Update: Conservation of the MMA Science Library Building

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • October 27, 2014

And we are off! In these photographs, you see island mason Wayne Morris along with his mason tender daughter, Andrea, the engineer, the grout and pillow anchor fabricator representative, and myself (we were a crowd!) testing the pillow anchors that are inserted into the holes they sawed into the northern façade of the MMA’s Science Library building. These pillow anchors, developed by John Wathne of Structures-North, an engineer who specializes in historic buildings and who has worked on Mitchell House, will be pumped with grout to a set PSI. In one image you see one that has been filled and resembles a pill package. Those areas were where holes in a cement block existed and where the grout filled the pillow and pushed up into the voids in the block. This is what will happen to the MMA building. The pillow will expand and fill the voids in the terracotta tiles of the NatCo system that make our building’s walls. This will stabilize the walls where you see cracking. Pillow anchors are not a new thing – they are typically long and resemble a sock. But these flat, square anchors were developed by the engineer specifically for our building.


Now that the test is complete, anchors and grout are on order. Scaffolding is up around the chimney on the back of the building where the mason will be re-pointing and rebuilding the top of the chimney which vents the furnace. Then, he will move to the front of the building and replace the steel lintels under the windows, install the pillow anchors, and repair the terracotta tiles where there has been map cracking. Once this work is complete, stucco will be reapplied to fill in the openings on the face of the building, work will be completed to the gutters and downspouts, and then painting will be completed to the building. The building will also likely get darker, returning to more of a grey tone as it was when it was built. All of this exterior work has been funded by the Community Preservation Act. Stay tuned as the work progresses!


JNLF

Recent Posts

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

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

Keep Calm and Bird On: July 2025

July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

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