“Hope Springs Eternal”

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • February 20, 2018

This is dramatic for what I relate this quote from Alexander Pope to, but I had really almost given up.


A few years ago, late spring came and Peleg’s grape arbor – which I have written about before – began to bud up. There are two trunks – two different grape plants. One – the larger of the two by a great deal – started to sprout its leaf buds. The other, I     hoped was just a bit behind after a rough winter. Unfortunately, I was wrong. It never budded – it was killed by the winter of bitter cold and warmth and then bitter cold again. I started to worry I could lose – the MMA could lose – the entire arbor. So, desperate to try to ensure its survival, I went to many lengths to try and root the grape which is no easy task based on what I have read. I finally – after multiple attempts – resorted to taking long cuttings and placing them in some soil and then putting them in the window of the Observatory’s Seminar Room where I spend the winter – my “winter office.”

I have been watering them since October and frankly, they continued to look like dead sticks. At the beginning of February, I almost threw them out but then decided that I would wait just in case. Well, on February 7, 2018, I glanced over and – overnight it seems – leaf buds had appeared! I was elated! And now they continue to grow and one has begun to unfurl itself. I hope I can keep them going and can then plant them in place of the old one that died a few winters ago. Let’s hope. This is just another tie to the Mitchell past.


JNLF

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July 31, 1883. I had two or three rich days! On Friday last I went to Holderness, N.H.. to the Asquam House; I had been asked by Mrs. T to join her party. There was at this house Mr. Whittier, Mr., and Mrs. Cartland, Professor and Mrs. Johnson, of Yale . . . The house seemed full of fine, cultivate people. We stayed two days and a half. And first of the scenery. The road up to the house is a steep hill, and at the foot of the hill it winds and turns around two lakes. The panorama is complete one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond the lakes lie the mountains.  The Asquam House sat atop Shepard Hill and was built in 1881. A hotel, it has space for fifty guests, it was located near Squam Lake and became part of a summer enclave that developed there in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today, the area is a National Historic Landmark, but sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1948. Maria would have been familiar with these people seen here – and others I did not include – but particularly John Greenleaf Whittier who was something of a family friend. He was close to one of her younger brothers, William Forester. JNLF

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The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF
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