Ada Augusta Brewster

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 30, 2021

At some point last March, before we officially closed for COVID-19 precautions, I was “rummaging” about in the MMA institutional archives and came across these images. Since then I did a tiny bit of digging to find out more about these very sweet watercolors of the MMA.  I found them in the scrapbook of Lydia Hinchman, one of our founders and a daughter of Maria Mitchell’s uncle, Peleg Mitchell Jr. They actually remind me of another watercolorist who worked for some time on Nantucket – J. B. Reid and I may have blogged about her long ago – she is a favorite of mine.


In any case, A. A. Brewster – or Ada August Brewster – was born in Kingston Massachusetts May 25, 1842 in a house called “Woodside.” That already sounds very pleasing. I have not found a lot about her but she did study with several well-known painters, particularly out West in California. As a child she showed promise as an artist. Her mother, Elizabeth Bates Brewster was something of artist as well. It seems before that however, she served as a nurse during the Civil War at Portsmouth Grove/Lovell General Hospital in Rhode Island. She would later work at the US Mint in Nevada. She studied art at the Lowell Institute in Boston under Samuel Rouse and at the California School for Design (now San Francisco Art Institute). It seems she was in California starting about 1879 and at the Design School she studied under Raymond Yelland and Virgil Williams. She traveled quite a bit and lived in Florida, California, New York and  Georgia – coming to rest in New York around the turn of the century. In, 1898 she was Curator of the Ladies Art Association, 107 West 125th Street, NYC. She was also a frequent visitor to Cape Cod and Nantucket. Thus, these images. In 1919, she would move back to Kingston and “Woodside” where she died in 1929. 


She did open her own studio in San Francisco and was known for being a portraitist and illustrator, as well as a painter of china and a teacher. She would follow with studios in St. Petersburg, FL and finally in New York. She was known as an artist, naturalist, historian, author, collector. Sort of sounds like Lydia Hinchman and her sisters – and Maria and her sisters – multi-talented.


JNLF

Recent Posts

Curator Almost Eaten By Large Lobster

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 17, 2025
Clementine has finally molted! We at the MMA have been awaiting this for quite some time so I decided to re-post an old blog about Clementine. Well, not quite. But, part of my job is to also take care of all of the MMA properties. So, I headed over to check on one and what cleaning supplies are needed for the summer and for our staff spring clean-up of the site. In one room, some of the animals from the Aquarium over-winter. One of those is “our” lobster, Clementine, so-called because she is orange in color. (Orange lobsters are five times rarer than blue lobsters and only one in ten million lobsters are orange.) She is fairly active and though the hope is that she “sleeps” a bit for the winter, she doesn’t seem to. So, enter curator into room who glances over and hopes the lobster does not “run” to the side of the tank asking to be fed. Yes, she really does that – she has gotten used to people. I always hate it because I feel guilty – I do not feed her because that falls to the Natural Science Department and I do not want to hurt her or her schedule in any way. In any case, “Whew!” She actually seemed quiet at the back of the tank. Maybe she was “sleeping.” I kept moving to the next room and glanced back. Low and behold, she was at the front of the tank waving her claws! Seriously? So I kept moving on – after telling her, “I can’t feed you,” – and she went to the back of the tank again! Another, “Whew!” I decided to text Emily, our Director of Natural Science (at that time), and relay what happened. I get a text back. “You can feed her if you want.” “Really?” I texted back. “What do I give her?” So, Clementine then ran back to the front of the tank when she saw me opening the freezer and taking out the mussels and a shrimp. I got another text from Emily: “Use the forceps to hand them to her.” Well, I wasn’t about to put my hand in there! So, I get the shrimp, put it in the forceps, open the top of the tank and start to put my hand down, and INSTANTLY two HUGE lobster claws come out of the tank and grab not the shrimp but the forceps! I wish I had a picture. I was afraid she was going to take the forceps. And then, I was afraid my hand was going to be her lunch. I could not get her to release the forceps – it was a battle royale though the battle was more on her part because I was afraid I would break her claw! After some twisting of the forceps and tugging, she finally relented, took the shrimp, and began her lunch. Another, “Whew!” I was afraid I was either going to hurt her or I was going to be explaining to my three-year old what happened to Mommy’s hand at work. Veuve Clicquot with that, Clementine? Apparently, someone else knew what transpired with the lobster. As I left the building, a male mallard duck was paddling around in the rather large puddle – if you can call it that – located on the property. We have recently had a large amount of rain. He was laughing (I mean quacking) at me. In all seriousness, I have never met a lobster with so much personality. Yes, personality. Clementine may just have changed my tune on lobster rolls. JNLF

