The sun appeared while we were at breakfast this morning but had disappeared by the time we left for the day. It did warm up enough for short sleeves for a while and the best thing was it didn't rain!!
We turned left out of the hotel this morning rather than heading in to town. We passed some lovely houses and we noticed that lots of them had painted the front of the house facing the street. Mostly they were white or yellow but it was only the front that was painted. The rest was the grey shingles. Maybe it is either too costly or too time consuming to paint the whole house.
We came to Maria Mitchell's house after a little while. She was America's first female astronomer. In 1847 she discovered a comet which became known as Miss Mitchell's comet. Her father built an observatory at their home for her.
A bit further along we came to the old gaol. Gail pointed it out in the tour yesterday and emphasised that it was written as gaol instead of jail as it was the old English spelling. There was a man from the Nantucket Historical Association at the gaol to tell us all about it. He also sold us a ticket to visit 4 historic properties and the whaling museum.
The gaol opened in 1806. The main door of the gaol and the doors to each of the 4 cells were extremely heavy. The bars on the windows were so thick there was no way they could be moved or broken. The floors of the cells sloped down and they were dark and cramped. It is awful to think the last prisoner was still there in 1933.
Our next stop was the Fire Hose Cart House. One third of Nantucket was destroyed in the great fire of 1846. It started when a stove in a hat shop overheated. There were 2 different fire brigades and one wanted to join their hoses to the other brigade's hoses to give them more length but the 2nd brigade refused. They wanted the honour of being the first to pour water on the fire. This didn't work for them and the fire quickly spread. In one night, a third of the town was destroyed. Because there was whale oil being stored on the wharves, the fire spread quickly, even destroying whale boats moored at the wharf.
It was an absolute disaster for Nantucket. Most of the food stores had been destroyed and people were left with only the clothes they were wearing. The great fire signalled the end of the whaling business for Nantucket and left the island in a depression for the next century.
The Fire Hose Cart House houses Fire Cart No. 6 which played a pivotal role in the Great Fire. The cart was in a private collection for many years before being returned to the Historical Association. It is in good condition and is the only cart left from the time. It could be pulled by the fireman or if they had further to go, they could harness horses to it.
The next stop on our walking tour was a house called Greater Light. This was owned by 2 Quaker sisters, Gertrude and Hanna Monaghan. They were very wealthy artists from Philadelphia and spent their summers on Nantucket. One day they got stopped on the road by a herd of cattle. They followed the cows to their barn & loved it even though it was in a state of disrepair. They eventually convinced the farmer to sell them the barn. They renovated it and converted it into an artists studio and residence. The sisters used to visit scrapyards for things they liked. The house was a very eclectic mix of the pieces they had bought. The windows were all different and there was a lot of wrought iron inside. They were considered eccentric and some neighbours never accepted them. They left the house to the Historical Association with strict instructions for it to be used for 'the arts'. It is now used for poetry readings, movie screening and dramatic performances. The sisters had an older sister whose family still own the house next door. It is called Lesser Light.
Our next stop was the Whaling Museum. We spent a surprising long time here. We sat in on 3 presentations/lectures. The first one was about a whaling boat called the Essex. They sailed in 1820 and were sunk after being head butted twice by a sperm whale. The crew had to retreat to the 3 small whale boats and spent 95 days at sea before being rescued. Only 5 crew members survived after being subjected to dehydration and starvation. They had to resort to cannibalism to survive. They ate the bodies of the dead crew members. The plight of the Essex inspired the novel, Moby Dick.
The second presentation was a film about Nantucket. They have a very extensive history of whaling. In the 1800s, Nantucket whalers discovers the sperm whale and the huge amount of spermaceti oil contained in a sperm whales head. This oil was very valuable as it could be used to make candles that were odourless, drip less and smokeless.
The third presentation was a recount of a whale hunt. It was a very brutal way to kill whales and also highly dangerous for the whale men.
The museum has lots of old artefacts from the whaling boats - spears, buckets, artwork, jugs, tools, journals etc. some of them date back to early 1810. There is also a sperm whale skeleton. It is absolutely huge. On 1st January 1998, a young sperm whale died on a Nantucket beach. The Historical Association was allowed to keep the skeleton as sperm whales played such a significant part in Nantucket's history. They had to remove the blubber from the bones and the spermaceti oil from the head. The oil is now on display in huge bottles in the museum. The carcass was buried for several months to allow the remaining flesh to degrade. Once it was dug up, the bones were immersed in the harbour in cages to allow fish to keep cleaning it up. The bones had to be boiled and bleached for months before installation could occur. It is a very imposing sight hanging from the ceiling in such a way you can imagine it swimming right at you.
In the same building is the Hadwen and Barney Candle Factory. Here they have the only oil press left in the world. It is a massive wooden beam press used to press the spermaceti oil.
Many of the whale men were accomplished artists. Some sketched, some drew, some painted and many carved on sperm whale teeth. This is known as scrimshaw. There were some very intricate carvings and elaborate drawings on display.
The other thing they did was basket weaving. There is a very specific Nantucket basket that is in a lot of the shops. It must be a great skill because they aren't cheap. I have just noticed there is a basket museum. I would like to know more about these baskets - were they used on the boats or just as a way to pass time???
The Nantucketians are very proud of their whaling history. It certainly put Nantucket on the map in the 1800s but it was such a cruel thing to do. I suppose it is no worse than the
way white settlers treated indigenous people in many countries. I would love to see a sperm whale in the ocean but they inhabit the deepest parts so it will probably never happen.
We surprisingly filled in the whole day today and didn't get to the Shipwreck Museum. We will go there tomorrow.