View from the Fountain
by Frances Karttunen
A good vantage point for Main Street Square is next to the old fountain out in the middle of the lower end of the square. Since one must defy traffic to get there, it’s best to go early in the morning or during the off-season rather than risking life and limb at midday in July or August.
One may find a member of the Nantucket Garden Club filling the fountain with fresh flowers or decorating it for an upcoming holiday. The days when the fountain offered a refreshing drink of water to horses (from the basin) and to pedestrians (from spigots) is long past.
The fountain was given to the Town of Nantucket by an anonymous donor in 1885. Originally it was located close to the top of the square, and subsequently it was moved downhill. In 1932 it was dedicated to the memory of Lieutenant Max Wagner, who lost his life in the Spanish-American War.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1866, Wagner married into the island community in 1890, taking to wife Jennie Macy, daughter of an old Nantucket family. Already a veteran of five years service with the U.S. Army, Wagner re-enlisted when war broke out in 1898, serving first in Puerto Rico, and then in the Philippines, where he was killed in an ambush in 1900. His body was first buried in Iloilo but later was exhumed and brought home to his family in Nantucket for re-interment in Prospect Hill cemetery.
In 1931 Nantucket established the Max Wagner Camp of the United Spanish War Veterans Association, the precursor to today’s VFW post on Nantucket. For many years the island’s veterans’ organization decorated the fountain, until the duty was taken over by the Garden Club.
East of the fountain, bounding the foot of the square, is an imposing brick building that once housed the U. S. Customs House for the Port of Nantucket. It was built, however, before there was a United States of America. Construction began in early 1772 to provide a warehouse and offices for Nantucket Quaker shipping magnate William Rotch (pronounced “roach”). Located at the nexus of a major wharf and the business district, the Rotch headquarters dominates the scene just as the Rotch family dominated the whale oil trade.
William Rotch was born on Nantucket in 1734. His father, Joseph Rotch had moved to Nantucket from Salem, joined the Religious Society of Friends, married well, and become a major whale oil merchant. Eventually Joseph left Nantucket to take part in the establishment of the whaling port of New Bedford.
William, Joseph’s eldest son, remained behind on Nantucket to manage the family business there. At age 19 he had married Elizabeth Barney, also from a prominent island family. Quakerism invested every aspect of their lives. They lived plainly, dressed plainly, and spoke plainly, yet this did not stand in the way of William Rotch amassing a vast fortune. At one time he and his father were said to control over a quarter of Nantucket’s vessels and an even greater percentage of the whale oil that lubricated the island’s economy. No wonder such a large building was needed to house the Nantucket branch of the business.
Over the front door to the building is a sign carrying the names of the ships Dartmouth, Beaver, and Bedford—vessels that played a prominent part in the American Revolution, despite William Rotch’s Quaker pacifism.
The sign commemorates Rotch-owned ships involved in the Boston Tea Party. Nantucketers recall that the sign previously read “Dartmouth. Beaver, and Eleanor” and wonder about the change. The Dartmouth, the Beaver, and the Eleanor were the three ships from which tea was dumped into Boston Harbor in 1773, just a year after the Rotch headquarters on Main Street opened for business. Of the three, the Dartmouth and the Beaver belonged to William Rotch and had cleared out of Nantucket, carrying whale oil to England and returning with the ill-fated tea.
The Bedford, another of William’s ships, had a different pivotal role in the history of the young republic. She was the first ship to raise the Stars and Stripes in British waters after the American Revolution. On February 3, 1783, more than a month before the end of the war was declared, the Bedford sailed up the Thames, anchored in front of the Tower of London, and unfurled the American flag. In acts of patriotism, Friend William Rotch and Lt. Max Wagner are, after all, comfortable companions at the lower end of Main Street.
During the Revolution, Nantucket suffered greatly in its exposed and indefensible position. Safer alternative ports of call were sought in Canada, Wales, and France. William Rotch was involved in these ventures, none of which prospered. In 1803, he moved his business to New Bedford.
His Nantucket building was sold to an insurance company, which went out of business when the building was gutted by the Great Fire of 1846. In a burst of economic optimism, a new building was constructed within the walls and a third story was added.
Before the fire, a Pacific Reading Room had been maintained in the building. After the reconstruction, on July 22, 1854, twenty-four men—twenty-two of whom had been captains in the Pacific whaling industry—organized, each with one share in the Captains’ Room. Seven years later, as Nantucket plunged into economic depression, they bought the building outright. And that is the reason for the other sign over the front door, the one that reads “Pacific Club.”
The Pacific Club has been a long-lived club with its 24 shares passed along by inheritance. Decade after decade the old captains and then their heirs have gathered in the old Rotch headquarters to chat and play cribbage, while building maintenance has been supported by rental of various rooms. The U.S. Customs House remained upstairs until 1913 and was followed by the U. S. District Court, judge’s chambers, and law offices. The U. S. Weather Bureau rented space as well and put up an 85-foot observation tower, long since dismantled. A television studio was upstairs recently, and currently among the tenants are an arts-and-craft gallery and a goldsmith.
Women might inherit shares in the Pacific Club, but they did not participate in its activities until recently, when Ginger Andrews, heir to a share, attended a meeting and now has become de facto president and preservationist. The physical fabric of the old building is in great need of conservation, and so, too, is the social capital represented by nearly two and a half centuries of the comings and goings of Nantucket’s mariners.
Frances Karttunen’s books Nantucket Places and People 1: Main Street to the North Shore, The Other Islanders: People Who Pulled Nantucket’s Oars, and Law and Disorder in Old Nantucket are available at local bookstores. Look for Nantucket Places and People 2: South of Main Street in fall 2009.
