20 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



G. Coffin and David Joy, offered the society a valuable 

 tract of land in the central part of the town, on con- 

 dition of there being erected upon it a substantial 

 building for the uses of the Association. A subscrip- 

 tion was immediately opened, and in a short time a 

 greater amount was obtained than that required by the 

 conditions of the donation. Thus encouraged, the 

 Association, with the consent of the donors of the 

 land, purchased the house and land then recently 

 occupied by the Universalist Society, and made such 

 alterations in the building as were required for their 

 accommodation. The building contained a convenient 

 lecture-room which would accommodate an audience 

 of about four hundred and fifty persons, a library- 

 room, a spacious room for curiosities, and a committee- 

 room.' ' 



This building with its entire contents was destroyed 

 by the great fire of July 13, 1846. We learn from the 

 annual report of the trustees, Januarjr, 1847, that the 

 library at the time contained 3,200 volumes, and many 

 documents of inestimable value pertaining to the early 

 settlement of the island. The museum contained val- 

 uable collections in conchology, mineralogy, ornithol- 

 ogy, and entomology, and a large collection of coins 

 of different countries, some of them of great antiquity. 

 The museum also contained a great variety of arms, 

 domestic utensils, and other implements from the 

 Polynesian Islands. These were every day becoming 

 more rare and curious, as the barbarous habits of the 

 islanders disappeared before the advancing light of 

 civilization. The destruction of this library, and the 

 loss at the same time of that of the Coffin School and 



