Hello Again,

There are a lot of Swains interred in the Old Polpis Burying Ground, (see April) which dates from the late 17th century. Like most of the other twenty original Proprietors, patriarch John Swain was out of the North Shore of Boston and a Quaker. In those days Quakers were persecuted, but thanks to Vineyarder Joseph Mayhew, who had "bought" much of the western half of the island from the Indians, they and their sheep were welcome on Nantucket. Within a few years the Swain line moved east from sandy Madaket, (see September) first to plow land overlooking Polpis Harbor, and later, one by one, to enrich the soil on the hillock above it. After about a century North Carolina called, to both the Swains and other Nantucketers.

Up until the Revolution, times had been good for both farming and seafaring, but things changed, and a number of islanders migrated to Quaker communities around Greensboro in Guilford County. Relatives were left behind, both the quick and the dead. As Friends, the Nantucketers were also called to a higher purpose, ending slavery. A "Manumission Society" was soon founded, with a secret link in the Underground Railroad organized by one Vestal Coffin near present day Guilford College in the 1820s. Persecuted again, old Nantucket families moved on once more, this time to free-state Ohio and Indiana, where you'll find them today. They're also on Facebook.

You can find me out and about, occasionally at the beach on summer afternoons. Like the early Swains, my tribe seems to be migrating easterly. In the '60s we caught rays at Cisco, then jammed at old Maddequecham until the airport fenced it off, followed by shading our toddlers under umbrellas at New South Road Maddequecham (see July). These days we’re almost at Tom Nevers, comparing wedding caterers and supplemental health plans. Sheesh!

Dick Mackay