People & Our Past
Discover an island steeped in history and home to a host of fascinating people from all walks of life.
Page 3 of 19 pages < 1 2 3 4 5 > Last ›
Oyster Men: Bender & Son
We are sitting in Steve Bender’s kitchen, eating oysters. That is to say, I am eating oysters. He is talking about the specific natural elements that have lent his oysters a sense that they know where they...
read more75 years of The Boys & Girls Club
Dick Glidden remembers walking into the Nantucket Boys Club for the first time in 1956 as a 7-year-old. The club was on Francis Street back then. There was a small gymnasium, which seemed giant to him as a...
read moreTHE QUESTIONS: Neil Paterson
As a young man, Neil Paterson wanted nothing more than to get off the farm in northern Scotland where he grew up. There was no work. It was 1979 and Paterson was 20. He moved to Nantucket in search of a...
read moreThe Last Country Doctor
Eccentric? Sure. He once took payment for a hernia operation in a batch of oatmeal cookies. He has been paid in lobsters. He once showed up at my barn on short notice to stitch up a horse named Dr. Who,...
read moreDrink: Kerry O’Brien
When I sat down with Kerry O’Brien, she had on a t-shirt that read, “Cold beer, Colder Women,” a credo that would probably please her mentor, Boston restaurateur Barbara Lynch. O’Brien grew up helping out...
read moreThe Questions: Chris Iller
Chris Iller’s office is the vast expanse of moors, heathlands, sandplain grasslands, marshes, woods and swamps that make up the Nantucket Conservation Foundation’s 9,000 acres of protected open space.
...read moreHistory Just for Kids
Past the sperm-whale skeleton, beyond the whaleboat and through the candle factory is the Nantucket Whaling Museum’s new Children’s Discovery Center. Two years ago, the room was the Nantucket Historical...
read moreNature’s Nobleman
As the years turned his famous rescue into a story, a memory, Walter Chase took a room in a house owned by Mary Nye at 14 Hussey St. Chase’s grandfather was Owen Chase of the ill-fated whaleship Essex....
read moreWalking on History
It was a sunny Thursday morning when Mary Bergman walked on the uneven sidewalk along upper Main Street toward the Civil War monument. As the surface changed from brick to slate to brick again, she pointed...
read moreStraight Wharf’s Tim Farley
Tim Farley has been behind the bar at Straight Wharf Restaurant for 13 seasons. What started as a summer job turned into a career, and for Farley it’s much more than just making drinks. It’s about...
read more