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DOING TIME
The NHA unlocks the history of the old jail on Vestal Street. It’s been called the big house, the clinker, the slammer, but back in 1806 the jail on Nantucket was known as the Old Gaol. After almost a...
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A Living Link to the Past
Vanity Fair Special Correspondent Maureen Orth explores the story of Phil Grant, one of the last living connections to Nantucket’s whaling days. Five generations ago, Phil Grant’s...
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A TASTE OF HISTORY
Thanksgiving is a nineteenth-century invention. It was declared a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, after two decades of persistent campaigning by a poet and magazine editor named...
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LYNX TO HISTORY
Ask someone on the street to name a major battle in the War of 1812 and you will most likely just get a blank stare in response. There’s no Gettysburg or D-Day that sticks out in our national...
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NANTUCKET’S INTOXICATING HISTORY
Rollicking tales of rum-running, bootlegging, and legendary Nantucket parties You don’t need a Breathalyzer to prove that alcohol and Nantucket go together like gin and tonic. Just ask historian...
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STOVE BY A WHALE
Shipwreck. Starvation. Murder. Cannibalism. Big Hollywood stars. What more could one hope for in a museum experience? Starting this spring, the Nantucket Historical Association recounts the story of...
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VICTORIAN’S SECRET
Exploring the forgotten history of Nantucket’s rarest architecture. Scattered among Nantucket’s restrained and occasionally formal architecture are buildings that seem to scream for attention. With...
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BERRY INTERESTING
The global reach of Nantucket’s native fruit. Every October, more than two million pounds of cranberries are harvested from the Nantucket Conservation Foundation’s bogs. That’s approximately 666...
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SHELL COLLECTOR
Nantucket summer resident Dr. Marc Garnick owns some of the world’s rarest rowing shells. For forty-six years, thousands have gathered on the banks of Boston’s Charles River for the largest rowing...
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RETURN OF THE JETTIES
An ambitious project to restore Nantucket’s Jetties begins this fall. More than a hundred years since their original construction, the jetties leading into Nantucket harbor have fallen into disrepair,...
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LEADING THE CHARGE
Can Nantucket become 100 percent energy self-sufficient? Two hours off the coast of Denmark, the Danish island of Samso is reminiscent of Nantucket. Forty-square-miles in size, Samso receives...
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HOLIDAY SHOPPING ON THE HIGH SEAS
Back in the whaling days, many a Nantucketer did their holiday shopping on the open ocean or at exotic stops along the way. Undoubtedly, this made returning or exchanging presents a real hassle…even...
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SPY GAMES
Revealing the secret life of late summer resident, Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. When Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, Jr. was eulogized at Siasconset Union Chapel sixteen years ago this June, few had any idea of the...
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SEEING THE LIGHT
What makes Nantucket’s lighthouses really shine? At the end of this month, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin will be appearing at the Nantucket Whaling Museum to treat audiences to an enlightening...
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WALTER’S WORLD
Meet the man who made Nantucket what it is today. He was driven by both passion and profits. He was met with both praise and ire. He was arguably the most important Nantucket resident in the last fifty...
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COLD CASE
Reopening one of Nantucket’s greatest unsolved mysteries: The disappearance of Dr. Margaret Kilcoyne. Few people on Nantucket remember her name all these years later, but for those that do, Margaret...
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CURIOUS COLLECTION
The NHA’s latest exhibit will have you thinking outside of the box. In November 1847, Rockwell’s New York Circus set sail on the brig Young Lady from Manhattan to Boston. After fourteen days of storms...
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HISTORIC HEROINES
How the seeds of feminism in America first took root on Nantucket. When more than four hundred people gathered in the courtyard of the Atheneum this past January as part of the nationwide women’s...
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PLAYING THE OLDIES
One songwriter is bringing new life to Nantucket’s oldest places. In what will literally be music to people’s ears, the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA) commissioned singer-songwriter and...
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OLD MAN & THE ISLAND
The hidden history of Ernest Hemingway on Nantucket. Whether fighting giant marlin off the coast of Key West or hunting U-Boats off Cuba, Ernest Hemingway’s swashbuckling adventures helped propel him...
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