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THE PORT FOLIO,

new series,

CONDUCTED BY JOSEPH DENNIE, ESQ.

for the port folio.

A DESCRIPTION OF NANTUCKET.

      The description and view of Nantucket, which illustrate this month's Port Polio, will be surveyed with additional delight, when the public are apprized that, both for the sketch and the essny we are indebted to the genius of a gentleman^* who is a friend to the muses, to the fine arts, and to his country.

      The island of Nantucket has been called, "a sand bank," till its sterility has become proverbial, and no other idea of its naked plains is entertained upon the neighboring continent, than that they form a place for fishermen to dry their nets on. Yet the shoals of Nantucket, so carefully avoided by European navi-

gators, surround some thousand acres of arable land, deversified with hill and dale, and poductive [sic.], with little cultivation, of indian corn, rye, oats, barley, and all the variety of succulent vegetables, which contribute so largely to the support of man. Nay so rich is Nantucket in medicinal herbs, that it has been declared, by an eminent physician, to produce native remedies for all the diseases of its inhabitants; and a naturalist, who lately visited the island, in search of non-descripts, pronounced it, in the raptures of discovery, "A garden of plants." All this however might be fairly presumed, from the well-known fact, that when the first settlers landed here, they found two or three thousand natives, subsisting, with little care or labour, upon the spontaneous productions of the earth and sea. But, unhappily for these sons of the forest, their island though no more than three milas in width, was yet long enough, in the shape of a half moon, to admit of a divison in the middle; and from the earliest recollections of old age, or tradition, the inhabitants of the east end of it had been at war with those of the west, though they were only separated from each other by shaggy woods, and either party could at any time march along the beach, into the enemy's country, between the ebbing and flowing of the tides. Like the prouder history of civilized nations, their story is brief, without the interludes of war and bloodshed; and nothing more is now remembered of the Aboriginals of Nantucket, than that the last sachem of the Wampanoags (king Philip in the annals of Newengland) was acknowledged by them as lord paramount, and that all the wampum that could be collected upon the island, was once sent over to pacify his wrath against an offender.

      They received the new comers with open arms, and sold them all the land they did not actually occupy, with unsuspecting simplicity. Like the other natives of the American wilderness, notwithstanding the crude reports, or wilful misrepresentations, of superficial observers, the indians of Nantucket believed in "the Great Spirit," who created heaven and earth; and that the souls of good men would ascend to him in a future state. It was reserved for civilized man to conceive, that the frame of

the universe was constructed without design, and that the harmony of nature might be the result of accident. A zealous missionary arrived among them. They were converted to the christian faith; without adopting correspondent habits, their active ferocity sunk into listless indolence, and they gradually dwindled away, under the ravages of the small pox, and the debilitating effects of spirituous liquors, until in the winter of 1763—4 the then remainder, amounting to several hundreds, were nearly all swept off at once, by a pestilential fever. One or two old women now only survive of a population that may be traced on every hillock, and in every plain by mouldering clam shells, and those.local appellations, which are yet remembered, where the villages they belonged to have been long forgotten.

      It was in 1659 -- the year in which William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson suffered death, at Boston, for their religious protest against that intolerant zeal, which actuated the early rulers of Newengland, that Tomas Macy, the future patriarch of Nantucket, who then lived at Salisbury, near Salem in Massachuscts, was requested, one stormy night, by a couple of banished quakcrs, to permit them to take shelter in his barn: but, like Abraham of old, this good man was not unmindful to entertain strangers, and he received them into his house, notwithstanding a law of the colony against harbouring the obnoxious sectaries. For this offence he was prosecuted with the utmost rigour; and being himself a baptist, liable to all the pains and penalties of nonconformity to the orthodox pattern of faith and worship, he formed the resolution of quitting his native country, and migrating to Nantucket.