Miss Herschel

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 10, 2025
A re-blog from years past. The item you see here is a small piece of what once was. Upon her visit to Europe as a young woman’s chaperone in 1857 –1858, Maria Mitchell visited many of the major observatories of Europe and met many of the movers and shakers in the scientific, art, and literary worlds of the continent. While Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) and her brother, Sir William (1738 – 1822), were long dead, Maria was able to meet Caroline’s nephew (William’s son), Sir John Herschel (1792 – 1871). All three were astronomers, though Caroline found herself having to give credit – or have her brother accept credit – for much of her work because she was a woman. She has often been credited with the being the first woman to discover a comet. She was likely not – and the other woman who was the first lost credit through history as she had to “give” her comet discovery to her husband. See a pattern? Caroline was just one of many women in a long line of, “She couldn’t possibly do that – she is a woman!” As Maria once said, “But a woman, what more could you ask to be?” But back to this small item. It was a page from one of Caroline Herschel’s notebook’s, torn from its home by John Herschel to serve a s a memento for Maria of her visit to the family’s home. Maria was a bit shocked but . . . she took it! Over the years, the paper tore and ripped and just crumbled away until Maria finally decided that to save it, she needed to past it into one of her own journals. And thus, we have what we have. I assume Caroline’s notations refer to her brother William – “Wol” and Woll.” It could be an “I” but it really looks like an “O.” She is considered the world’s first professional woman astronomer – she would be compensated for her work after some time – and she warrants a greater look at – too much for a blog. So I encourage you to go take a look at her. Maria would want you to! JNLF

From The Rear

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 3, 2025
I am not so sure our founders would love that title but the image is of the Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO) “from the rear.” I love this image as it is really the only one we have – unless you count the one that is taken from farther away and from further into the backyard of the Mitchell House. That one allows you to see the natural slope of the Mitchell House back lawn which would be altered when they added the Curator’s Cottage. Both of the images were taken before the Curator’s Cottage was added at the back of the Mitchell House in the early 1930s – and this one you see here was taken before 1922 when they added the Astronomical Study onto the MMO. It also shows the original dome – which was copper – before it was replaced in 1951 – which is the current dome. The copper did not hold up to our climate here – salt spray, damp, fog. But the new one, shipped over from England, has held up well. The current dome was donated by Margaret Underwood Davis (MMA board president at the time), in memory of her son, Cushing Davis who was an amateur astronomer. Margaret Davis served as president from 1930-1946 and again from 1949-1953. The image tells you some other things too. For instance, the grape arbor behind the Mitchell House is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell’s (Maria’s uncle) grape vine – I have blogged about it several times before – and you can see it in this image. You can also see how the Milk Room connects to the 1850s kitchen. The 1850s kitchen was added by Peleg Mitchell Jr and it’s the first little wart you see with the white pipe attached. The next wart is the Milk Room – also added by Peleg – it’s the one with the shutters on the window. Both still exist it’s just the Curator’s Cottage was attached in the 1930s. You will see another chimney too. It appears alongside the white pipe. That is likely the original chimney to what is now the Astronomer’s Cottage at the MMA. We acquired the Cottage in the 1920s but I believe all of the additions, and the removal of the chimney, were done before we were given it.  Fun! JNLF
Show More