Simply (Or, Not Simply) Messing About In Boats

Jascin n. Leonardo Finger • August 17, 2015

In the Mitchell family’s time, Vestal Street was not a quiet place. A cooperage, a boat building shop, and the gaol (jail) were all located on what was originally referred to as Prison Lane. Around the corner on the corner of Main and Milk Streets was the Town building where at one time William Mitchell taught before he started his own private school. Add to that background noise – albeit no modern machinery so it was more pleasant – the likelihood of carts going up and down the street for these two shops with supplies and carting away their products, people walking by, other animals roaming free, and a person’s calash (cart) or even a horse – though in Town walking pretty much ruled.

The boatshop certainly interests me – as do all the other activities of course. The boatshop was located on the corner of Vestal and Bloom Streets. Boats were a bit of my world growing up. I spent a LOT of time on the ferry. And then, my Nana loved boats. She didn’t care if it was the Uncatena or a sport fishing boat, she just wanted to be on the water. I believe she went sport-fishing not to fish, but for the boat ride! She used to take us out on harbor cruises too – I remember being seasick quite often because she didn’t care what the weather was – she never got seasick, except once. Then there is me; no matter how long I have been on boats (since I was a year old basically), I get seasick in choppy seas and of course rough seas. Marrying a US Coast Guard officer did not change that – he can eat a bowl of chili and drink a cup of coffee in high seas (I’m talking 30 feet!). Ugh.


My world of boats expanded with my husband, Eric. He maintains and repairs quite a few sailboats – and a few power boats – here on the island. His focus has been mainly on wooden boats but he will do fiberglass as well. With a degree in naval architecture, he also designs and builds boats but he has never had the time to focus on building. Thanks to an expanded crew at his boatshop, they are starting to finally build – though his own designs remain on the computer for now. Nantucket once had a myriad of small boat shops – even building whaleships at Brant Point. Since the first half of the twentieth century, building has slowly begun to fade away on Nantucket. There are still a few people building and I am happy to say Eric is helping to grow that number with this venture.


They have started with a wooden boat that is excellent for the waters around Nantucket – a Haven 12 ½. 12 ½s were originally designed by Nathanael Herreshoff – the “Wizard of Bristol” – who is also the original designer of the Alerion which now graces Nantucket’s waters and my husband repairs and maintains. Herreshoff’s 12 ½ was a full keel boat which is not good for shallow waters. The Haven 12 ½ was designed by Joel White, a naval architect and boat builder from Maine who was also the son of author, E. B. White – yes, THAT E. B. White. The Haven is a centerboard boat – meaning it is good for shallow waters because it does not have a full keel – the centerboard acts as the deeper full keel would but can be raised and lowered at will by the sailor to keep the boat safe from running aground in shallow waters.


Eric and his crew are currently lofting the boat. After building a platform, they began the painstaking process of drawing out the lines plans of the boat on the platform – basically drawing the designer’s plan to full scale on a 16’ by 20’ wood platform. Once they have the pattern all drawn out they can then begin the process of making molds for the frames which you see here in this image.

 

What, do you say, does this have to do with Maria? Well, it’s a little piece of what she would have seen more regularly as boatshops popped up even in backyards as boat builders built whaleboats and dories and then other small craft for fishing to fill the need. She would have been able to see the whaleships being built at Brant Point and she and her father, William, certainly had a hand in whaling – William rated the chronometers for all the whaleships homeported on Nantucket (roughly ninety) and thus likely rated every chronometer on Nantucket – and those of visiting ships as well. When she was 14, Maria started that same task on her own. And, her brother, Andrew, ran away to see as a young teenager and would later serve on a ship during the Civil War. Boatbuilding is one of the oldest trades in the world and there are some on island who continue to ply this trade. It reminds one of the past. Stay tuned – I will keep you up to date from time-to-time on the building.


JNLF

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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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