178 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



people to know that Thomas Macy went back from Nan- 

 tucket and lived in Salisbury again, and sold his land, 

 house, etc. The record says, 4 Thomas Macy sold unto 

 Anthony Colby the house in which he, Thomas Macy, 

 dwelleth at the present, together with the barne, and 

 so much land as the garden conteyneth on a straight 

 line to the eastermost corner of Koger Eastman's 

 barne,' etc. See Eegistry of Deeds, 1664; for in that 

 year he lived in Salisbury. . . . Macy was certainly a 

 man of fortitude, courage, good sense, and education." 



It is doubtless true that Tristram Coffin, Thomas 

 Macy, and the rest were disgusted with the intolerance 

 of religious views and the oppressive spirit of the laws; 

 but they were not the kind of men to sneak away from 

 anything of that nature. They found the land at 

 Nantucket good, bought the island, and moved here 

 with their families, and did not hurry about the matter 

 either. 



The sweeping assertion that the first settlers of the 

 island were ignorant and very illiterate is another 

 absurdity. In a communication to the Albany Journal, 

 Mr. T. W. Barnes, after giving some account of the 

 Folger family, and the first Peter, says, "An old 

 chronicle states that his son Peter, when he went to 

 Nantucket, was the only man there who could read and 

 write." * 



Peter Folger has been frequently referred to by 

 other writers as the only educated person upon the 

 island. In Macy's " History of Nantucket " is found a 



* Although, in tho following item, the gentleman above re- 

 ferred to does not in reality retract, yet ho acknowledges that 



