168 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



in preparing for winter quarters. Thomas Macy and 

 family were the first white settlers on the island of 

 Nantucket. In the winter of 1659, they were joined 

 by one Daggett, who came to the island from Martha's 

 Vineyard for the purpose of hunting* 



" What a picture we now have before us! this 

 devout man with his wife and five little children, the 

 oldest thirteen years and the youngest four years of 

 age, with Isaac Coleman and Edward Starbuck, the for- 

 mer a mere lad of twelve years, living upon this island 

 through the severity of a winter, surrounded by native 

 Indians of whose character and language they were 

 entirely ignorant. The natives, seeing their mission 

 was peace, rendered them every assistance they could, 

 and supplied them with fish and game, which were 

 abundant about and on the island. In the spring of 

 1660 Edward Starbuck f returned to Salisbury and fully 



* Everything goes to show that though Macy and his compan- 

 ions were the first settlers, white men had, previous to Macy's 

 comiug, been frequent visitors to the island, — from the fact that 

 neither Mayhew, Macy, Coffin, nor the rest of the purchasers 

 would have bought the island, unless some one of them or some 

 other white man had visited it ; for how did Macy happen to 

 know where the island was, and how did Daggett know that 

 there was game on the island? 



t Edward Starbuck came here in the autumn of 1659 with 

 Thomas Macy and family, stopped that winter, then went back 

 to Eastern Massachusetts, and gave an account of the place 

 to the other purchasers, and returned again that year, 1660, 

 with eight or ten families. He had joined the church at Dover 

 and had been a representative of New Hampshire. His wife's 

 maiden name was Eunice or Catherine Reynolds, of Wales. He 

 was from Derbyshire, England. He was about fifty-five years old 