      Here he was soon joined from similar motives, by Edward Starbuck; and so little did these harmless men apprehend, any injury from the Indians by whom they were surrounded, that they settled near two miles apart. Not long afterwards the natives collected in great numbers, near Macy's plantation; and worked themselves up into a great fury, singing and dancing with all their might. Macy, apprehending they meant to exterminate the new comers, sent a boy round the beach to tell his "brother Starbuck" (for such it seems was their primitive phraseology)

that he believed the Indians were plotting mischief. Starbuck being a bold man is said to have took his hat and cane, and walked directly over to Macys, to see what was the matter, when, after looking awhile upon the Indians, he cried with a loud voice "Is not the Lord on our side? of whom shall we be afraid ? -- One shall chace a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight?" And sallying forth upon the astonished natives he brandished his staff, and drove them all off the turf. They understood afterwards however that it was nothing more than a grand "Pow-wow" by way of a prayer for rain -- surely an application not less acceptable to the universal Benefactor than a te dum for successful slaughter, though performed in a cathedral, by consecrated priests.

      These two families were soon joined by other sober people, of the presbyterian persuasion, who were admitted to the participation of equal rights, both civil and religious; and such was the simplicity of manners that prevailed among their posterity, and so little have these tranquil islanders been actuated by the love of power, or fame, that no name is so celebrated in Nantucket history as that of a female; and Mary Starbuck is remembered, after the lapse of a century, as the only person that ever obtained a marked ascendancy in the island. Nothing of importance was attempted, in her day, without consulting her; and even the town meeting delayed its temperate conclusions, till her opinion could be known. When John Richardson visited the island, in 1701, this eminent woman embraced the principles of Fox and Barclay, in which she was followed by many of her friends and neighbours, from whom are descended the present quakers of the place.

      Nantucket now constitutes a county of the same name, in the state of Massachusetts, containing eight or nine thousand inhabitants, who have a right to send nine representatives to the general court: but they seldom think it necessary to deputize more than one person, to attend to their interests at the seat of government; though the full extent of the elective franchise was lately exerted by the democratic party (which is here predominant) to influence some political question; and nine persons were chosen for legislators of the state, with as little regard

to qualification for office, as is frequently displayed in some other parts of this land of freedom, to the great disparagement of universal suffrage.

      The light house upon Nantucket stands in latitude 41.22, longitude 69.58. This singular island, which seems to have been designed by Providence, as a nursery for sailors, pilots, and fishermen, lies about eight leagues to the south of the peninsula of Cape Cod, and about seven to the cast of the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is reckoned about ninety miles from Boston, and three hundred and eighty from Philadelphia. -- Though little more than three miles in breadth, it is not less than fifteen in length, from east to west, with a long sandy point, stretching to the northward; which makes a fine road for ships, on the north side of the island, except when the wind is at northwest. The harbour is a fine natural basin, about a mile over, and 12 or 15 feet deep; but a bar of sand stretches quite across the mouth of it, on which there is but 7 feet of water at ebb tide, which renders it necessary to unload large vessels by means of lighters.

      The town was originally called Sherburne after a seaport of that name in Dorsetshire, G. B. but as there is no other place of any consequence upon the island, the distinctive appellation is lost in the general name of Nantucket. It is pleasantly situated upon a gentle slope, on the south-west side of the harbour, surmounted by a row of windmills, and flanked, to the right and left, by extensive ropewalks. There is generally 15 or 20 sail of square rigged vessels in port, with twice or three times that number of coasters, presenting a lively scene, as you enter from sea; the stores and houses, which are built of timber, being mostly painted red, or white, and crowned by the steeples, or rather towers, of two presbyterian meeting houses.

      This town has the honour of giving birth to the maternal grandfather of the great Franklin, his name was Peter Folger, and the doctor tells us, in the interesting narrative of his early life, that he was thought to have inherited from this ancestor some traits of his disposition. He was a writer, and dates a poe-

tical effusion, upon some local subject, with the public spirit so characteristic of his grandson,

      The whale fishery, upon which Nantucket depends, and which gives a peculiar character to its inhabitants, who are reckoned the most expert whalers in the world, is said to have been first attempted, about the year 1690, in boats, from the shore. In 1715 they had six sloops in the trade; and from 1772 to 75 the fishery employed 150 sail, from 90 to 180 tons, upon the coast of Giunea, the West Indies, and Brazil. The Revolution put a stop to this prosperous commerce, and it did not immediately revive upon the peace of 83; in consequence of which many families removed to Kennebeck, Newbedford, Hudson's River, North Carolina, and other places on the continent; but their place has been since amply supplied by new comers, who flocked thither from different parts, on the revival of trade, under the new constitution.

