USA > Massachusetts > Nantucket County > The history of Nantucket County, island, and town : including genealogies of first settlers > Part 73
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To all Christian People to whom this may Come; whereas there are now living certain Negroes, who have been Considered as the Property and belonging to the Estate of John and Mary Thirston, late of Newport in the County of Newport and State of Rhode Island, deceased; know ye that we Hezekiah & Mary Star- buck of Sherbourn in the County of Nantucket & Commonwealth of Massachusetts being Lawful Heirs to part of the Estate of the aforesaid John and Mary Thirston and therefore part of the sd Negroes may be liable by a Custom of the aforesaid State of Rhode Island to be by us or our Heirs subject to a State of Slavery, but believing it to be contrary to true Christianity and the Divine Injunction of the author thereof to hold any Person or Persons as our Property or continue them in a State whereby they may be Subjected to Slavery after our Decease. In Consideration whereof we do for ourselves, our Heirs, Executors and Administrators and assigns Manumit, Release and Discharge such part of each of the aforesaid Negroes from a State of Slavery as we or our Heirs would by Custom or Law hold, and hereby Declare them to be hence- forth Amply and fully Free and we do for ourselves, our Heirs Executors Administrators and assigns Warrant Secure and Defend the said Negroes from all Claims of Right Title or Property in them or any of them of any Person whatsoever, So Claiming or pre- tending to Claim from by or under us. In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our Hands this Twenty Eight Day of the Sixth month Anno 1783.
HEZEKIAH STARBUCK MARY STARBUCK SEALS
In presence of us JOB COGGESHALL THOMAS STARBUCK
*Nantucket Inquirer, Feb. 14. 1822.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
Not far from the year 1820, a runaway slave named Arthur Cooper found his way to Nantucket. His claimants resided in Alexandria, Va. According to report he had a small family in 1822. In that year his reputed owners ascertained his where- abouts, and determined to secure him and return him to slavery. Under the Fugitive Slave law it was allowed alleged owners to in- vade the North to recover what the law determined was their prop- erty. Accordingly the agent and a deputy marshal visited Nan- tucket, intending to carry the man away with them. Cooper and his family were living in that section of the Town known as Guinea. The knowledge of the visit of the agent and his deputy very quickly spread and by the time they arrived at Cooper's resi- dence a large assemblage was there, men respecters of the law but not admitting any property rights in man. Among them were Hon. Walter Folger, Sylvanus Macy, Francis G. Macy, and other prominent citizens. To delay the Deputy Marshall was a matter of prinie importance in carrying out plans hastily formulated. Miss Anna Gardner, whose father, grandfather and other relatives were present, gives the following narration of the proceedings .*
"Some time was occupied in front of the house by reading the Deputy's warrant of arrest and by the talk of Judge Folger to the crowd. The latter held that the laws of Massachusetts did not recognize any persons as slaves, and that, as a magistrate, he should be compelled to arrest the agent and Deputy Marshal should they persist in molesting the fugitives. During this prolonged delay my father and Uncle Thomast stepped quietly around to the back window, and beckoning to the trembling victims, indicated that they were prepared to help them escape. Disguised in my father's coat and Uncle Thomas' broad-brimmed Quaker hat, Arthur Cooper had reached our back door before the wrangle in front of
* Address at the Bi Centennial Celebration in Nantucket July 1895. Tradition says that among those who assembled when the United States Marshall had gone to Cooper's residence to take him into cus- tody was Sylvanus Macy, one of the magistrates. Mr. Macy was not by any means in sympathy with Marshall Bass, but his duties as a Town Justice compelled him to uphold the law. The only thing he could do was to delay the execution, and enable the hunted man to escape. Tradition says that he demanded to see the Marshall's warrant. Bass had left it at his lodging house and Macy would not allow any action to be taken until it was produced. When it had been procured it was handed to Mr. Macy, who deliberately read it over, word after word, from beginning to end, using all the time he could in the operation. Having finished the reading he turned deliberately round to the door of the house where the fugitives had taken refuge, and, rapping upon it, said "I-don't-see-but-the-writ-is-all-right-Mary-and-I-guess-thee-'ll -have-to-open-thy-door-and-go-with-the-officer. But the fugitives had long before escaped by the back door and were successfully hidden. Macy then turned to Bass and in the same suave, easy tone told him that as a people they were a very quiet, law abiding community, but there were a large number of men there who had passed a large part of their time on the ocean, and were very impulsive and inclined to be a little reckless. If anything should happen, and as this proceeding was very distasteful to them it was liable to happen, there was no military force on the Island which could be made available for quelling a riot. He did not think it quite prudent for Mr. Bass to stay on the island longer than was really necessary and in a friendly manner recom- mended him to leave by the earliest conveyance. The next morning Bass and his deputies left, but without the intended prisoners they came in quest of.
