180 THE ISLAND OF NANTUCKET. 



recorded deeds of conveyance? and if " their writings 

 that have come down to us are hardly legible or intel- 

 ligible," how does Mr. Macy or any one else know 

 whether they were illiterate or not? 



Thomas Macy, the first settler, was far from being 

 an illiterate and ignorant man : he was a preacher and 

 merchant, and his letter* to the General Court in 1G59 

 can, for clearness and force, hardly be surpassed by 

 any scholar of to-day. 



At a meeting held May 10, 1661, at Salisbury, of the 

 purchasers of the island of Nantucket, five surveyors 

 were appointed to measure and lay out land. The 

 record states that " it was ordered and concluded that 

 the aforementioned parties, vizt: Tristram Coffin, 

 Seny., Thomas Macy, Edward Starbuck, Thomas Bar- 

 nard, Peter Fol'ger, shall also measure and layout all 

 the rest of the land, both meadows, woods, and upland, 

 that is convenant to be appropriated within the bounds 

 of the first plantation." More ignorance! In 1662 

 fourteen of these ignorant settlers signed their names to 

 a document granting to William Worth certain privi- 

 leges. In fact, all the documents and records of which 

 we have any knowledge show that every one of the 

 first purchasers of the island could read and -write; and 

 though to-day they might not be considered as belong- 

 ing to the literati, yet for their time they were fully as 

 well educated as the majority of the people, and the 

 general charges of ignorance and illiteracy cannot be 



* This letter was preserved in the Nantucket Athenaeum until 

 the great fire of 1846, when it was destroyed with other valua- 

 ble documents and curiosities. 