      A number of families, under the direction of the respectable William Rotch, had gone over to France at the invitation of the then prime minister, the count de Vergennes, to prosecute their useful occupation with peculiar privileges and immunities, at Dunkirk; but the revolution which hurled Lewis XVI from the throne taking place soon after, prevented their intended establishment; and the greater part of the adventurers happily returned to their own country, where some of them in their native place, and some at its thriving colony of Newbedford (distant 60 miles) have ever since pursued their favourite occupation; and, having chased their gigantic game out of the Atlantic, now pursue the flying whale into the great South Sea, frequently doubling Cape Horn, and sometimes ascending the north west coast of America, till they nearly encompass the globe, in voyages of two or three years duration.

      On these whaling trips round the world, instead of wages, every seaman takes a share in the ultimate proceeds of the voyage, a mode of engagement palpably conducive to habits of

industry and fidelity. They are often mere boys, who grow up during the voyage; but mostly married men, who have left wives and children behind them, to whom they return with all the earnestness of conjugal or parental affection, to share with them the well earned savings of their long protracted voyage.

      There are at present about 1200 sailors, and 15000 tons of shipping employed at this place; and 15 or 20 spermaceti works are erected on the island, which manufacture great quantities of candles, and supply the numerous light-houses of our coast, as well as the streets of our cities with oil; besides occasionally contributing to the unbounded consumption of the London market, and the frequent wants of Cadiz, Marseilles, and the Levant.

      Industry and frugality are virtues at Nantucket, and idleness is a vice. Every man upon the island is well acquainted with the cheapest method of procuring lumber from Kennebeck or Passamaquoddy, beef and pork from Connecticut, flower and biscuit from Philadelphia, or pitch and tar from North Carolina; and knows how to exchange codfish, and West India produce for such articles as are wanted in New Spain, or on the northwest coast.

      Such is the simplicity of this primitive place, and so small is the resort of strangers, that the streets which have branched out from each other by imperceptible degrees, every man being at liberty to place his house according to his own fancy, and being naturally more disposed to regulate his front by a point of compass, than by the direction of the street, had never any names given to them, until the assessment for the direct tax under president Adams; and the sounding appelations of Federal street, Washington street, &c. &c. then given, have fallen into disuse, with the unpopular measure which occasioned them; and inquirers are now again directed, as before, to the well known neighbourhood of such and such an old stander, in the respective quarters of West Cove, Up-in-town, or the North Shore. The most common family names are Coffin, and Bunker, and Starbuck, and Hussey, which are frequently combined according to the genius of the place, with the scriptural sirnames of Peleg, and Shubal, and Obed, and Jethro. Thus if you do not knew where such a one

lives, you may be gravely informed, in Elisha Bunker's street, or David Mitchel's street, or Tristram Hussey's, or captain Haydn's. The streets, or rather roads, for none of them have ever been paved, run along the hollows, or wind up the hills, but the houses stand generally single, presenting to the passenger sometimes a line, and sometimes an angle; and so rare is any thing like a row, that two or three standing together will be currently described as, "The long houses." Yet two banks and two insurance offices, accommodate the trade of the place; and the town is supposed to have nearly doubled its population, in the last twenty years. Several new streets have been laid out in straight lines, and a number of houses have been built, within a year or two, with cielings of ten feet high. This however is considered as a piece of useless extravagance, the old fashioned stories of eight or nine feet being generally reckoned high enough, and to spare.

