STASCONSET. 285 



author of " There She Blows; or, The Log of the 

 Arethusa," kindly furnished the names of the ships 

 which were built here, and the dates of their con- 

 struction. 



Small vessels of thirty or forty tons were built here 

 in the latter part of the seventeenth or early in the 

 eighteenth century, for the prosecution of the whale 

 fishery. The first ship was the " Bose," which was 

 built on Brant Foint about the year 1810; she was 

 followed by the " Charles Carroll " in 1832, the " Kan- 

 tucket " and " Lexington " in 1836, and the " Joseph 

 Starbuck " in 1838. These were the only ships ever 

 built at Nantucket, as far as can be ascertained. A 

 large schooner, however, was afterwards built; but 

 when, or whether her name was the " Nantucket" or 

 the " Philadelphia," the compiler is unable to tell. 



The " Joseph Starbuck" was a beautiful ship, and 

 had made one successful voyage; but when all ready to 

 proceed to sea on her second, was totally wrecked on 

 Nantucket bar Nov. 27, 1842, the full particulars of 

 which are given in Mr. Gardner's " Wrecks around 

 Nantucket." Each of the above-named ships had a 

 history, and a Cooper, Marryatt, or Russell could find 

 material enough for volumes of startling romance. 



Siasconset. 

 In island parlance, this little fishing village is plain 

 'Sconset. Mr. Northrop — whose book has been oft 

 quoted — has made the place famous, but the village 

 was famous with the Nantucketers themselves years 

 and years before the genial author of u 'Sconset Cot- 

 tage Life" was born; for very early in the history of 



