Like Small Clams at the Bottom of their Chairs

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 22, 2019

I posted this a few years ago but given our humidity, I felt it appropriate to re-blog.


I came across this beautiful little line-up the other day when I went to drop off more of my books at Mitchell’s Book Corner for them to sell and a certain line immediately came into my head.  “ . . . . that to the very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering as to the backs of sea turtles. But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.”


I am hoping that you will recognize that as the early part of the chapter on Nantucket in Herman Melville’s
Moby-Dick .  And all the more appropriate because it was at the bookstore!  Yes, they are not clams but mushrooms but that is what I immediately thought of.  Perhaps there is another book out there that refers to mushrooms all in a row but I was taken by these when I saw them.  Proudly standing up along Orange and Main Street; squished between brick wall and sidewalk.


And I have recounted before the connections between Melville and Maria Mitchell.  And add to that  ̶  Mitchell’s Book Corner was founded by Henry Mitchell “Mitch” Havermeyer, the only grandson of Maria Mitchell’s youngest brother Henry Mitchell, in 1968.


JNLF

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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
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