket Preservation Trust, was a great guide to the architectural history of the town.

Tony Dimitru, one of the Trust's Curtis Scholars in Lancaster in 2001, welcomed us to the Nantucket Historical Association, where he has joined the curatorial staff.

The Nantucket Historical Association was our host, and everyone devoted themselves to us during our visit. Frank Milligan, its Executive Director, welcomed us warmly. David Wood, its First Vice President, and Nina Hellman of its Advisory Board shared their expertise generously. Niles Parker, its Museum Director and Chief Curator, spent virtually the whole weekend with us, speaking on the island’s history and character, and insuring that all doors were opened and all needs met. We spent an incredible afternoon in the Whaling Museum (opened for us, in the midst of its move into storage while enlarged facilities are built), where we saw spectacular scrimshaw and heard a harrowing

Trust Governor Dean Failey talks with Curtis Scholar Gary Gorman, from the University of Florida at Gainesville.

account of the hunting of a sperm whale. Tony Dumitru, a former Dewey Lee Curtis Scholar who’s now a contented “wash-ashore” (off-islanders who come to stay) on the curatorial staff of the NHA, provided us with the satisfaction it always gives us to see a former student enriching the profession. Among our numbers were Ben Simons and Gary Gorman, two of a new generation of Curtis Scholars.

If Niles was our fixed point, Pat Butler, Executive Director of the Nantucket Preservation Trust, was our moving beacon. Pat took charge of our several walking tours and visits throughout the weekend, with her assistant Mark Avery. Their guidance was personal and thoughtful, giving us the feeling of being ”off-island” friends rather than a cluster of tourists. Her great lecture on the island architecture reinforced everything we’d seen

Two Philadelphians, Kathleen Mulhern and Mary Williams, enjoy a chat in Trust member Barbara Bailey's home.

The island’s hospitality was overwhelming, particularly for a community that Niles Parker described as having a “leave me alone out here” attitude. We were welcomed into homes and collections at every turn. Perhaps the most significant memory we carried away was the diversity of the structures, the collections and the people who were our generous hosts. All of that variety within the silver-gray island gave the lie to the sometimes-expressed notion of Nantucket as drab. Nothing could be further from somber than the vivid colors and patterns in the home of longtime Trust member Barbara Bailey and her husband, who were our hosts on a windy, wonderful evening. Barbara is a “symposium friend” to many of us, through her frequent attendance; so it was a particular treat to be able to visit her at home. There were painterly vistas of sand and sea from the windows of Heidi and Max Berry’s elegant home; but when we turned from the windows, the gracious rooms and fine collections were equally compelling. And compelling is the word for the starlit views of the town from the roof of Bob and Mia Matthews’ grand Colonial Revival manor.

Good friends: Patricia Hills, scholar of American paintings and Trust President Jonathan Fairbanks. Dr. Hills delivered the second Fairbanks Lecture and Endowed Lectureship, given by a Trust member to honor Jonathan.

But it wasn’t all entertainment. Trust symposiums have a tradition of scholarly instruction, and this group of speakers equaled the best. American painting scholar and curator Patricia Hills delivered the second in the series of what President Fairbanks calls “the Jonathan Fairbanks not-yet-memorial lectures,” endowed by a generous Trust member to honor our President. Speaking about the painting of Nantucket, Hills showed us the island as it was recorded in the 19th century by some of America’s best landscape and genre painters. She emphasized the work of Eastman Johnson because he summered there for years, with the island culture becoming ingrained in his art as in his life. Most who look with awe at his legendary images don’t realize they’re seeing Nantucket and its inhabitants.

Trust Governor Jane Nylander took us on a delightful tour through the earliest collections that gathered and celebrated America’s (especially New England’s) past. Everyone collects: Jane showed her own family’s “cabinet of curiosities” and talked about early antiquarians’ insatiable efforts to catalogue and organize the world. New Englanders’ sense that they were special, with a special responsibility to preserve their past, led to the earliest antiquarian efforts in our history, like Nantucket’s celebration of its first centennial in 1732 by a sermon preached at the Coffin House. From the Carver Chair through Deerfield Academy’s collections and Eliza McCleave’s 19th-century Nantucket museum, the road runs right to the New England Kitchen of the Centennial, and from there to the museums and historic houses of today.

