October 10 {1854} I seized on a pleasant day and went to the Cape for an excursion. We went to Yarmouth, Sandwich and Plymouth enjoying the novelty of the new-car route. It really seemed in some parts like railway traveling on our own island, so much sand and so flat a country. The little towns too seemed quaint and odd and the old gray cottages looked as if they belonged to the last century and were waked from a long nap by the railway whistle.
The railroad had not yet come to Nantucket – that would be another thirty years or so and long after Maria Mitchell had left the island though she would come back on occasion. This railroad is likely the recent extension of the first railway built on Cape Cod (starting in 1846 and then in 1854 with further extensions) – one that reached into areas of which she speaks in the same year she travelled on it. What I love is the same sort of “fun trip to the Cape since it’s a nice day,” that some islanders still have today. Granted, it is FAR easier to make a trip over than it was in Maria’s day!
JNLF
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