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

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Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 4, 2026
May 6, 1878 Between the clouds, Miss Spalding obtained 7 photographs of Mercury on the Sun. It is comfort to me to be able to plan and do a new kind of work. The large telescope worked better than usual, Clark having just been to the Observatory. Clark, as in Alvan Clark, a man who would become the premier telescope maker in America and who built Maria Mitchell’s 5-inch Alvan Clark refractor that she purchased from him (after working with him to build it per her specifications) with money gifted to her from “The Women of America” led by Elizabeth Peabody. More than likely, it is this telescope she is referring to as she did use it in the Vassar College Observatory with her students – and it is also taking center stage in photographs, along with her (first her father’s) Dolland telescope.  Maria had decided she would photograph the Sun on every clear day, and this was one of those results. She would use these images, with her students, to study sun spots and their changes. With her students, Maria would photograph the transit of Mercury as noted above. She would also photograph the transit of Venus a few years later with her students. JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 27, 2026
And with it, some of the heirloom daffodils I purchased for the Mitchell House last fall. A place was recommended to me by two longtime friends of the MMA and gardeners extraordinaire. It is called Old House Gardens. I ordered a small amount as we now have a plethora of voles on Vestal Street – I believe I complained about them here last year. They won’t eat daffodils so I got a few of “Butter and Eggs” (1777) and “Conspicuus” (1869) as either of these could have appeared in William Mitchell’s gardens. They were not listed in a letter from John Quincy Adams that I have mentioned before. But, Adams was not here visiting the Mitchell family when the daffodils would have been in bloom. The one pictured here is “Butter and Eggs” not completely unfurled. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 13, 2026
April 1878. The conference of Woman’s Congress officers met in Washington. Because we had one member in Washington we were invited to meet in that place. I went on at a great expense of time, money and strength . . . . We were in session at least nine hours. I think that more than half of that was used by Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Sayles. The only motion which I carried through was to pay the Secretary $200 . . . In 1878, that was a long train(s) ride to Washington, DC from Poughkeepsie, NY and Vassar College. If Maria seems perturbed, I am sure she was. As president of the Association for the Advancement of Women, and thus the Congress, she had to be at the meeting. But it appears she did not get much say in the nine hour meeting. This was also a long trip to take when she had another, even longer trip coming up in July of 1878. In that month, she would travel with students and her sister, Phebe, out west to Colorado to view the eclipse and that train and wagon ride I am sure was weighing on her mind – not just the physical trip but making her way for an important eclipse viewing event. JNLF
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