ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604120008
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALAN LITTELL SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
A visit to Nantucket confirms writer Paul Fussell's famous dictum that all travel examines an idealized past. For this storied island, 20 miles off the shores of Cape Cod, compresses and distills our romantic notion of Colonial America.
A harbor and seaport once fouled by refuse from a fleet of stinking whaleships are now pristine with windblown spray and manicured streets. A barren hinterland that had offered little more than subsistence farming to impoverished Colonists stretches away in glorious folds of yellow broom.
To modern eyes Nantucket is a seductively beautiful place. To the 17th-century Macys, Folgers, Coffins and Starbucks who were among its first settlers, the island provided a bleak haven from Puritan zealots stoning dissenters in mainland towns of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Measuring some 14 miles by 3 miles, shaped like a blunted harpoon, Nantucket survived on the killing of whales. Extracted whale oil was prized worldwide as a premium lamp fuel and candle tallow.
In quest of liquid gold, Nantucket ships ranged at first no farther than Cape Cod. Later, the fishery exhausted, they roamed the oceans on voyages that lasted as long as five years. The enterprise was the filthiest and most brutal of seagoing trades.
By the early 19th century the island had become the whaling capital of the globe. The Nantucketer, wrote Herman Melville in "Moby Dick," "resides and riots on the sea ... ploughing it as his own special plantation."
But progress - the discovery of petroleum - drove the old whalers from the sea. Nantucket, always the survivor, shifted course. With its wealth of shipowners' homes and miles of sandy beaches, the island transformed itself into a vacation resort. And the resort it remains today.
Nantucket enforces one of the country's strictest building preservation and land-use codes - fast-food outlets and condos are nowhere to be seen - and a tour of its main town, also called Nantucket, carries visitors into the weathered gray shingle of the New England of their dreams.
The best way to get around is on foot. Start at the Civil War monument, where Gardner, Milk and Main streets meet in the center of town.
Although there are any number of variations to a Nantucket walking tour, the most representative follows Main Street east to the harbor. Like a Colonial theme park, the broad, cobbled thoroughfare meanders resplendently under a canopy of towering elms.
On your left, at No. 107, is a high-peaked ``salt box,'' built lean-to fashion with one side of its roof sloping lower than the other.
In the mid-1700s this was the home of Zaccheus Macy, a shipbuilder and self-taught doctor who is said to have set thousands of bones in his lifetime, all free of charge.
Turning right into Pleasant Street you come to a cluster of white clapboard and regulation gray-shingle houses with carriage mounting-blocks at the curb. Immediately on your right, at No. 3, is the clapboard house built by a blacksmith named Sam Folger, whose son, James, founded the Folger Coffee Co.
Stroll back to Main and veer right. The porticoed Greek Revival mansion on your right, at No. 96, belongs to the Nantucket Historical Association and is open to the public.
Hadwen House dates from 1822. Filled with brocaded curtains and Empire fiddleback chairs, it offers a glimpse of the rich trappings of Nantucket mercantile life in the heyday of whaling.
Continuing straight on, you soon pass into an elongated square of shops, boutiques and art galleries. Footnotes to history abound. Murray's Toggery Shop, at the top of the square, is where R.H. Macy of Macy's Department Store in New York once had a small emporium.
The three-story brick building at the foot of the square - now headquarters of the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce - was erected in 1772 as an oil-and-candle warehouse by a leading shipowner, William Ratch (pronounced Roach).
His vessels Beaver, Dartmouth and Eleanor carried the British-owned tea that was dumped into Boston Harbor before the start of the Revolutionary War.
The island's top tourist attraction, the Whaling Museum, lies a block away at the corner of Broad and South Water streets. Originally a candle factory, it displays the harpoons and other memorabilia that rekindle some of the spirit and substance of Nantucket's 18th- and 19th-century maritime past.
To end your tour, double back to Main and wander onto Straight Wharf, with its splendid prospects of the harbor and Nantucket town.
History aside, the island's chief appeal is in its 80-mile fringe of magnificent public beaches. Although visitors are permitted to ferry cars to Nantucket, their use is officially discouraged. For bikers, convenient paths link coastline to town. Bike shops provide rentals in the $15-a-day range.
East of town, a six-mile jaunt across an undulating moor of scrub and salt ponds brings you to the artists' retreat of Siasconset (pronounced Sconset). A wide beach faces the Atlantic below an eroding bluff.
The same distance west of Nantucket town, Madaket Beach is the island's prime vantage point for sunset viewing. And a two-mile ride south, you'll find the rugged and aptly named Surfside Beach, a favorite of college and high school students.
For more sheltered swimming, the north-shore strand known as Jetties is a short walk or bike ride from most town hotels and guesthouses.
Not to be missed are the straggling barrier beaches of Coatue and Great Point, on the island's northeast coast.
Four-wheel-drive rentals are available for about $100 a day.
Coatue is an unblemished wildlife preserve of dune grass and scrub cedar separating the four-mile expanse of Nantucket Harbor from the open sea. Its scalloped shore, littered with pink-lipped whelks, provides a nesting habitat for gulls.
Stretching north from Coatue, Great Point with its tall stone lighthouse juts into the Atlantic like a lollipop on a stick. Riptides lure bluefish to within yards of the beach, and the point is a surfcaster's and birdwatcher's paradise.
Below the horizon to the north lie Cape Cod and the rest of New England - precincts Nantucketers, in their pride and insularity, have always referred to as ``America.''
Now the old sailors and sea captains are gone. And, sadly, the whales, too, for Nantucket's tragic legacy is the destruction of the whale.
Still, this atmospheric island remains a special place, beckoning with a tidy, reassuring charm as well as seclusion and astonishing natural beauty.
IF YOU GO...
Getting there: Car-and-passenger ferries operated by the Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority offer year-round service between Nantucket and Hyannis on Cape Cod. For information call 508-771-4000. Hi-Line Cruises (508-778-2600) has daily passenger sailing May through October. By air, Business Express (800-345-3400) provides service from Boston and New York. Nantucket Airlines (508-228-6234) has flights from Hyannis.
Getting around: Bike and moped rentals are available from Young's Bicycle Shop (Steamboat Wharf) and the Nantucket Bike Shop (4 Broad St.), among other outlets. For cars and four-wheel-drive jeeps, try Nantucket Jeep (3 Square Rigger Road; 508-228-1618) or Affordable Rentals (6 South Beach St.; 508-228-5501). Gail's Chartered Limo Service (508-257-6557, evenings) offers island tours. Guided walking tours of Nantucket town are conducted by Roger A. Young (508-228-1062).
Where to stay: Although Nantucket has a wide range of accommodations to choose from, bookings should be made months in advance, especially for the peak July-August tourist season. Best bets for the budget-minded are the scores of licensed guesthouses. Expect to pay between $65 and $135 for a double, generally with private bath. The price of a double room at the Jared Coffin House (508-228-2405), Nantucket town's sole hotel, ranges from $95-$190.
Information: Contact the Nantucket Island Chamber of Commerce, Pacific Club Building, Nantucket, MA 02554; 508-228-1700, for details about ferry and air service, accommodations, restaurants and tourist attractions.
LENGTH: Long : 144 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CAROLINE LITTELL. 1. Lush vegetation surrounds manyby CNBclapboard houses found on Nantucket - like this one on the cliffs at
Siasconset. 2. History aside, Nantucket's top drawing card is its
80-mile fringe of public beaches - such as the great barrier beach
of the north shore (right). Although visitors are permitted to ferry
cars to Nantucket, their use is officially discouraged. Bikes are
the preferred method of transportation on this island. color.