Hot Off the Press: The Daring Daughters of Nantucket Island

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • January 21, 2015

Image courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association.

Well, I finally did it. After many, many requests and at the urging of many, I published a small book. It took me a little longer than I hoped but I have managed to take my master’s thesis and put it into something I hope will start a better conversation concerning Nantucket women and give them more credit than, “they had to do it.” As the curator of the Mitchell House, Archives and Special Collections, it’s pretty obvious what I am up to my ears in besides historic preservation, collections care, and outreach; I also eat, sleep, and breathe Nantucket history – women, Quakers, architecture, the history of the MMA, you name it, I am constantly reading, researching, and learning about it. Do I know everything? No – I learn something new every single day. But, in my travels with Nantucket women – thus far – I have come to some new conclusions and this became the basis of my master’s thesis and thus this small book I have created. I feel that I am bringing something new to the table and I hope this helps to open the discussion. I have a lot more research and writing to do – I have only barely scratched the surface here – but I felt it was time to get that conversation going.

 

Books are available at several places on island, including at the MMA Gift Shops, and by contacting me. A portion of the proceeds will go to a restricted fund for the Mitchell House for conservation proposes.


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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