12 NANTUCKET TREES 



1782, describes Nantucket as a sandy spot of about twenty- 

 three thousand acres. He writes that "many red cedar 

 bushes and beach grass grow on the peninsula of Coitou" 

 but that "the rest of the undescribed part of the island 

 is open and serves as a common pasture for sheep". .. that 

 the original settlers found "the island so universally 

 barren that they took to fishing rather than farming." 

 "The town of Sherburne," he vrites, "consists of about 

 500 houses all of vhich were framed on the main." 9 In 

 1792 Dr. Zacheus Macy "wrote about Nantucket and says of 

 the land: "The wood being entirely gone and few shrubs 

 left to shelter the ground against the cold winds and 

 hard winters, the profits of our farming business are 

 much reduced." 33 



Thus Nantucketers during the War of 1812 were 

 faced with the same privations as in the earlier war. 

 They were constrained to appeal to the British with 

 promise of neutrality. In I8l4'a petition was sent to 

 Admiral Cochrane. Again the problem of wood enters the 

 description: "we, the undersigned, Inhabitants of the 

 Island of N. and of that class generally called Federal 

 Republicans and Friends of Peace, who have been uni- 

 versally opposed to the War wh. now exists and wh. has 

 prostrated our happiness and taken away the means by wh. 

 we have lived, Ask leave resp. to appr. you with our 

 petition for relief .... Our soil is light and infertile, 

 and its productions insufficient for the support of one 

 eighth part of its inhabitants; now.... Our Island has 

 not a tree of natural growth, and we are consequently 

 dependent on the continent for our fuel..." 43 



One may question whether there may not have been 

 the exaggeration of dire extremity in these descriptions 

 of a barren island, especially when one sees today the 

 so-called hidden forests of great trees. These trees, 

 however, are probably less than a century old. Their 

 site may have been merely a swampy thicket at the time 

 of the wars with Great Britain. 



The ecologist interprets these forested hollows 

 as the climax stage in a progression from water to dry 

 land which is the fate of most lakes or ponds. 5 It is 

 common knowledge that the glacial ponds which dot 



