Early Days on Nantucket 39 



other, he flung their contents away across the 

 sea, and thus made Martha's Vineyard and Nan- 

 tucket and the shoals beyond. 



Whether this myth is regarded as the absurd 

 emanation of an idolatrous brain, or the vision of 

 a poet who saw dimly the workings of the giant 

 forces of nature, it gives the account of the origin 

 of Nantucket as it was told to the first white men 

 who settled on the island. 



Of the settlers themselves we have a more 

 detailed record. One Thomas Macy, living in 

 Salisbury, in the colony of Massachusetts, gave 

 shelter and food to three or four Quakers who 

 were fleeing through a storm from the persecu- 

 tions of the Puritans. In due time the officers of 

 the colony came and demanded the Quakers; but 

 Macy, who had been in the army under Oliver 

 Cromwell, refused to give them up, until the 

 Quakers saw that their host in defending them 

 was preparing serious trouble for himself and in- 

 sisted on surrendering themselves. Thereupon the 

 officers took them away and hanged one of them. 

 Then, being as yet unsatisfied, they returned to 

 persecute Macy, and in this they persisted until 



