NANTUCKET TREES 5 



Wilder reports in 1894 a visit to an old peat 

 bog at Polpls at Hughes Neck. He saw there a stump 

 about 20 inches in diameter standing undisturbed in a 

 dense thicket on top of a bog where the soft peat is 

 still a meter thick. The stump was extracted and found 

 to be oak in a good state of preservation. Wilder also 

 reported a neighboring bog covered with water where, 

 there were visible more than twenty uprooted stumps of 

 various sizes. 



From another bog at Polpis Bassett Jones reports 

 two great stumps thought to be ffyssa sylvatica Marsh., 

 which were unearthed by mosquito control work.* 1 »* 



Sara Winthrop Smith saw in a gash in the cliff 

 near the site of the Nantucket Golf Club-house the branch 

 of a goad-sized tree embedded in the exposed peaty bed 

 of an uplifted swamp on the very edge^ of the bluff. This 

 specimen was given to the Nantucket Historical Associa- 

 tion. Miss Smith noted also, about a mile above this 

 point and only a short distance from the shore, submerged 

 peaty deposits which at very low tide showed stumps and 

 roots of several trees, one with a diameter of at least 

 ten inches . 



Among the records of early Nantucket days re- 

 viewed by the historian Starbuck is the following: 

 "March 15, 1665 at a meeting at Nantucket the Inhabitant 

 agree to Dig a trench to drean the Long pond forthwith" 

 with regard to a weare for takeing fish and Also for 

 makeing of Meadow... the work is to be Carri'd on thus, 

 the one half of the work is to be done by the Indians 

 the other half by the English Inhabitant or owners, the 

 Indians to have half the Fish so long as they attend to 

 the weare carefully. " 43 This Madaket Ditch, as it is 

 called today, has remained for nearly three centuries. The 

 Inqutrer and Klrror, 1951, brought its history up to 

 date. "The ditch was dug crooked and winding and it 

 still continues to twist its. way through the marshes 

 which lie between Long Pond and Hither Creek... an off- 

 shoot of Madaket Harbor. Throughout the passing years 

 a large tree stump about two. feet In diameter has held 

 its place, with the ditch winding around it. The Indians 

 probably left the stump there, as it was a difficult 



