Mitchell House This Fall

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 26, 2019

Well, sadly, the summer season is coming to a close for the Mitchell House and all of the MMA properties.  It is hard to believe – summer just flew past (yet again)!  There will of course be off-season open nights and special events and activities during the off-season.  Look to see when Hinchman House our Natural Science Museum will be open as well.


Mitchell House will remain open in September on a limited basis.  We will be open Mondays and Fridays from 10-4 for tours (Closed Labor Day) through September 27 and on Saturdays from 10-2 through the 21 st of September.  Do please come by – especially if you have never been or not visited in a long time.  We do have some recent acquisitions!  The charge is $5 for adults, $4 for children, and it is FREE for members!


Additionally, I will be leading the Four Centuries Domestic Architecture walking tour with the Nantucket Preservation Trust (NPT) and Nantucket Historical Association on Saturday, September 7.  It starts at the Oldest House at 10AM and ends at Hadwen House on Main Street.  It’s $10/person and lasts until about 12 noon – no reservations necessary.  It’s a unique collaborative that I created many years ago with the then NHA Education Director, Kim McCray, and grew to include NPT.  We have a lot of fun and it’s a great learning experience – and you get to briefly go into some of the sites as well.


Then, on Friday, September 13, I will lead my “Daring Daughters of Nantucket” walk.  It starts at 2PM and runs about an hour and a half or so. 
Reservations are necessary and it is $15 for Non-Members and $10 for Members.  It takes a look at the famous – and infamous – women of our island and how their lives were shaped by several important factors.


So please come join us!


JNLF

Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger July 7, 2025
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
July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
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
Show More