The shop and personnel of Nantucket antiques dealer Wayne Pratt added much to the symposium. Mary Beth Keene taught us the basics of Nantucket Windsor chairs (“green chairs”), ladderbacks (“4-backs”); and small tripod tables at the shop and in her lecture.

Trust members look on as Mary Beth Keene of the the Wayne Pratt Gallery points out distinctive details of a Nantucket windsor chair.

We learned about the coastal trade in wood, and the startling fact that by the 1830’s Salem, Boston and Nantucket were the 3 richest cities in the nation. Wayne Pratt teamed with David Wood, a twelfth-generation islander, in a hands-on study of Nantucket baskets.

Julie McClure of Bradenton, Florida, examine an extraordinary nest of antique Nantucket baskets with Wayne Pratt.

Wood, who began by saying that when he grew up the baskets were “as common as brooms” said of those collectors’ treasures that Nantucket families “don’t buy them, we have them.” He feels their origin was the coopers’ whale oil casks. He displayed a fine bushel basket with wooden “heart” handles, and read an 1879 article describing an 81-year-old whaler, Captain Ray, who made baskets from a quart to a half-bushel, most sold to visitors to the island. Around 1900, he said, the Coffin School had a woman on staff who taught the girls basketry; he was told that today’s pocket-book baskets began as baskets made by the girls to be hung, filled with flowers, on doors on May Day.

Nina Hellman, praised by Niles Parker for having catalogued their superb collection of scrimshaw, taught us about that “great indigenous form of American folk art” with the same love, experience, and attention to detail shown by Wayne Pratt and David Wood. Whalers had plenty of spare time for making things, using the materials and tools at hand. Whale teeth were originally trade goods, so it wasn’t until the 1820’s that common sailors had access to them, though later they were given teeth from captured whales as prizes. We saw implements from pie crimpers, rolling pins and corset busks to yarn winders (swifts) and ditty boxes. And we had the opportunity to view the objects themselves when Hellman guided us at the Whaling Museum later that day.

Dr. Theodore Steinbock, who had spoken to Trust members about the great books of Early New England, also welcomed us to his home.

Dr. Theodore Steinbock, radiologist and bibliophile, guided us as well; his tour was through the wonders of Puritan literature. “The printed word,” he said,” is magical, if not religious,” said Steinbok, who has collected books since his student years. “You know you’re a collector if you believe that one copy [of a book] is good, five is better.” The New England church, he said, had a lot of autonomy. Neither Presbyterian nor Anglican, it had “top-down” governance. The matters of government were of major concern to them, and there was constant pamphleteering about it. Pamphlets, sermons and almanacs seem to have issued from New England presses in an unending stream. Steinbock illustrated the title pages of the most significant of those, all from his own collections. He spoke about the impressive series of publications directed toward the native populations and concluded with a discussion of Cotton Mather, who wrote 445 works, and looked toward the coming enlightenment that would again change New England. As he pointed out, the first documents of the Revolution could be said to have issued from those unstoppable 17th century presses of New England.

Leslie Malcolm, the Trustee and In-Charge-of-Collections of Nantucket’s impressive Athenaeum, spoke with us and later toured us through another descendent of the intellectual New England mind. The concept of the Athenaeum — a combination library, meeting hall, museum and town center — is a ruling one in New England.

A windmill whose vanes could be turned to face the changeable winds helped islanders grind their grain.

We were pleased to see, on our walking tour, that the building was used heavily by islanders; and several of us lingered over the delightful children’s library.

Not only the Athenaeum but the Quaker Meeting, the Unitarian Church and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church enriched our walking tours. We were kindly received into several homes, including that of our speaker, Dr. Steinbock, and his wife. We visited the historic Jethro Coffin House, the Captain Richard Gardner House, the Hadwen House, and the home of horticulturist Eleanor Weller Reade, who had entertained us several years ago on an earlier symposium. Far from being distant and mistrustful of visitors, it seemed as though all of Nantucket were waiting to open its doors to us.

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