The Children of William and Lydia Coleman Mitchell

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • September 23, 2024

From time to time, I have mentioned, most if not all, of the children of William Mitchell and Lydia Coleman Mitchell. However, I have not listed them and their accomplishments all together. While brief, I thought this would be nice to help highlight Maria Mitchell’s siblings.


Andrew Mitchell (1814 – 1871) A sailor who ran off to sea at sixteen, served in the US Navy during the Civil War, became a farmer, and worked at one point with his youngest brother, Henry, in some of his U.S. Coast Survey work.


Sally Mitchell Barney (1816 – 1876) An excellent celestial navigator who assisted her father with his surveying of Nantucket that was printed as a map in 1838. Sally was also a teacher.


Maria Mitchell (1818 – 1889) America’s first woman astronomer, a founder of the Association for the Advancement of Woman, the first female professor of astronomy in the U.S. at Vassar College. First American awarded a gold medal from the King of Denmark for her discovery of a telescopic comet in 1847.


Anne Mitchell Macy (1820 – 1900) A teacher of languages at the Coffin School on Winter Street – she was called the “Mistress of Seven Foreign Tongues” – and a member of the Association for the Advancement of Woman.


Francis “Frank” Mitchell (1823 – 1891) Frank would move the farthest from Nantucket and his family. He and his wife, Ellen, settled in Chicago where they established a produce commission firm.


William Forster “Forster” Mitchell (1825 – 1892) An abolitionist and educator, Forster would serve as Haverford College Superintendent, supervisor and teacher in the Freedmen’s Aid Commission, and founding faculty member at Howard College (now University) where he taught tinsmithing in the Industrial Arts Department – a craft he learned from his uncle, Peleg Mitchell Jr.


Phebe Mitchell Kendall (1828 – 1907) An artist, Phebe opened a small art school on Nantucket, and travelled with her sister, Maria, to observe and paint two solar eclipses. Like her sisters, she was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Woman and she was the first woman to serve on the Cambridge, MA School Board.


Eliza Mitchell (1830 – 1833) The twin of Henry, she died at age 3.


Henry Mitchell (1830 – 1902) A US Coast Survey hydrographer, and a teacher at MIT, Henry was a founder of the National Geographic Society and participated in the design and construction of the Suez Canal.


Eliza Katherine “Kate” Mitchell Dame (1833 – 1907) The youngest and named after her deceased sister, Kate would move to Lynn, MA where many of the Mitchell family members would live or spend lengths of time – all gathered around their father, William, who had moved there with Maria in 1861. Kate’s home became the center of the Mitchell family constellation.


JNLF

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Soups On!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 9, 2026
You know the cold has arrived when I make the first soup of the season. I did just that this weekend – perhaps a little later than normal because all of a sudden it got cold at night and we have had three frosts in a row – the first of the season on Friday night (October 23, 2026). My first: Portuguese Kale Soup from a recipe found long ago in Yankee Magazine . This is my husband’s favorite and I “Italian-ize” it (I am half Italian) by having grated parmesan to sprinkle on top which also helps add salt if it’s lacking. I know – horrors! But don’t we all bring some of our backgrounds to the table – so to speak – when it comes to augmenting recipes? Then, what’s even better is you can freeze most of the soups – and then you have a ready meal for another time. It makes you realize, yet again, how difficult things were 100 or more years – certainly more – ago. Imagine cooking for twelve people, as Maria Mitchell’s mother did, and not being able to preserve or set aside much of what you made as there were not storage techniques or technology that would allow for such a thing. Just the cooking alone – never mind putting things by like preserves or salt cod or something – for twelve people! Poor Lydia! I can barely cook for three! Good thing my husband cooks a lot. Though he HATES baking so that’s where I still have a place at the counter!  I am looking forward to more soups – not sure what is next. Perhaps Curried Lentil – another good one that freezes well. My Mother just dug one out of her freezer from last winter and it was still good! JNLF

Applesauce!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • November 2, 2026
Early October is a time to make something I love – applesauce. It’s one of my favorite things. Ironically, when I was a baby, I did not like it. But because I ate very little – and my Mother was worried because I was such a skinny baby (not anymore!) – my Other Nana (great grandmother) made a lot of applesauce because my Mother said I ate it. I did not – but my Mother could not tell her Nana (grandmother) that and disappoint her. So, I think my parents ate a lot of applesauce back in the early 1970s. I sort of dread making it though – which is silly because it’s very easy and I always forget that until I am making it. You only have to core and slice the apples – you leave on the peels. That is what gives the applesauce – which uses McIntosh apples (my fave!) – its pink color. And with some lemon and then some sugar – you’ve got the best tasting applesauce. And it smells so good while it’s cooking! It is also freezable so once cool – it goes into winter hibernation to be brought out for specific sorts of meals. Putting food by – as Lydia Coleman Mitchell once did for her family of 12! I was a bit late this year, but over the weekend of October 24, apples were cooking on my stove resulting in the first applesauce accompanied meal of the fall and winter season. JNLF

Bang, Clang, Hiss!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 26, 2026
I grew up, quite literally, with hot water radiators in a Colonial Revival from the 1920s.  There was a huge boiler in the basement that chugged and blew hot belching air. It took up one whole area of the basement and I avoided it. I could hang over on the stairs and stare at its flames at the bottom. It scared me. It not only kept the basement very warm but also very dry. While the house had been built in an area that began to slope at our property, between the furnace and the clever drainage system installed by the builders of the house in the 1920s, our basement was always dry. My mother, the queen of rebates (this is the 1970s and 1980s), had her “rebate and coupon table” right in front of this furnace. I remember it always glowed – and I would not doubt that it still had some asbestos around some of its pipes. Maybe another reason I stayed away – perhaps I was warned away at an early age not just because I could burn myself! One of my fondest memories of this house was the clang and hiss of the heaters in the winter. It made me feel instantly cozy, as if I was wrapped in a nice warm quilt. If I was in bed at night and it was snowing, all the more warmth and cozy feeling. It was comforting and a sound and feel I still associate with snow and winter. The street light and the snow falling, spiraling down in that pinkish gold of the light – and the hoped for snow day to come! Forced air systems just don’t do the same thing. And, they suck all the moisture out of the house to boot! They do keep a house quite warm though – but still not the same – and I miss that humidity as do my plants. I reflect back on the hot water radiators – those old cast iron loopy radiators with the valve and perhaps a radiator box to cover them – as it if they kept me super warm. They didn’t. We kept our house at 63F – a lesson I still follow – and it was a big old Colonial-style house so it could be drafty. One reason we had a Franklin stove in our family room and quilts for nighttime television watching! So many times over the course of a winter, I think of that house where I spent about twenty years of my life, and remember the, “Bang, Clang, Hiss!” of the radiators and the coziness they projected. And while, it wasn’t always warm, it was a lot warmer that the Mitchell House would have been in February! JNLF
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