Bunnies

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • September 30, 2014

We seem to always have one baby bunny in the Mitchell House yard. 2014’s baby has been a bit more respectful of the garden then his predecessors. He did not mow down all the morning glories like one of the baby bunnies before him, nor did he munch his way through the nasturtiums.


What he did do was create a burrow under one of the rosemary plants that we have had growing for several years out front. This rosemary has made it through quite a few winters, including the ten inches of snow we got this past March – that late blizzard that did in some of my own plants at home, including my Japanese anemones. So we shall see if his burrow harms the rosemary but so far, no harm done. He, like his friends before him, scoots between front and backyards one of two ways. He either nips under a portion of the House that is open underneath or he runs around to the front and goes under the front porch. The bunnies before him never really did that last route so I give him – or her! – credit for some intelligence on that. This bunny has an escape route! 

However, where he is lacking is in his danger instinct. He has become so used to us that he has now taken, especially with the last few really hot and humid days – the first of the summer but in September! – to sitting next to the hydrangea in the backyard of the House. He is just far enough away from the crawlspace to be where the air is better but close enough to run under. But, he just sits there. I move in and out of the Cottage, sometimes accidentally allowing the screen door to slip and slam and he just sits there. In this photograph, though it’s hard to see, he actually has his back legs crossed. He has an enormous grown up tail – he has not met it yet with the rest of his body size – and a beautiful white belly. I actually thought due to his calm and lazy demeanor that he was not feeling well yesterday as he did not leave the spot for several hours! But he was back at it again today so I took the opportunity to take this photograph of him. (I did not ask him to sign a release form.) He was there when I got in this morning and two hours later, he is still there just now facing a different direction. So, I think he is just too trusting of us. Not that we would harm him.


JNLF


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Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 6, 2026
July 15. {1863} My dear Sally . . . I think Mitchell is all right in his algebra. He can’t stand an examination in Trig but I don’t believe he will have a rigorous one. Father has seen the Prof. and will give him a letter to them.  If you can’t be honest with your sibling, who can you be honest with? Apparently, Sally Mitchell Barney’s son, William Mitchell Barney – known as Mitchell as his cousin William Mitchell Barney was known as Willie (how is that for honoring your father?!) – was visiting his aunt Maria and his grandfather, William Mitchell, at their home in Lynn, MA. Sally still lived on Nantucket and I suspect Mitchell was not only visiting but getting some much needed help with his mathematics by his aunt Maria. As always, she is brutally honest – he won’t pass a test in trigonometry (but, neither would I!). JNLF

Top O’ the Ridge!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 29, 2026
In April and early May, at long last, the Mitchell House roof was replaced. (I noted this in an earlier blog.) I had also noted that the roofwalk, given the condition it was in and its location – sitting on the ridge – had to be replaced. They had thought they could jack it up – as they have done with other walks – but the Blizzard of February 2026 that was ALL wind (83 MPH winds – read Category 1 Hurricane) and no real snow, made the walk impossible to treat in such a manner (read: crumble). So, after much discussion, review by our preservation easement holder, and permits, as well as some fundraising, we are replacing the roofwalk. The prior walk was not the original. The original blew off in a gale in the late nineteenth century, replaced at some point in the 1930s, and likely replaced again in the 1960s or 1970s. Then, since that time, it was heavily repaired. Its framing members were notched to accept the ridge boards (read: peak) of the roof and I think that may have been an original way to construct a walk. Makes perfect sense – and gives the walk more support and a lower profile. It was after all about putting out chimney fires and preventing roof fires. People copied what worked – and there have been a few others noted to be built in this manner still. It presents an issue though – because if you need to work on the ridge board or close to it – you cannot get to it easily – I guess you may be able to access it to some extent by lifting the deck boards of the walk. The new Mitchell House roofwalk will sit about six inches above the ridge – which will also allow air to circulate better over the ridge and the shakes in that area. That is the only thing that will really be different. It is protected by a preservation easement – as part of the Mitchell House’s easement – and frankly, even if we did not have an easement, we would not want it to look any different. So keep your eyes to the skies at 1 Vestal as we work to re-build the walk. With a special thank you to Barber and Sons and Lydon and Sons. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 22, 2026
1875, June 20. A meeting of the Officers of Congress was called at the house of Mrs. Hanaford, 5 Summit Ave., Jersey City. The weather was intensely cold. I went to New York on the 19 th and stopped with my friend Mrs. Clapp, 100 W. 54 St . . . .It was a question who should preside. Mrs. Hanaford thought the Chairman of the Executive Committee should and I had been told that I should, etc. The question was decided by the non-arrival of the Chairman of Ex.Com. I called them to order at an hour after the time appointed. Of course I made many blunders, as I have never presided before, but I continued for 4 hours. We did a few good things . . . The thing most weighing on Maria’s mind at this meeting was the looseness of membership for the Congress. She felt people were not being vetted properly in some areas of the country and thus they may allow in “undesirables.” I would take this to mean women who were not entirely behind the cause of the Congress and the Association for the Advancement of Women. I am not surprised by her suspicions and likely she was correct – one could see naysayers gaining access to this group and trying to destroy it from the inside. The women’s rights movement would have many schisms within it as people disagreed and broke into smaller factions.  Another important thing to point out is that Mrs. Hanaford is Nantucket-born Phebe Coffin Hanaford. Raised a Quaker, like Maria, Coffin Hanaford would become the first woman Universalist minister in New England – among many other firsts. She grew up with Maria, attended and taught at the Coffin School here on Nantucket, and was a founding member of another women’s organization, Sorosis, which Maria was also a founding member of. It’s nice to see two sister Nantucketers continuing to work together as adults – far from home! JNLF
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