Nantucket's Pilgrims

This year marks the 350th anniversary of the first European settlers on Nantucket. In the winter of 1659, just 38 years after the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, the first delegation of white people spent the winter on Nantucket. They did not have a fort or housing and it is speculated that they lived in the most rudimentary of dwellings, a simple hut formed by two trees.

Sarah Hopcott Macy was the only woman to spend that first winter in Madaket with her husband Thomas and their five small children. The Macy family was joined by Edward Starbuck and 12-year old Thomas Coleman. The group started out from north of Cape Ann in an open boat and landed at Madaket. The nine settlers spent the winter in a small hut they built near their landing place, braving the strong winds and the damp cold.

We do not have much information about how that first group of Europeans fared the winter - only that they survived it - and can only imagine that they were aided by the Wampanoag who lived on the island. Historians speculate that there were any number of Indians living on Nantucket, from 1,500 to 3,000. In the Spring, the Macys were joined by more of the island's shareholders.

Sarah Macy must have been an extraordinary woman. No doubt, she had to perform domestic duties, plus help with the basic survival of the family as did most women who braved the new frontier. Nantucket and the rest of the country was founded in part by strong women, whose names were not recorded.

In 1881, a tablet was erected at the Founders Burial Ground off Madaket Road, where it is believed many of the first settlers, their wives and children are buried. The plaque lists the names and dates of the 10 European men who were the island's founding fathers, but it does not list their wives or their children.

This July, a group of residents organized to honor the 10 founding mothers with a tablet of equal size and design as the one erected to the men in 1881.

This new monument honoring Nantucket's first European women settlers and their children will be unveiled in the Founders Burial Ground during Christmas Stroll Weekend.

Thanksgiving is a good time to give thanks to all who have come before us and to thank those who serve us now in making this island our home.