¡Thomas M. Macy.
1
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the house had so far subsided that the officers dare enter on their nefarious quest. When they did so, behold, vacancy! They were defeated, balked. The fugitives had fled!"*
The fugitives remained under cover at Oliver C. Gardner's for some six weeks. Arrangements had been made that if they were threatened with molestation or their hiding place was dis- covered, they could at once flee to neighboring houses, but they were not further troubled. Cooper lived and died in the little home where he was discovered by the officers.
In 1841, an Antislavery Convention was held at Nantucket. The meetings lasted three days and evenings and were well at- tended. The people, as a whole, for a long time had been opposed to slavery, not perhaps in the denunciating way of William Lloyd Garrison, but in the way indicated by the Arthur Cooper episode. There doubtless were many who were opposed to anti-slavery. Nantucket had a very considerable trade with the Southern ports and, as in all communities, there was some difference in opinion. There was some disturbance attending the Convention. In her review of the gathering Miss Gardner says: "The mob spirit was in our midst, instigated by men of property and standing" "Driven out from every church and public hall in the Town by a hooting mob, the abolishionists were compelled to accept the offer kindly tendered them to hold their meetings in the "big shop," owned by George and Reuben Coffin." But such an explanation is grossly unjust to the community or even to the participants in the disorders.
It was at one of these meetings, held in the Athenaeum, that Frederick Douglass made his debut as a public speaker. Miss Gardner thus describes the event.i
"When asked in the meeting to give his experience as a slave, Douglass complied with fear and trembling, never before having been called out before an audience of white people. It was at that time a great novelty to listen to the story of a man who had just escaped from the jaws of slavery, but they were not pre- pared to hear that story told in a manner so thrillingly eloquent by one who had never been to school or had a day's teaching in his life. Their surprise was great and they listened with rapt attention *
* Garrison, seeing his opportunity to promote the cause, *
* arose, and after a few characteristically excellent remarks he appealed to his audience with the query, "Have we been listening to a thing, a chattel personal, or to a man?" "A man! a man!" shouted the audience with one accord. "Shall such a man be held a slave in a Christian land?“ "No!" "No!" again shouted the audience, in a voice that seemed to make the rafters ring. Raising his tones to their fullest power, he again exclaimed.
*The only notice that the local newspaper took of the affair was a brief editorial mention some time afterwards. A modern newspaper would have made much of it, but it must be remembered that the local journals of the day did not exist to publish local news-the presump- tion was that the community knew that; its duty was to let its con- stituency know what was going on in the outside world.
¿Bi-Contennial Address, 1895.
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"Shall such a man ever be sent back to bondage from the free soil of old Massachusetts?" With a tremendous roar the whole as- sembly sprang to their feet and continued shouting: "No!" "No!" "No!" and Garrison's voice was drowned in enthusiastic responses."
Miss Gardner's story of the reception of Mr. Douglass and her statement of the abolitionists at their Convention in Nantuck- et being "driven out from every church and public hall in the Town by a howling mob" seem hardly compatible, and yet they are doubtless true excepting perhaps the "howling" part. When the
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BRANT POINT IN 1850 From South Tower
unquestionable general sentiment of the people of those days on the question of slavery is considered, it is realized that there must have been an undercurrent there which caused an otherwise unex- plainable reaction. Once understood the disturbances are easily accounted for.
