Talking to the Nineteenth Century

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 24, 2022

In my line of work, I meet many people from all over the country and all over the world. This is in large part because I provide – with the Mitchell House summer intern and summer volunteer tour guides – tours to the public. I also provide history walks and workshops as well and so I meet many interesting people and learn new things from them every day.


These visitors may provide new thoughts on something in history or about an artifact. A while ago, I gave a tour to a woman, a former kindergarten teacher. We had a lovely tour and chatted throughout our time together. We came to a place in the tour where something triggered a thought for her. She said to me that I was “too young” to have the experience she was going to relate. She told me she has spoken to people from the 1800s. She stated she has told this to people before and that the reaction she usually receives upon mentioning it is people backing away from her and asking her if she is seeing ghosts – with a look of skepticism among other looks. 


When she began to explain what she meant, I suddenly realized I had never thought about what she was saying in that way. I told her, “I’m not that young,” and then said I had never before considered what she was saying until she mentioned it. It seems pretty silly for me to have never really thought about it in this way. I too have spoken to people from the 1800s and touched  them – you have too if your parents or grandparents or other family or friends were born in the nineteenth century. I’m not sure how I never thought of this – I am a bit embarrassed – but I distinctly remember my great-grandmother (or, Other Nana as we called her) who died when I was three. She was born in the 1880s. I was a bit squirmy at that age and in order to have me sit with her, she would place the Montgomery Ward’s or Sears catalog on the table.  I would sit in her lap as she turned the pages for me to look at them – I adored those catalogs with all the pictures and colors, particularly the images of rooms all set up. I remember one such time, in particular, sitting on my family’s porch on her lap looking out over the backyard, catalog on the table in front of us. I have other memories too – playing with the laces on her shoes – leather shoes with a bit of a heel to them even though she walked with a walker. In addition, I remember my great-grandfather on my Dad’s side (Pop). Pop lived a long time – well into his 90s. He was a World War I veteran and had massive tattoos on the insides of his arms that he likely acquired while in Europe. He lived probably until I was in late elementary school or even the beginnings of junior high and he too was born in the nineteenth century – as were other of my relatives who I knew when I was young.


So, you see, I have spoken to people from the 1800s – and you have, too.  We are that last connection to the nineteenth century and the people of it.  It’s quite remarkable to sit with that.


JNLF

Recent Posts

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger July 7, 2025
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
July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews
By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF
Show More