Masonry Conservation Accomplished!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 10, 2023

With the COVID-19 Pandemic severely slowing the start of the conservation project and supply chain issues, as well as weather, among other things, it has been a long road but we have finally completed the masonry conservation and roof repairs at our historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory!


I say “we” but this was the fantastic work of island mason, Wayne Morris. He has accomplished a great deal and the building is now weather tight, brick and grout are secure, and we have new steel lintels over doors and windows. It sounds simple doesn’t it? But, it is not and it has taken a lot of time and care – and all sort of new and interesting issues were revealed as old repairs were removed and things were opened up – things you cannot see until you dig. Even removing one lintel is a painstaking process – especially on the main floor where you have large stone pieces over each opening that “hide” the original iron (and rusting) lintel beneath. It’s not everyone who can do a project such as this and the MMA is lucky to have had Wayne Morris. He’s talented, knows how to think outside the box, and genuinely knows and loves what he does. He spent a lot of hours grinding up stone to match the 1908 and 1922 grouts and trying to match the color. Not many will take that time and its important that we do for conservation reasons. I’ve learned some things from him over the years – including to call it “grout.”


I would also like to thank James Lydon and Sons and Daughters for the work to the rubber and copper on the two roofs, and to Jeff Schneider and Ellis and Schneider Electrical for moving the electrical lines so that the mason could get to one of the lintels in the basement. Apparently, at some point, long ago, they thought it was a good idea to run conduit pipe for electrical wires in FRONT of a cellar window thus negating the possibility of it being opened AND blocking the lintel that Wayne Morris needed to replace!


We still have to clean up the landscape, put in a French drain in front, and paint the windows and wood door – and remove the paint from the original 1908 copper door. Then, the exterior will be complete. Next up, conservation of the interior which will include conservation of the original 1922 Astronomical Study’s floor and woodwork, painting, the addition of new wood storms on the façade, HVAC, and electrical upgrades. So, there is more to come – but first we needed to be weather tight!


JNLF


P.S. Not sure what I am going to do. I’ve worked on several projects here at MMA and at the Coffin School with Wayne Morris. I keep teasing him we can’t let him go. Going to miss seeing his truck parked in our front yard at MMA – a parking spot only he could have!

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The Ancient Vine

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 27, 2025
This is what our landscaper for MMA calls it. “The ancient vine.” He tells the people who work for him not to touch the “ancient vine.” I have probably made him – and all of them – terrified of it. I am even terrified of it to some degree. I refer to the grape vine behind the Mitchell House this is supposed to be Peleg Mitchell Junior’s grape vine – Maria Mitchell’s uncle who inhabited the house from about 1836 to his death in 1882. It has two trunks but one died several years ago. Because of that, each year I try to root shoots. It’s fairly easy to do – when you cut back the vine in late fall/early winter. I have had success but not success protecting the shoots I baby all winter from bunnies and other critters try as I might. I started doing this when the one trunk died – I was PANICKED! The landscaper stays away because I have told him if anyone is going to accidentally harm or worse yet, kill, this grape vine it would be me so I only have myself to blame. So each November/December – once ALL the leaves have fallen off – I climb my ladder and quietly, carefully, and fearfully cut back the stems typically to two buds. I have been somewhat successful in spurring grape production – and these grapes attract some amazing birds in the fall. It takes me some time – and I pretty much hyperventilate the entire time – and then, I stare at it all winter. Passing under it multiple times a day to reach my office. Hoping, and yes, praying, it will come out in the spring. It’s a late budder so just recently the buds started to show themselves – thank goodness! – and I was rewarded today (May 5, 2025) with this wonderful hot pink color on the edges of the leaves as they are uncurling. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 19, 2025
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF

Lily of the Valley

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 12, 2025
I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF
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