Waking Up

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • April 29, 2019

Well, it’s that time of year. I always feel like I have ALL this time – and I do – but I always panic too.


After the 200th’s festivities – there were a LOT – I felt like it would be a bit quieter this year but frankly, it is not.


I have been contending with the weather so finally bit the bullet so to speak and basically gardened in the rain and wind and cold. I have lots of native plants and heirloom plants coming for both the Mitchell House garden and to finish up the garden in front of the Vestal Street Observatory which we were able to re-do last fall – thank you to our landscaper and a donation. The onion grass grew in with wild abandon – and I thought I would get a spring off! – Ha! But I did have a sunny day to do that garden thankfully. The wintergreen has arrived – that is the image you see here – for Mitchell House.

Now, it’s “off to the races” for the Mitchell House – some minor winter mildew remediation as always is my first step. Then the vacuuming, moving of furniture, cleaning, moving in fine art and instruments, and putting everything back into its place. I may have said it before but I kid you not. Everything I do at home, I do at work! Just with a MUCH closer attention to the historic artifacts and collection items.


And I do have a few events coming up for the House. On May 4, I am leading a “Daring Daughters of Nantucket” walk at 10am. Please call me to register – 508.228.2896. The cost is $10 Member/$15 Non-Member. And then on May 11, I have the Four Centuries Walk with Nantucket Preservation Trust and the Nantucket Historical Association. Suggested donation is $10. We meet at the Oldest House – no reservations necessary – and walk through Town needing at the Hadwen House. The point of the walk and talk is to show how the neighborhoods, streetscapes, and architecture changed – or did not change – over time as life changed. It’s a lot of fun and we always have a huge crowd. And then June 1, I will be doing another stone monument conservation workshop with the Prospect Hill Cemetery Historian. Reservations are also necessary and it’s the same pricing as the Daring Daughters Walk. All the info can be found on the MMA website and calendar.


Join us!


JNLF

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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
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