Among the speakers was Stephen S. Foster, a man whose enthusiasm for abolition made him entirely incapable of judging of the motives of others, or of rendering them even the scantiest consideration. It is evident that his course at the Convention was resented by many, some of whom had been abolitionists of years
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standing, among whom were Nathaniel Barney and Peter Macy. It would seem that Messrs. Barney and Macy addressed a letter to him in the fall of 1842, asking him for a statement vindicating his use of his "strong language of denunciation of the American church and clergy-which I employed at the late Anti-Slavery Convention on your Island, and which was the occasion of the dis- graceful mob, which disturbed and broke up that meeting." In a booklet of 68 pages, which he entitles "The Brotherhood of Thieves, or a True Picture of the American Church and Clergy," Foster replies. He says "In the remarks which I propose to make, it will not be my object to vindicate myself in the opinion of the public. Indeed, to tell the truth, I place a very low estimate on the good opinions of my countrymen-quite as low, I think, as they do on mine." There is the gist of the whole difficulty. He admits that the public has with "lawless violence" broken up a majority of the meetings he has attended during the past nine months. He says-"The remarks which I made at your Conven- tion, were of a most grave and startling character." * * * "I said at your meeting, among other things, that the American church and clergy, as a body, were thieves, adulterers, man-stealers, pi- rates, and murderers-that the Methodist Episcopal Church was more corrupt and profligate than any house of ill fame in the city of New York-that the Southern ministers of that body were de- sirous of perpetuating Slavery for the purpose of supplying them- selves with concubines from among its hapless victims"-and that many of our clergymen were guilty of enormities that would dis- grace an Algerine pirate! ! "
Mr. Foster elaborates equally offensively on his statement and includes in his denunciation the Baptist, Episcopal, Unitarian, Universalist, Free Will Baptist and Friend's Societies.
There was the cause of the trouble and not Abolitionism; is it to be wondered at under the circumstances that such a speaker was barred the churches, or that in a public hall resentment should be shown?"*
The course of the Islanders as a whole has been consistent. They have always been found, by a large majority, on the side of justice and humanity. The leaven of personal freedom permeated their body with the declaration of the Friends' Monthly meeting in 1716, was accelerated in its movement and intensified by the statement of Elihu Coleman in 1729-30, and has never since faltered.
*According to report the lecturers found refuge as a last resort in the building known as the "Big Shop," where was found a forum for all sorts of opinions by all sorts of people. An interesting de- scription of the "Old Shop" is to be found in a paper by Arthur H. Gardner Esq. in the Proceedings of the Nantucket Historical Asso- ciation for 1916.
.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
CHAPTER XVI NANTUCKET'S NEWSPAPERS-LAND SCHEMES
The stories of the beginning of newspaper life in a commun- ity are unusually realizations of the Scriptural allegation than "many be called but few are chosen." It can hardly be called a "survival of the fittest," for it frequently happens that the survi- vor is really no improvement over some of its predecessors, but it seems rather to have struck the phsycological moment when the people were ready for it.
In some respects there is a marked contrast between what are called the country, or weekly, newspapers of today and those of a hundred years ago. Those who examine the newspapers pub- lished in small communities in the early part of the last century, can hardly fail to notice two things: First-the amount of space given to purely literary matters, as well as the excellence of the selections; and second, the exceeding paucity, amounting almost to elimination, of purely local news. The theory seems to have been that almost everybody in town knew the local news; what is the use to publish it then, and so but little of it appears. The local historian has to go outside for his facts on that account, and it not only takes more time to collect them but there is more danger of their being distorted.
Nantucket's first newspaper was the Nantucket Gazette pub- lished by Tannatt & Tupper, the first number of which is dated May 6, 1816. It was a small, four page paper, four columns wide and twenty inches long. By its advertising columns we learn that Francis & Burdick "have taken the Woollen Factory belonging to Obed Mitchell adjoining the New North Wharf with the intention of operating it." The first marriages recorded are Samuel B. Folger to Miss Nancy F. Hiller, by Rev. Mr. Gurney; Capt. Charles E. Coleman to Miss Sarah Swain and George Smith to Miss Mary Alley, by Rev. Mr. Swift; and William Peckham, of Rhode Island, to Miss Dorcas Gardner at the Friends' Meetinghouse. The only death recorded is that of Mrs. Deborah Willis, who died May 4, aged 55 years. In this issue also appeared a communication from William Coffin on the robbery of the Nantucket Bank twenty-one years before. The little pamphlet published in vindication of several eminent Nantucket citizens was about ready for publica- tion. The paper was Federal Republican politically.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
In October Mr. Tupper retired and Mr. Tannatt carried on the publication alone for a brief time. The editor had adversely crit- isized the way the Great Point light was operated and he was ar- rested for libel. That may not have been the cause of his down- fall, but in the spring of 1817 the affairs of the Gazette were wound up.
June 28, 1817, Mr. Tannatt commenced the publication of the Nantucket Weekly Magazine, a paper smaller even than its predecessor. The second issue had a vigorous communication from Samuel H. Jenks, signed "Quidam," and arraigning the Town for its failure to observe the public statutes regarding schools. With the issue of January 3, 1818, the Magazine gave up the ghost.