      Every other house in this sea-faring place has a look out upon the roof, or a vane at the gable end; to see what ships have arrived from sea or whether the wind is fair for the packets. Sea phrases accordingly prevail in familiar conversation. Every child can tell which way the wind blows, and any old 'woman in the street, will talk of cruizing about, hailing an old messmate, or making one bring to, as familiarly as the captain of a whale ship, just arrived from the north-west coast, will describe dimension to a landlubber by the span of his gibboom, or the length of his mainstay. If you have a spare dinner it is short allowance; if you are going to ride, the horse must be tackled up; or if the chaise is rigged out, and you are got under way, should you stop short of your destination, you are said to tack about, or to make a harbour. This technical phraseology, however, is attended with the concomitant frankness and honesty of sea-faring life. You meet a hearty welcome wherever you go; shop windows are without windowshutters for security; and winter's wood is piled up in the street.

      Before the revolution county courts were regularly opened once a year, at the time prescribed in the almanack; but the officers of justice only assembled to smoke a pipe or two, and ad-

journ the court. During the war even this formality was dispensed with, and disputes were universally settled by arbitration: but since peace and prosperity have occasioned an influx of strangers, lawsuits are no longer unknown in Nantucket; and now they say supercargoes are pestered with attachments, and sailors with writs of suit, before they can get cleared out for their . triennial circumnavigations.

      Criminal proscutions however are still unheard of, in this abode of primaeval simplicity. The only person that was ever executed on the island was an indian, who had committed murder upon the high seas; and corporal punishment (once so freely dispensed in Newengland, and not unknown even in the best days of Pennsylvania) has here long been obsolete.

      The prison is admirably adapted to this state of things, for it would not readily contain more than two or three inmates at a time. Of its present incumbents, one is a little deranged, and refuses to quit the place; and the other, it is said, might go too if he would. The dimensions of the poor house are proportionably contracted, for there are no idlers at Nantucket, and the decrepid are supported in their own neigbourhoods by voluntary alms. The courthouse itself is but a one story frame of 20 feet square.

      Not so the grammar school, which is a capacious edifice with a belfry, or the Free Masons' Lodge, whose ample halls are occupied as free schools, and serve occasionally for public or municipal purposes, whilst five large meeting houses, two for presbyterians, two for friends (or quakers) and one for methodists, assemble the greater part of the inhabitants of this peaceful island two or three times a week.

      Every thing here reminds one of a religious community, like that of the Moravian brethren, for instance, abstracted, but not wholly withdrawn from the world. The tranquillity of a convent pervades the streets, except when the bell rings for dinner, and droves of cows go out and come in under a herdsman grotesquely accoutred. The great bell agreeable to a good old Newengland custom, is tolled every evening at 9 o'clock, to warn the citizens to their homes; and one of the steeples, in the true spirit of commercial usefulness, has been constructed with

a view to serve for a look-out. It commands the whole island, together with its sea girt horizon; and there is one individual, whose observant eye is sharp enough, with the help of glasses, to distinguish the different vessels belonging to the place, as they come to anchor, occasionally, in the harbour of Martha's Vineyard. Even the amusements of children partake of the seafaring spirit. They learn to row spontaneously, as they learn to swim; and nothing is more common in the harbour of Sherburne, than to see the boys paddling about upon planks, or putting before the wind little sailboats of their own construction. This early initiation begets a hankering after the sea, and by the time they are ten or twelve years of age they will ship themselves for cabbin boys, and are with difficulty restrained by their parents from undertaking the most hazardous adventures. Not long since a boy of ten years old broke away from school, and got on board of the Bedford Packet, he was gone some days before he could be heard of, and when the little rogue was asked what could have induced him to run away from his friends, he cooly replied, He was tired of seeing nothing but Nantucket.

      The numerous ponds upon the island once abounded with Teal, Brant, and other varieties of wild fowl; and the head of the harbour, running several miles inland, furnished the first settlers with plenty of clams and oysters. These have now become scarce, from being too freely used; but the neighbouring banks still abound with cod, halibut, seabass; blackfish, mackarel, herring, flounders, smelt, perch, &c. The soil produces spontaneously, besides beach grass, blue grass, herd grass, and white clover; and peat is found in the swamps: but it is totally destitute of stone as well as of timber.

