Nantucket

*It’s so completely maritime New England and I love it*

*--Cam Cain*

## Eulogy

*By Lexy Lee*

Nantucket is an island to the south of Cape Cod in Massachusetts. It was purchased by Thomas Mayhew for the price of thirty pounds and two beaver hats. Prior to colonization, the Wampanoag Native people lived on the island. Some Native stories tell that the island of Nantucket was formed when the culture hero Moshup emptied his pipe in the ocean.

Nantucket is a very young island, and only officially separated from the mainland 5000 to 6000 years ago. It was formed by the farthest boundary of Laurentide Ice Sheet during the Wisconsin glaciation, and as sea level rose, the current boundaries of the island formed. There is a glacial moraine on the north side of the island (and a major deposition of glacial till), and in the south there is an outwash plane with sorting and some longshore drift.

The blue of the Nantucket flag was chosen to represent the ocean and the sky, and the white was chosen to represent the white sandy beaches (really they’re more tan-colored). The Nantucket flag has a whale on it, which Cam wanted me to include. The whaling industry has been very important in Nantucket’s history. The flag features a circular rope that represents the globe, referring to the range of the Nantucket whale ships. The compass is present because it directed the whalers across the ocean to find the whales, and the harpoon pointing north (used for whaling).

Whaling in Nantucket began when a “scragg whale” (gray whale) was found and killed by settlers some time before 1672. Moby Dick includes two major characters from Nantucket (Ahab and Starbuck), and the book itself was inspired by the boat the Essex, a whaling ship from Nantucket. In Moby Dick, Herman Melville writes about the people of Nantucket: “For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires.” (Chapter 14). There are over 700 shipwrecks around Nantucket. Whaling in Nantucket ended during the Civil War as all of the whaling ships were destroyed by Confederate whalers. Because of this, the island was left uninhabited until around the 1950s when it was further developed and marketed towards rich coastal north easterners. There are over 800 structures on Nantucket from before the Civil War.

So I mentioned the shipwreck of The Essex whaling ship. Essex was a whaling ship that set sail in 1799 and was sunk after being hit by a sperm whale in 1820. The 21 men on board moved to the smaller surviving whaleboats to try to find land. After about a month, they were all severely dehydrated and starved, and one by one the crew members started dying. At first they were sewn into their clothes and tossed out to sea (this was the custom), but eventually the bodies were kept for food. In total, seven crew members were eaten. 18-year old Owen Coffin was the only one killed to be eaten. The four people on Coffin’s boat all drew straws for who would be shot and eaten and who would do the killing. Of the three remaining, Ray soon died, then Pollard and Ramsdell survived by eating the bones of Coffin and Ray. In total, between all remaining whaleboats, there were eight total survivors.

In his book, my folklore professor, Stephen Olbrys-Gencarella, tells the old story of a dead man who is trying to outrun the devil. He includes this line: “He did the one thing a lively dead man could do: flee like a harpooned whale in a Nantucket sleigh ride.” A Nantucket sleigh ride, as you might be wondering, is a term for when a whaleboat is dragged by a harpooned whale. When a whale flees, the boat would be dragged along with it. This was incredibly dangerous for whalers. Sperm whales dragged the boats for the longest amount of time, reaching speeds of 23 mph and swimming until they ran out of energy. Fin whales and blue whales were the most dangerous because they would dive and bring the fishermen down with them. This is also the name of an album by the band Mountain that was released in 1971. The titular song was dedicated to Owen Coffin and includes an instrumental break with the melody of The Parting Glass, a traditional Scottish folk song. I had never heard of this album until today.

The sea(or lake/river) serpent is one of the most iconic legends of a creature in New England. There have been many sightings of the serpent throughout time in In 1937 in Nantucket, a practical joke was played on some townspeople. A fisherman (in panic) told the town’s paper that he had seen a massive serpent in the water. Soon after, giant footprints were found on Madaket Beach. A photo men holding a tape measure up to these footprints was spread across the country. Soon after, this sea serpent floated over Nantucket Harbor to South Beach. The serpent was really a giant balloon that had been designed by the puppeteer Tony Sarg. This serpent was flown in the Macy’s Day Parade soon after!

## Tournament

As the 293 seed, Nantucket was defeated by Senegal in Round 1 Matchup 74 of FlagVote 2. As the 406 seed, it was defeated by Seychelles in Round 2 Matchup 251 of FlagVote 3 after previously defeating Marahau.

## Results

### FlagVote 3

**Round 1:** Win over (619) Marahau 6-5

**Round 2:** Loss to (107) Seychelles 6-5