It was a bit over three years before anyone else attempted to launch a journalistic bark on the troubled seas of newspaper- dom. Then Joseph C. Melcher, with that abiding faith which makes editorial optimism heroic, introduced the Nantucket In- quirer, the first number of which bears the date of Saturday, June 23, 1821. This seemed to be the psychological time, the people were prepared for it and from that day Nantucket has always had the Inquirer and occasionally the market has been shared by other aspirants. Mr. Melcher's idea of what a newspaper of the day should be is contained in his Salutatory. He said-"The first page of the Inquirer will be appropriated to religious intelligence and moral extracts, adapted to the tastes and capacities of people of a serious disposition. The second page will contain the latest For- eign and Domestic Intelligence, Literary Communications, and interesting extracts from the mail papers. The third page will pre- sent the shipping intelligence and the latest advertisements of our commercial friends. The fourth page will be devoted to poetry, miscellaneous collections and the continuing advertisements." An ambitious program but the weekly papers of that day, as family papers, suffer little in comparison with those of today .* From the first issue of the Inquirer Nantucket has never been without its newspaper.
Sixteen months after Mr. Melcher began the publication of the Inquirer he resigned the editorship in favor of Samuel Haynes Jenks, still continuing as publisher. Mr. Jenks was an able and vigorous writer and quickly took his stand on the leading ques- tions of the day. The paper had a troubled life at first. Mr. Jenks retired temporarily from the editorship with the last issue of 1824, William Coffin Jr. taking his place. In a few months, however, he was again at the helm. This time he continued until November 10, 1827, when John Thornton took charge, the me- chanical supervision being under Thomas J. Worth. Mr. Thorn-
*The Gazette was printed in a building which stood at the corner of State (name changed subsequently to Main) and Water streets. Nov. 12, 1822 Mr. Tannatt was publishing the Hampden Patriot, Mr. Melcher subsequently removed to the Vineyard having in the mean- time published the New England Gazette in New Bedford.
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
ton soon joined the ranks of his predecessors, and in October, 1830 Charles Bunker wielded the editorial scepter .* Mr. Bunker scep- tered about two years and in September, 1832, he stepped down and out, and again Mr. Jenks was called in.t He continued in charge at this time for over ten years, until April 7, 1841, the paper dur- ing that time appearing as a semi-weekly.
In succession there followed, in editorial management, Wil- liam Alfred Jenks, son of the former editor, to December 1, 1841, the Inquirer appearing with a weekly and a semi-weekly edition; December 4, 1841, Hiram B. Dennis; September, 1843, John Mor- rissey; May, 1845 Andrew W. Macy and Edward W. Cobb; } July, 1855, Mr. Morrissey again; October 1858, Alexander P. Moore, who discontinued the semi-weekly edition, until November 6, 1860; August 28, 1861, William H. Beekman, with Edward M. Gardner as editor; April 1, 1865, consolidated with the Mirror.
Up to 1840 the only local journalistic rival that the Inquirer had was the short lived Journal which began life September 14, 1826 and capitulated to the Inquirer (with its capital I) June 1, 1827. In 1840, the Democrats of the Town, with the design of hav- ing an organ of their own, started the Islander, putting Charles C. Hazewell, a Boston young man, in charge .** It naturally followed that little love was lost between the rival papers. Mr. Jenks usually referred to his contemporary as the I-Slander.
The Islander's existence was not a prolonged one; in March, 1843, the struggle was over. The remains were assembled by Woodbury Bradford, Thomas Cross and Alexander B. Robinson who began the publication of The Weekly Telegraph in June, 1844, soon after beginning the publication of the Daily Telegraph, Nan- tucket's first daily. The Inquirer, not to be outdone in the jour- nalistic field, started a daily edition soon after. As might be ex- pected both papers were eventually in the market for a purchaser, and in 1845, Edward W. Cobb bought the entire outfit of them both and continued the publication of the Inquirer for the next ten years.
Mr. Cobb's troubles were only begun. In June, 1845, John Morrissey, a former editor of the Inquirer, began the publica-
*Under Mr. Jenks the motto borne by the Inquirer was "Quid autem si vox libera non sit, liberum esse?" (translated freely "what is liberty without freedom of speech?"); Mr. Bunker changed the mot- to adopting the sentiment from the Massachusetts Bill of Rights- "The Liberty of the Press is essential to the security of Freedom." Mr. Worth subsequently moved to Mooresville, Iowa, and published a paper there.
