The Wait is over...Tuck't In: A Walking Tour of Historic Prospect Hill Cemetery Nantucket, MA has arrived on island!

Pick up your copy at Tresses & The Day Spa, Mitchell's Book Corner, Nantucket Bookworks, The Hub, The Nantucket Historical Association Museum Shop, The Maria Mitchell Association Store or by contacting Prospect Hill Cemetery.

Prospect Hill Cemetery's comprehensive hard-cover book
Tuck't In: A Walking Tour of Historic Prospect Hill Cemetery Nantucket, Massachusetts. 

The book moves through time, with references to the halcyon days of Nantucket’s place in global whaling, through the Civil War and the role of local abolitionists, to a much awarded, local US Navy commander during WWII, a Nobel Prize recipient who created blood typing, to the memorable Benchley family, including grandson Peter, author of Jaws, to the island’s adopted Gwen Gaillard, the founder of the Opera House Cup. It focuses on people and their lots in life, whether wealthy or from ordinary backgrounds, religious convictions, political loyalties and adventuresome natures.

Famous Nantucket names - Coffin, Starbuck, Barney, Wyer, and many more - are to be expected. But this book illustrates how these people interacted with each other, often intermarrying. Sure, they lived in the Three Bricks, the Hadwen House and others. There were great sea captains and merchants and others who were not. One merchant invented “camels” to get boats across the shoals and out of the harbor. One captain was best known for his harrowing escape from inside the jaws of a sperm whale. The stories are fascinating: one of an unsolved mystery of 1860 where the weapon was identified as a whalebone fid and the crime never really resolved; another of an impersonating doctor and strange wife who “hid” themselves on the island; yet another of a sea captain who returned home to Nantucket after many years to be recognized only by his dog, not his son who was born after dad had left.

Tuck't In is unique not only in its compilation, but in its presentation. It is a 280 page book with full color and B&W photos, an intricate mapping of the property with thumbnails identifying specific lots by chronicle, a full index by name and another by lot number. It will serve as a great historical chronicle for years to come as its data is timeless. The author’s own photography of grave markers adds to its strong reference characteristic. It will be a tremendous genealogical source for those looking to trace family or industry backgrounds. Tuck’t In: A Walking Tour of Historic Prospect Hill Cemetery, Nantucket, Massachusetts, is a book to sit on anyone’s coffee table, inviting people of all ages to enter into it and travel back through the island’s people: who they were, what they did, how they were born and how they died (often tragically).

It is almost impossible to “read just one chronicle!”

Tuck’t In, highlighting the lives of Nantucketers with their inspiring and intriguing stories, will fund preservation, conservation and restoration at historic Prospect Hill Cemetery, Nantucket.

Tuck't In: A Walking Tour of Historic Prospect Hill Cemetery Nantucket, Massachusetts can be purchased at Tresses & The Day Spa, Mitchell's Book Corner, Nantucket Bookworks, the Nantucket Historical Association, the Maria Mitchell Association, The Hub or contact Prospect Hill Cemetery.