Island Profiles

The first sighting of the island of Nantucket was reportedly in 1602, when Captain Bartholomew Gosnold of England sailed past it. He did not stop there nor even set foot upon the island. If he had, he would have found about 1600 Wampanoag inhabitants. The Wampanoags were able to live on the island undisturbed until 1659, when a group of English settlers arrived on the island which had been purchased by merchant and missionary Thomas Mayhew in 1641. When the…

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This month we will spend a little time exploring the small island of Nantucket. The name, which is said to be a Native American word meaning ‘That Far Away island”, refers simultaneously to the island, county and town.  Located about 30 miles south of Cape Cod, it is part of the state of Massachusetts. Once considered the whaling capital of the world, the island had a booming economy in the 18th and early 19th centuries until a fire, which started…

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