      In common with other places of easy circumstance, and difficult access, the people of Nantucket are happy to see strangers, and such as have any thing to recommend them to notice, are entertained with unbounded hospitality frcm house to house. Luxuries are held in common, for whoever has any thing better than his neighbours will send it to them without asking in case of company, or sickness. If one who gives a dinner is scant of provisions, he makes no scruple to borrow a joint of meat,

and (what is frequently less convenient to the lender) a horse, or a riding chair, will be applied for without reserve; and a refusal would hardly be taken well, though the loan should reduce the owner to go out himself in a cart, the usual carriage of the island, in which the most responsible personages are seen riding about with all the gravity of decorum, in hats and wigs, with their wives and daughters at their side.

      When riding chairs were first introduced at Nantucket the outlandish conveyance was considered as too effeminate for manly use, and of the two persons who first risked the innovation, one was persuaded to renounce the unbecoming indulgence, and the other only retained it in consideration of delicate health, and on condition of lending it to others in the same predicament. The progress of improvement, however, and the influx of wealth, were not to be long resisted; but the obnoxious vehicle is still regarded by the commonalty with a jealous eye, on occasional rencounters[sic.] in the streets; and the riders in carts unwillingly give way to the riders in chairs, on their afternoon excursions to Quayes, and Palpus, and Pocomo, and Squam, lone houses of the same sober gray with the heath which surrounds them, unsheltered by a single tree of native growth; yet there is one spot on the island which is still called, "the woods," though it has been time out of mind, without a shrub, the native trees having gone to decay on clearing the fields and letting in the sea air.

      Upon a high bluff which breasts the surges, at the east end of this monotonous plain, are two fishing villages, Sesakaty and Siasconsit. The latter consists of about forty houses, or rather huts, of one story, standing apart, in four rows, leaving three broad lanes between them, which are covered with a fine sward of grass, the place being only resorted to spring and fall; when the bank is crowded with women and children, and 20 or 30 boats are sometimes seen off shore at a time, catching cod. In a more simple age it was customary for visitors from town to make themselves welcome at any table in the place; and when they went away to take what fish they pleased, for nothing. Now two or three widowed families make a living by entertaining strangers, and if they want fish they pay for it.

      Before the revolution, the people of Nantucket were like a band of brothers. They were then an unmixed race, of English descent. They were all clad in homespun, and minded their own business. Such a thing as a bankruptcy was therefore almost unexampled. They are now much intermixed with strangers, and concomitant habits prevail; yet they still frequently call each other by the familiar appellations of uncle, aunt, cousin, &c. Persons of note are saluted by every body they meet; and the popular name of captain is often bestowed on respectable people, who never followed the sea, and perpetuated, as a creditable title, like that of squire on the continent, to those who have retired from business. One quiet lane, leading into the country, is called India Row, from the number of persons of this description, who reside there, in ease, and affluence; and Mitchel street, so called from being mostly inhabited by people of that name, forms a delightful retreat along shore, for those concerned in the whale trade; some of whom are very rich, and many of them inhabit roomy houses, and live in the genteelest style of middle life, except only the use of that elegant luxury called a coach.

      From the habit of transacting business in the absence of their husbands, women are frequently concerned in mercantile affairs and manage them to advantage. Two lawyers suffice the wrangling of the bar, and ply their talents upon the continent, between the terms; and three doctors recommend themselves to practice by making up their own prescriptions, and frequently adopting the simples which were used by the Indian natives. No printer has ever thought it worth while to establish himself at Nantucket, since nobody there pretends to fathom the gulf of foreign politics; and domestic disputes are never agitated, but at the eve of an election.

