Talking to Maria Mitchell, or Speaking to the Dead

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 6, 2017

I originally posted this a few years ago and last week, the Inquirer and Mirror printed an article on the stone monuments at Prospect Hill Cemetery.  Thus, I thought I would re-post this – something I don’t often do.  But it continues to be very important.  More recently, in May, I worked with some island Girl Scouts to clean the stones of Nantucket veterans.  While the process cleans the stones, it does not bring them back to what they once were – that’s not reversible and also, in conservation you never bring it back to the perfect from when it began.  That’s not the point.  The other part of cleaning the stones is that it protects them for three to five years or more from new growth.  Lichen and its continued growth slowly obliterates the face of the stone physically.  I will be doing another workshop in June with the Prospect Hill Cemetery so stay tuned.  I have been doing this for at least a decade now – not three as the paper wrote – and I have been trained by a conservator!  And remember – you can never clean stones that you either don’t have permission to clean or that don’t belong to your family.  You need to seek permission first from the cemetery sextant.

No, the curator has not gone completely mad.  But when you are working on a stone monument at the cemetery, you feel compelled to talk to Maria and her family.  You see, I am cleaning their grave markers.  Back in 2005, with funding from the Community Preservation Act, I worked with a stone conservator to clean the stone monuments of the Mitchell family correctly .  Unfortunately, people think that bleach is a good idea.  It’s not.  It eats away at the stone causing irreversible harm.  (And by the way, taking rubbings of gravestones is illegal.)


As a way to share the knowledge of properly cleaning a historic stone monument, we opened the process as a workshop – which was underwritten by the Community Preservation Act – during Preservation Month.  We had a wonderful turnout, including descendants of the Mitchell family and a professor of microbiology who, while upset we were removing excellent samples of lichens from the stones, regaled us with all the names of the lichens we were removing and all sorts of interesting facts about them.  You see, while a microbiologist might think they are fantastic and that Nantucket’s cemeteries have some of the best lichen growths, a conservator sees lichen as the bane of the stones existence!  Growths lock in moisture and help to more quickly erode the facades of the stones.

 

As a way to share the knowledge of properly cleaning a historic stone monument, we opened the process as a workshop – which was underwritten by the Community Preservation Act – during Preservation Month.  We had a wonderful turnout, including descendants of the Mitchell family and a professor of microbiology who, while upset we were removing excellent samples of lichens from the stones, regaled us with all the names of the lichens we were removing and all sorts of interesting facts about them.  You see, while a microbiologist might think they are fantastic and that Nantucket’s cemeteries have some of the best lichen growths, a conservator sees lichen as the bane of the stones existence!  Growths lock in moisture and help to more quickly erode the facades of the stones.

Stone before cleaning.

The same stone after cleaning.

So, with the beautiful fall weather, I have been back at work cleaning the stones with a special environmentally and conservation friendly cleaner made just for such a job.  If you are interested in learning more, or possibly participating in a workshop this spring to learn how to do this, please contact me.


And remember, it’s okay to speak to them – I think they like the visit.


JNLF

Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger June 3, 2025
We have finally gotten out of significant drought status into mild drought. I would say we had nothing to do with it, but with climate change, we do. However, I appreciate Mother Nature’s recent gifts though these days they come hard, fast, and extreme. I always say that the May rains create a “whoomph factor.” With each rain, it seems the leaves grow over night to a new stage, of the underbrush does, of the plants in your garden. Its several “whoomphs” over the month as it rains. One “whoomph” brought about the Pink Lady Slippers. They seem a bit early this year – I usually look for them in early June – but on a walk the other morning at 6AM with our Siberian Husky, I decided to look at two places – one along the street behind where an old pine tree, now dead and gone, was located, and along our driveway in the scrub oak. And low and behold, they were there – one at the pine tree stump and two in our driveway. These are endangered in many places, including here on island. These are all plants that Maria Mitchell would have found in abundance depending on where she was walking on the island. Unfortunately with overdevelopment and someone thinking, “Oh what a lovely flower, I will take it home,” and over mowing along roads, these are quickly disappearing along with other plants like the Eastern Prickly Pear Cactus, Pearly Everlasting, Sea Lavender – the list goes on and its depressing. So please, make yourself aware, and try and find ways to avoid mowing or digging these up. Mow AROUND them instead. Leave their areas undisturbed. They are not just lovely to look at; they are important parts of our ecosystem.  JNLF
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
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
Show More