e x p l o r e n a n t u c k e t
with Peter B. Brace

STROLLING THROUGH NEWTOWN

So windy that I didn't want to go outside last Sunday morning. Had an extra hour of sleep because of the end of daylight savings, so I spent it horizontal, encapsulated in flannel listening to the wind batter my house.

Walking seemed out of the question, but exploring didn't. A good friend had mentioned such an exploration between the hospital and Dead Horse Valley that would quickly lead me to a black cemetery. Once again, I thought I knew this island better than the natives and once again, I was proven too confident for my own boots.

Fitting that Halloween was just a week ago and that the weekend before I went on this walk I was at the Chicken Box's legendary Halloween party. The Box's founder, Willie House isn't buried in this cemetery; he's at the one across from the Stop & Shop. But Mattie B. Pina, who lived to be 101, passing in 1999, can be found at the James E. Crawford Cemetery among several dozen other black islanders from the 19th and 20th centuries.

I guess I only go to cemeteries when I have to, so I wasn't all fired up to the check this one out until I got there and found this little crow sanctuary behind the Cottage Hospital. To have so much open, walkable land in such close proximity to town and the outer neighborhoods is really unique. But then to have that land peppered with history makes Nantucket that much more special.

Crawford was the pastor of the African Baptist Church on Nantucket from 1847 to 1888. The church, now known as the African Meeting House sitting at the north corner of York and Pleasant streets, began as the York Street Colored Baptist Society. After its membership dwindled down to nothing and the society ceased organized meetings, the Pleasant Street Baptist Society and Church sprung to life in 1847 for this part of the island's black community, a neighborhood with its own shops and stores known as Guinea, a section of town then called Newtown and now called Five Corners.

You may want to begin this walk by parking somewhere in the vicinity of Five Corners and checking out the African Meeting House. Then you can cross Pleasant Street and hike up the west end of York Street to its intersection with Prospect Street on your way to where Crawford tended to this bone yard for his followers.

Get out to this peaceful plot of sacred soil by crossing Prospect Street and walking down it toward the hospital and back toward the mid-island

area. The first right you come to, is the turn for the cemetery and is marked with a sign that reads: "Est. 19th Century by the Rev. James Crawford, Pastor of the African Baptist Church.

Walk down this road just a few hundred feet and you'll find the cemetery on the south side of the road protected by a split-rail fence. Visitors are welcome here. Go on in, look around, but be respectful of the gravesites and their stones. Read what's on them, but do your best not to lean, sit or place anything on these markers. Some of them are well over 100 years old.

From this little plot, you can walk west along the dirt road and find your way to Dead Horse Valley and Nantucket's best sledding hill sans snowmaking machine. Go straight for the sledding hill or take a left to reach its peak and continue on to the Prospect Hill Cemetery or, at the top of the sledding hill, go right and find your way back out to Prospect Street. From there, walk with the Old Mill on your left until you see York Street intersecting with Prospect Street. Head from York Street and find your ride wherever you parked it.

A surprising mid-island oasis.

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