Where once had stood 33 acres of homes and businesses, nothing blocked the view of the smoking harbor. Discovery of petroleum at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859 put Nantucket whaling into a death spiral that the Civil War concluded; 400 Nantucket men joined the Union Army. Survey duty meant regular shore leave, fresh food, and slim chances of combat. The Great Fire sent the population into freefall; the 1870 census counted 4,123 year-round residents; much larger Martha’s Vineyard, 30-some miles west, was home to only 3,787 but doing a robust touristic trade. No Jacket. Born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. (Nantucket Historical Association). Whaleships were floating factories. Finding the wall behind the chimney hot, they soaked it with water. Real estate became the new whale oil. As dawn was breaking Tuesday, firefighters and residents, exhausted and grimy, gathered at the Pacific Bank. 6 and William C. Swain of No. Maria cataloged the Atheneum’s collections. Virginia Woolf, English author (Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando). The improvised defense did not work well. Swabbies in the U.S. Navy of the mid-1800s coveted coastal survey duty. Soon rudimentary three-and four-story buildings lined Sherburne’s narrow streets. The summer of 1846 was very dry. To heat irons for flattening felt brims, Geary kept a coal stove going year-round. Spermaceti, an excellent lubricant for fine machinery, made candles that burned brighter, longer, and without smoke. The city of Troy, New York, sent 21 stoves. Another tool for containing fires was gunpowder, used to blast firebreaks by knocking down flammable buildings. Blue cloth spine and grey paper covered boards. Navy captains Lieutenant Charles H. Davis of Gallatin and Lieutenant John R. Goldsborough of Wave ordered their crews into town. As more and more Friends  took up residence, the Wampanoag passed along their whale-scrounging skills. On the second floor, the stovepipe, enclosed in wood, elbowed into a chimney. 6 was…critically blamed for this most unfortunate condition.”. The Selectmen set aside $5,000 in town funds to go to the worst off. These are all titles of books written in the 1950’s by Frank Gilbreth,  Jr.  (some were co-authored with his sister Ernestine Gilbreth Cary)    ‘INNSIDE NANTUCKET’ is about operating  OUR Anchor Inn here on Centre Street back in the 1950’s. The wall collapsed, revealing flames rising into the adjacent building. When Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Chester A. Arthur visited, Sanford was their guide. Buildings raised in the town of Nantucket after the blaze aged into a time capsule of small-town life. By the early 1900s, American commercial whaling had petered out. Some Nantucketers bribed firefighters to save possessions, weakening the fire line. According to island lore, Maria Mitchell argued against demolition; the wind was blowing away, she said. 8 reached the cistern about the same time,” the son wrote. NANTUCKET. Unlike his father, though, and like most of his siblings, Bob lived an extended lifespan. 6 and the Fountain No. Please direct anything which you may send to the Selectmen of the Town of Nantucket, and we pledge ourselves to dispense whatever you may bestow, faithfully, and to the best of our ability, judiciously.”. 1. Finishing work that Monday night, Geary checked his stove for embers and sparks. Roaming the globe—a voyage could exceed three years—Nantucket whalers made their home port the prosperous center of a robust industry. Built of wood plastered to suggest stone, Trinity went up quickly, its bell tolling as flames collapsed the belfry. Cheaper by the dozen. On Monday July 13, 1846, the crews of cutter USS Gallatin and schooner USS Wave completed a day of surveying the waters off Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and Martha’s Vineyard, a large island 13 miles from Cape Cod’s south shore. By the time Cataract began spraying the hattery, the fire was out of control. Other towns and fishing villages, including Siasconset, eight miles east, took root. The Methodist Church survived. On April 10, 1845, a fire consumed a third of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Cheaper by the Dozen is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, published in 1948. (Danita Delimont/Alamy Stock Photo), Legend dates the start of modern whaling off Nantucket to 1712, when a gale blew a Captain Hussey and crew out to sea and into a pod of sperm whales, a few of which the men captured. The town’s few brick structures and the Atlantic stopped the fire’s spread. Highly combustible whale oil, wooden buildings, narrow streets, and summer’s ocean breezes conspired to set the town of Nantucket ablaze. “One of the peculiar incidents of that wild night was the rare sight of the harbor on fire,” Fred Elijah Coffin recalled. If the property owner refused, the building burned. When Quakers came to New England to escape persecution in England only to encounter persecution by the region’s dominant Puritans, Quaker missionaries encouraged coreligionists to relocate to Nantucket, which was home to no organized sect. Gardner’s Candle and Oil Factory. Firefighting was largely private and makeshift. Water from the cistern out front mostly saved the bank’s wooden exterior but its rooftop observatory and astronomy equipment burned. The crew of No. The building and the collection within were lost. I think it should be required reading for all innkeepers! “Many were the sighs and heavy hearts, as we gazed on the ruins of that favored institution, as in the general distress, what was there to hope for in the future, as far as the rebuilding of any building was concerned?” William Macy wrote. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, 1954. An 1874 photograph of Nantucket shows how rapidly the town was rebuilt (Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images). Told in Barbara's voice, it chronicles her introduction to Nantucket and all of the family Traditions that go with the vacation spot. Charles and Ann Balas bought Anchor Inn in 1983 and opened Memorial Day Weekend. Although the author Herman Melville never visited Nantucket before publishing Moby-Dick in 1851, he had briefly worked aboard a whaler, and found inspiration in the 1820 sinking of the Essex for his masterpiece, which enjoyed popularity in the early 1900s that continues today. Whaling suffered a decline, as did Nantucket’s fortunes (“Boom and Bust,” p. 30). The town officially hailed the U.S. Navy for its sailors’ “unremitting exertions,” as did Navy Secretary George Bancroft. Brother, Robert Gilbreth and his wife Barbara were innkeepers here and they shared their stories about their guests with Frank, who then wrote the book. Stereoscope view of whaling ship docked at Nantucket wharf while workers sliced free blubber and meat, to be cooked down into oil. Demolishing 20 buildings, the town had run out of gunpowder. ), New Jersey, South Carolina. The loss of The Atheneum weighed heavily. HistoryNet Video. Best part of the day. Rare opportunity to build in Brant Point. The fire riveted spectators, many of whom joined the island’s firefighters in trying to quench the blaze. Buildings raised in the town of Nantucket after the blaze aged into a time capsule of small-town life. By 1896, however, Farnham’s star had grown tarnished. 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