Solitude
Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • December 4, 2017
Sometimes, quiet is what we all need. Sometimes, it’s nice to find a place where you can sit quietly. The only things you can hear are birds and maybe the surf or harbor water gently lapping along the sand.
The image you see here is a place such as that. Not sure many people know of its existence but happily I was told of this spot. It once belonged to a family with whom – some members of – I have been friends since I was a child. It speaks of a different time on Nantucket – a time that we are fast losing. It looks out over the water and is a quiet and unassuming shack.
When you are moving too quickly, try and find a moment to stop. To listen. To smell. To breathe. And be thankful. And be, respectful.
JNLF
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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
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
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