Toys!

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 22, 2014

The plastic orange duck you see here is approximately forty-one years old. Yes, I just gave away my age. That plastic duck, made in Germany and speaking very much of the age it was created in both design and color, was mine. Then, it was my brother’s. Then, it was used by my dolls, including my beloved Rub-a-Dub (she could go in the tub! And my Rub-a-Dub had a curl on the top of her washable hair – not many did). Then, that same duck was used by my niece and nephew when they were babies and spending time with Nana and Grandpa. And now?  Well, now it is just about my son’s favorite baby toy. Who would have thought? It is a rattle as well – it has a small bead or two inside and it makes a very soft but pleasant sound. It also gives him some places to rub his itchy gums on – he is teething in a most serious manner . . . we still await teeth after at least two months of teething.


Toys have not changed too much since Maria’s day. Yes, there are entirely too many, they are unfortunately heavily made of plastic, they are brightly colored. But, there were rattles and teethers, dolls and stuffed animals, tea sets and dollhouses, toy soldiers and tin horses. Granted, Quaker toys were far simpler than toys of non-Quakers but they all had a purpose for life stages of infants and children, helping them advance, to get through teething, to remain quiet at meeting or while mother was busy, and teaching children how to be proper adults. Well, my duck did not help me to be a proper adult but it did occupy me quietly for a time as it now does my son and provided me with something to chew upon.


Mitchell House has a small but wonderful assortment of mid to late nineteenth century toys. Once piece in the collection is this tin horse made by Peleg Mitchell Jr’s tinsmith partner, James Austin, for his grandchildren. Its tin tail may have at one time had a small amount of real horse hair tufting from it and it was also likely attached to a larger stand. I will tell you that one wrong move with it and a child would have quickly found out what sharp meant! Its tin mane has a “nice” edge to it that could still make a slice of a delicate hand. So toys taught a little more than some of our toys do today. Child safety was not the same obviously but a child then quickly learned a little respect and caution – not that I condone that way of thinking! We have come a long way, no? And just think, when you see the cradle in the birth room at the Mitchell House, rocking a baby was not the soothing gentle act we all think about when we see one. Women rocked those babies in the 18th century and earlier; hard. Babies were not necessarily soothed to sleep. After a mother’s rocking, they were probably semi-conscious or on their way to nausea and dizziness that forced them to quiet down and possibly fall asleep. Ugh!

 

JNLF

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Mallow!

By Jascin Leonardo Finger • August 31, 2026
I’m sure you’ve seen it as you trek about the island – near the beaches and ponds. This image is of the swamp or marsh mallow that we have on Vestal Street in our garden out front of the Observatory. It can grow in drier places – though it’s not as lush as at Capaum Pond or out in Quaise. It’s in the Hibiscus family – and is fairly tropical looking and always a delight to see.  “When in bloom, one of the most showy plants of the Island, for a mass of the magnificent, large flowers on the edge of a blue pond causes one’s heart to thrill at the wealth of deep pink colour . . .” from Nantucket Wild Flowers, Alice O. Albertson (cousin of Maria Mitchell), 1921. JNLF

A Piece of a Clay Pipe

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 24, 2026
I have always wanted to find a piece of a clay pipe. I know – weird – but if you have ever read any of my blogs here for the MMA then you know I have a thing for pottery shards. I sort of figured I would not find a piece of a clay pipe – not even a piece of a stem. But the other day, walking in a place where I have found quite a few shards, I found a piece of clay pipe! Now, I’m not talking about water pipes – I am talking about tobacco pipes. And I know very little about clay pipes. Yes, I am a curator of a historic house museum, but this family did not smoke. They were Quaker and among the many things they abstained from, tobacco was one of them. Therefore, I am not up on clay pipes so I am doing a bit more research.  For one, age can be determined by the width of the hole inside the pipe. So based on this one, I would say it’s fairly late. Since they were so fragile, and those holes pretty small, if it got filled with tobacco, the person just broke off the stem creating a shorter pipe and one that was not clogged with tobacco. Apparently, stems could be recycled – in fact, 15,000 broken stem pieces were uncovered at a historic walkway at Colonial Williamsburg – they were used as fill! And pipes were made into the early twentieth century – falling out of favor around World War One. It makes sense – they were cheap, easy to make, and affordable. Typically, one could last a few years – unless you dropped it of course. An,d pipes were used by men, women, and (eh, em) yes, children. I can see that Nantucket may not have had a lot of tobacco smoking residents – not just that some were Quaker – but because of the Quaker influence. I t does not mean people here do not smoke – I just think there may have been fewer smokers on the island in the nineteenth century and earlier. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • August 17, 2026
August 19 {1857}. There are four great men whose haunts I mean to seek, and on whose footsteps I mean to stand: Newton, Shakespeare, Milton, and Johnson. To-day I told the driver to take me to St. Martin’s, where the guide-book says that Newton lived. He put me down at the Newton Hotel, but I looked in vain to its top to see anything like an observatory. I went into a wine-shop near, and asked a girl, who was pouring out a dram, in which house Newton lived. She pointed, not to the hotel, but to the house next to a church, and said, “that’s it – don’t you see a place on the top? That’s where he used to study nights.” It is a little, oblong-shaped observatory, built apparently of wood, and blackened by age . . . .” Blackened no doubt by the wood ash and soot found in the air throughout over-crowded nineteenth century London. We always think about London being very foggy in the nineteenth century but frankly a lot of it was wood and coal ash as the nineteenth century grew older, particularly as factories developed and belched all of that into the air – think Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s. But Maria Mitchell, while starting in Europe as a young woman’s chaperone, also knew that this tour of Europe was a great learning experience – the equivalent of a college education she could not have. Doors were thrown open to her around Europe – in particular at all of the observatories that dotted the continent. She was not just well-known – she was famous. JNLF
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