SETTING RECORD STRAIGHT
To the editor:

I was amazed to read the August 8 issue and find the article about the Nantucket Garden Club's House tour in Monomoy in which the writer relied at length on hard-earned information in my book, "A Nantucket Enclave, Monomoy Heights 1852- 2005," to give colorful background information on the history of the area and its houses. The book was published by the Mill Hill Press.

But, although almost verbatim, she did not give credit to her source! And she bent some of the book's authentic information to suit her purposes. Errors she committed:

The 1835 map by William Coffin, reprinted in the book, says nothing about the derivation of the name Monomoy, for which there are several derivations. That came from my Foreward.

Zimri Cathcart, the owner of the property that became part of Monomoy Heights was not on the whaleship Dauphin when she rescued the starving crew of the Essex, an event she says consequently led him to a "quieter life of farming." "Enclave" researched the fact that he sailed on Dauphin on the voyage before the famous rescue, and he was already into land speculation.

She delivers facts of the era (verbatim from "Enclave" without attribution), but claims they "gave rise to the island's first commercial subdivision known as Monomoy Heights." The book states, accurately, that Monomoy was almost the last of the many cottage colonies that were developed.

The writer of this article in The Independent, identified as a "contributor," skates narrowly on the slippery ice of plagiarism.

Sincerely,

- C.S. Lovelace