Trash?

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 1, 2013

Here you see the fruits of a Sunday walk along the harbor – another of my favorite things to collect. The recent storms have swept some areas clean and in others, they have helped to deposit treasures stirred up from the bottom of Nantucket Harbor – something that once served as a dumping ground among other uses in the nineteenth century and earlier.


These are pottery shards of various ages. Looking at them closely, they are mid to late nineteenth century (the blue and white pieces – in particular the lighter blue pieces) and possibly all the way up to the 1930s or so with the largest piece on the bottom right having a floral and bamboo/basket decoration that reminds me of McCoy ware. I will have to see if I can find any such pattern with them – it could very likely be another pottery maker, from the early to mid- twentieth century but maybe even the late nineteenth century!

But in any case, it tells a story of what Nantucketers used in their homes. Each time we have a hard rain, shards will appear in the yard of the Mitchell House where the family tossed out some of its trash that slowly became a part of the landscape and the earth. When a sewer pipe was re-done the plumber left the shards that he had found for me – I think he knows me too well! (The family has worked on MMA plumbing since the MMA had running water – early 1900s.)


One piece reminds me of mochaware but I think it might be a much later copy though I do hope I am just being cautious and this really is a 19th century shard of mochaware. That too I will have to investigate. Mochaware was started in the late 1700s in England and was just about the cheapest pottery one could get then and into the nineteenth century. Maybe akin to Fiestaware which while many collect it today used to be given out at the grocery store and the movies!


In any event, take a look around you. Look down and up – observe! (“We see most when we are most determined to see,” according to Maria – how right she was!) You never know what your feet are treading over and you never know what you might find – it might whisper something about those who once lived in the houses and neighborhoods we now inhabit.


JNLF

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The Ancient Vine

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 11, 2026
A repost – with my apologies – from last year. It started budding the week of April 30 this year. This is what our landscaper for the 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 that 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 once I plant them – 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

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 4, 2026
May 6, 1878 Between the clouds, Miss Spalding obtained 7 photographs of Mercury on the Sun. It is comfort to me to be able to plan and do a new kind of work. The large telescope worked better than usual, Clark having just been to the Observatory. Clark, as in Alvan Clark, a man who would become the premier telescope maker in America and who built Maria Mitchell’s 5-inch Alvan Clark refractor that she purchased from him (after working with him to build it per her specifications) with money gifted to her from “The Women of America” led by Elizabeth Peabody. More than likely, it is this telescope she is referring to as she did use it in the Vassar College Observatory with her students – and it is also taking center stage in photographs, along with her (first her father’s) Dolland telescope.  Maria had decided she would photograph the Sun on every clear day, and this was one of those results. She would use these images, with her students, to study sun spots and their changes. With her students, Maria would photograph the transit of Mercury as noted above. She would also photograph the transit of Venus a few years later with her students. JNLF

Spring Has Sprung!

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 27, 2026
And with it, some of the heirloom daffodils I purchased for the Mitchell House last fall. A place was recommended to me by two longtime friends of the MMA and gardeners extraordinaire. It is called Old House Gardens. I ordered a small amount as we now have a plethora of voles on Vestal Street – I believe I complained about them here last year. They won’t eat daffodils so I got a few of “Butter and Eggs” (1777) and “Conspicuus” (1869) as either of these could have appeared in William Mitchell’s gardens. They were not listed in a letter from John Quincy Adams that I have mentioned before. But, Adams was not here visiting the Mitchell family when the daffodils would have been in bloom. The one pictured here is “Butter and Eggs” not completely unfurled. JNLF
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