Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 edition. Excerpt: ... t CHAPTER XIX IN THE DREDGE-NET' The Town-House and Town-Meeting. The original civic assembly-hall on Nantucket was a room in the house of Nathaniel and Mary Starbuck, which was known as the "Parliament House," and was instituted about 1667. In 1707, a vote was passed that "the Town-house should be repaired." In 1716, an order was made that certain notices should be "posted on the door of townhouse." In this year, also, the town voted to "build a town-house 34 feet long, and 24 feet wide," and the site of this has been localized as having been on the south side of West Center Street, nearly north of NoBottom Pond. It thus appears that the town-house was one of the first public buildings erected on the island. In 1783, it was determined to move the town-house again, and it was placed at the corner of Milk and Main Streets, where it remained for sixty or seventy years. This building was a plain and unpretentious one, with a square roof, and was neither structurally 1 In this chapter are included items of historical interest which, while difficult to retain in a consecutive narrative, are nevertheless of such importance as to justify preservation. nor architecturally imposing. Its seats were upright and unpainted, arranged in tiers, one above another, and its walls were undecorated by even a picture. Many a time, however, these desolate-looking walls re-echoed with fervid oratory in the days before the Civil War, when the question of abolition and many another burning theme were discussed before "the House." Eventually it was sold, and the town-meetings were subsequently held either in the upper story of the West schoolhouse, the lower story of Academy Hill schoolhouse, or in Atlantic Hall on Main Street. Early in the seventies, when no...