      During the war the people of this secluded island were prevented by their situation, from taking any part in the struggle for independence, and they were suffered to maintain a sort of defenceless neutrality, between alternate marauders, neither party suspecting treachery, or committing unnecessary depredations at Nantucket, whose peaceable inhabitants are to this day al-

lowed an exemption from the oppressive routine of militia duty: but the harbour of Sherburne is mostly filled with ice every season, and in the hard winter of 1780, the surface of the sea was frozen over as far as the eye could reach, and all communication with the continent was cut off during forty days. Such a circumstance had never occurred before, the winters being rarely severe. In summer they enjoy a happy temperature, the thermometer seldom rising above 80°. of Fahrenheit; and the highest winds seldom preventing a daily intercourse with the neighbouring continent.

      The whole island is held in common, under shares of propriety, originally no more than twenty-seven; but these have been subdivided, by purchase, or inheritance, till many proprietors of the poorer class hold no more than gives them a right to pasture one cow, or eight sheep; a horse being reckoned equivalent to two cows. A council of proprietors prevents encroachments, and decides, every season, on what part of the island the great corn field shall be. Here every one cultivates his own share, which is sometimes but a narrow slip, the bounds of which he carefully marks, by sticks or stones; but should these be displaced the horse that ploughed it up, may safely be trusted to find the spot again. Once a year, about the middle of June, all the sheep, amounting to some thousands, are driven into pens, when each man selects his own, shears them himself, and separates such as he wants for use. This is the only holiday which is kept at Nantucket. The whole country turns out to enjoy the occasion, booths are set up with refreshments, and the annual merriment is as highly relished by these sober people, as the salutations of May morning, or the healths of Washington's birth day.

      Such has been, for a century and a half, the patriarchal manner of occupying the island of Nantucket: but the spirit of innovation has found its way even here; and there is now a plan in agitation for dividing to each proprietor his share, in fee simple, under the specious plea of putting it into the power of every man, "to manage his own affairs, in his own way." Should this operation fake place, it will probably throw large tracts into particular hands, who may improve the breed of sheep, and ameliorate the soil --

perhaps plant trees, that might again keep off the spray of the sea, and cover the nakedness of the land: but the place would lose forever its most interesting peculiarities. It would be no longer a copartnership of kinsfolk, with a common interest in the general prosperity. The small landholders would be obliged to sell their freeholds, because they would not be worth fencing in.

      The present equality and sociability of all ranks, would give place to that emulation, and reserve, which prevail in more cultivated societies; and, in another century, the people of Nantucket would be no longer remarkable for an attachment to their native place, which is now one of their distinguishing characteristics.

Joseph Sansom (1767-1826)

Portrait of Joseph Sansom (By Charles Willson Peale, ca. 1800.)
[Image courtesy of Schwarz Gallery, Philadelphia.]

      "He was a Philadelphia Quaker, son of Hannah (Callender) and Samuel Sansom, brother and business partner of the East India merchant William Sansom after whom a street in Philadelphia is named. He was a gifted amateur artist who specialized in painted silhouettes, preferably taken from life; he became a connoisseur and collector. In 1791 and 1796 he was present at treaty negotiations with Five Nations leaders whose likenesses he recorded. In 1798 he married Beulah Biddle (1768-1837); they had no children, but travelled together and made collections. (In 1803 he offered Jefferson, at cost, a collection of models of antiquities that he had purchased in France and repented of; the President appears to have declined.) Sansom designed several medals commemorating eminent figures in US history, which were engraved and produced in 1806-7 and earned him election to the American Philosophical Society in 1808--at which time he donated some Roman relics and geological specimens for their collections. As a writer he is known for accounts of his travels in Europe and North America based on trips undertaken in 1801-2 and 1817, especially Letters from Europe (1805) and Sketches of Lower Canada (1820). He died in Philadelphia. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania holds a substantial number of his silhouettes; his important collection of minerals and some personal papers are preserved at Haverford College."

            — From University of Toronto Libraries: Jackson Bibliography of Romantic Poetry.

Joseph Sansom.
      "A Description of Nantucket." The Port Folio.
New Series Vol. V, No. 1 (Jan. 1811).
pp.30-43.

Anthology  Notes  Source  Whalesite