An Honor Long Overdue
At the July ceremony rededicating the Founders Burial Ground, so much interest was expressed in erecting a second tablet honoring Nantucket's ancestral women and their children that it spawned a movement. Island resident Allen Reinhard was instrumental in organizing the effort, and members of the Macy family reunion who were present were especially enthusiastic, as was Sharon Lorenzo and several others.
Writer and historian Frances Karttunen is among those working to make the idea a reality, and she put it best when she said: “Since 1881, ten of the early English men settlers have been honored with a monument at the site of the Founders Burial Ground. Their wives bore a total of eighty children, and it's high time they were equally honored.”
Catherine Stover, chair of the Women’s Monument Committee, heartily agrees: “Although the English were not the original "settlers" of Nantucket Island, the hard-working wives of the Proprietors should also be acknowledged. Men are enormously adept at raising monuments to themselves, whether they are made of stone, or take some other form. An "Ediface Rex" complex, if you will. I believe women do most of the "heavy lifting" in any society, and they generally do it in the background, with little to no recognition. This monument is long overdue.”
Stover also stated that she’d like to see “more attention and tribute paid to the Wampanoags and to their legacy to our island and community.”
The ten women whose names will be listed on the monument are the wives of the ten men named on the men's monument. In addition, there will be text on the women's monument honoring all the women and their children. Karttunen is working to “confirm the dates before they are committed to stone.” As of press time, the list reads:
- Dionis Stevens Coffin [ca. 1610-after 1682]
- Sarah Hopcott Macy (1612-1706)
- Catherine Reynolds Starbuck (1609-1658) who died before her husband and children moved to Nantucket
- Mary Morrell Folger (1620-1704)
- Priscilla Grafton Gardner (1656-1717)
- Experience Folger Swain (1661-1739)
- Joanna Folger Coleman (1645-1719)
- Sarah Shattuck Gardner (1631-1724)
- Theodate Batchelder Hussey (1598-1685)
- Mary Macy Bunker (1648-1729)
Efforts to raise funds to cover the $10,000 cost of the monument are currently underway. One of the initial fundraising challenges is to encourage 1,000 Nantucket women to donate $5 each, which would raise half the needed funds. Donations may be made in honor of women in your family, past and present. Checks should be made out to “Town of Nantucket” with “Women’s Monument” in the memo line, and they should be mailed to Richard H. Brooks, Project Manager, P.O. Box 418, Nantucket, MA 02554.
The committee hopes to have a women's monument in place by the end of this year, the 350th anniversary year of the English settlement of Nantucket. Allen Reinhard is aiming to have the monument in place before the end of 2009, so it can be unveiled at an event to honor the 350th anniversary of the English settlement of Nantucket.
