The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1885-02-21

The Curious Results OF Intermarriagos on
the Island.

the Island.
These original families in Nantucket
have married and intermarried until
nearly every man, woman, and child
descended from the early settlers is re-
lated to every other; and it may we'll
be believed that kinship here is a good
deal mixed. That veritable ancient
mariner, Capt. William Baxter, now in
his SOth year, is the recognized oracle
in matters of genealogy and family re-
ESionships on the island; and he it is
who is my authority for the statement
that there are men on the island who
can he shown to lie their own grand
uncles! He says he knows of children
who are the second cousins of their
own mothers! Furth ,rmOre, he has
pointed out to me more than one man
who was both a brother-m-law and
granddaughter of his third cousin.
And, to cap the climax, he said that he
once called at a house at which tea
party was under fill headway, and of
eight ladies present five were both first
and second co1s. Ms and sisters-in-law
of one another; and yet to this day the
mind of not one of them has been so
far affected in the successful effort to
trace out the sinuOsities of the rela-
tionships that it has been found neces-
sary to send her to o lunatic asylum.
And the Captain told me that if I
doubted the story he could show me
the cover of the identical teapot in
which the inspiring beverage was drawn
on the memorable afternoon. With q
demonstration so convincing I need not
say that II tumbled to the racket"
But still more remarkable coincidence
has come to my knowledge. On the
eve of the Fourth of July some years
since, the eldest boy of John Asa
Fisher I'd exploded q fiFe-cracker un-
der the mare of Peter Starbuck, Jr.,
as she was standing hitched to box
wagon on the corner of Whale and
Main streets. The mare did not appre-
ciate the act as an ebullition of youth
full patriotism. To her equine under
standing it was intended as q joke ON
lerself, and that she did not appreci-
s'e the Joke was manifest by the fact
that she ran away, broke the wagon
lnto ultimate smithereens, and Knocked
.iown and ran over Jonathan David
Wyrick. The injured man was carried
INTO the store of Ebenezer Paddock
4th; Obed Gardner I'd ran for DR..
Pitman, who came at once. but the
man was SO much injured that, in spite
of surgical aid, he died in few min
utes. Squire Coffin held an inquest on
the body. Frederick William Folger
made the coffin. Rowland Bunker
Hussey wrote and published an obitu-
ary in the Inquirer and Mirror.
Jabez Chase I'd dug the grave, and
Washington Irving Coleman furnished
the headstone, and an orthodox Quaker
who never draws on his imagination at
less than ten days sight told me that
every one I have named, including
himself. was within the degree of fourth
cousin to every one except the mare,
and how it happened that she couldn't
claim kinship to the rest was q ques-
ton which convulsed the island for
yer six months, for the mare was .
.ative, and had pedigree as long as
;he bow that Mr.. Swain had drawn for
my edification. Nantucket Cor. Neav
York He III