+September 14, 1826, during Mr. Jenk's previous reign, some of the people not liking his politics started the Nantucket Journal, putting Wil- liam H. Bigelow in charge. Mr. Bigelow insisted on spelling Inquirer with a capital E. whereupon Mr. Jenks remarked "He'll find him- self ill at Es putting out other peoples Is."
#In July, 1844, a daily edition was started which continued up to some time in 1846.
** Hazewell had a remarkable memory. For many years, later in life, he was connected with the Boston Traveler, which, every Sat- urday, published a page review of the news of the week and on the last day of the year a summary of the year's news. It is said that these summaries were written by Mr. Hazewell entirely from memory.
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tion of the Weekly Mirror and in December of the same year Mr. Jenks launched The Warder on the troubled seas of Nantucket journalism and politics. The Warder, although the only news- paper to escape the baptism of the Great Fire, did not live beyond the latter part of 1846 .* The Mirror was sold by Mr. Morrissey in June, 1849, to Samuel B. Hussey and Henry D. Robinson, who carried it on very successfully, and in 1865 being then owned and published by Roland B. Hussey, son of Samuel, it was consolidated with the Inquirer. As the "Inquirer and Mirror" the publication
COLONIAL FRONTS
has since continued and it is recognized as one of the most suc- cessful country weeklies in the southeastern part of the State.
In August 1874, Isaac H. Folger, a veteran of the Civil War, began the publication of the Island Review, which had an exist- ence of four years as a semi-weekly, a weekly and a daily. S. Heath Rich became identified with Mr. Folger subsequently, and in the fall of 1878, Messrs Folger and Rich bought the Brockton Advance and discontinued the Review.
*Mr. Jenks flourished in a period when the greater part of the preparation of copy was attended to in the editorial sanctum. Many of the editors of his day brightened the pages of their papers by their own witticisms. Marriage notices where names could be punned upon or made to serve a double meaning were their delight. Here is an instance of many appearing in the local paper and ascribed to the pen of Mr. Jenks.
Married in this town -Mr. Barnabas Bourne to Miss Lydia B. Long.
"Said the bridegroom in haste to his bride elect,
Don't Lydia B Long, for the torch of Love burns;
But the damsel more wary and circumspect asked
If this was the Bourne whence no trav'ler returns."
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HISTORY OF NANTUCKET
Entirely undismayed by the abundance of flotsam and jetsam along the shores of the sea of Nantucket journalism, Arthur H. Gardner in 1878 began the publication of the Nantucket Journal, not a revival of the Journal of 1826 but a new venture ab initio. The first number was issued September 25, 1878; the last Novem- ber 23, 1899. Mr. Gardner was elected to the General Court and doubtless found the duties of a local editor and a State legislator incompatible.
Since the days of the Journal the Inquirer and Mirror has had the field practically to itself, other attempts proving merely sporadic affairs. During the latter part of its life the Journal had, for the summer of 1889 a daily bantling called the "Sconset Visitor," and the year before the "Sconset Pump" trickled its stream from the Inquirer and Mirror office, but neither was a finan- cial success.
In amateur journalism "The Magnet" printed by S. Heath Rich in 1873, and "The Sherburne News" published later in the same decade by Fred V. Fuller, had brief existences.
LAND SCHEMES
Several schemes have been devised to interest those unfortu- nate* people who were forced to dwell on the main land, in Nan- tucket real estate. So far, however, the profit has seemed to have rested mainly with surveyors, draughtsmen and agents who re- ceived their fees and commissions in cash. And yet the plans have been wondrously fair to look upon! Mr. Worth gives the follow- ing story of some of these unsuccessful speculations. i
The first was started in 1873, at the north shore, under the title of the "Nantucket Bluffs." About the same time Dr. Franklin A Ellis and Charles H. Robinson bought a tract in Siasconset, south of the "Gully." Both schemes proved successful and the tracts, though small in area, sold readily and were quickly built upon. The success seemed encouraging, and soon after S. B. Tour- telot, of Worcester, bought a large section at Maddeket, had it sur- veyed and a very handsome map made of it nicely laid out in 2,000 lots, with all the elaboration of an attractive city. The only things which seemed to be needing were purchasers and buildings, and they have never been supplied.
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