The Lily Pond

Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • February 25, 2019

I love this view. It seems like a never-ending tunnel of swamp, decking, and plant-life. This particular day, I could hear children at the other end – it was an unseasonable warm day for February and parents and daycare providers were bringing children to picnic and enjoy the warmth and sun. I also love seeing the Congregational Church and Academy Hill School when in the Lily Pond – it’s a bit of a jolt – you forget you are in Town almost.


What you might not know is that this “pond” as it is referred to was for lack of a better word, destroyed by a child. Oops!


You see, Lily Pond was once an actual pond with at least one mill. We do not have rivers or powerful streams here that can power mills but the Lily Pond once boasted at least this one water mill. The Pond had an outlet that ran to the harbor and islanders built a dam to control the flow of the water. This was in the late 1600s/early 1700s. But one morning, people awoke to find that the Pond had emptied overnight.

A young girl named Love Paddock, who lived nearby (I’m assuming at what is today the Oldest House as Paddocks lived there but I haven’t delved into that research), decided as all children do, to play in the water one day – she likely did it quite a bit. I myself remember playing with water that drained from our basement. We lived in a wonderful 1920s colonial revival when I was young and I suspect the area was filled with springs but our house had the most amazing drainage that brought water out through our “woods” – a wooded corner – and down to the neighboring street where I could dam it up and play with it among the rocks.  In any case, Love decided to play and carved tiny rivulets that led away from the Pond. When finished with playing, she left and went home. It was not until the next day that she saw what her “harmless” playing had done – the Lily Pond was no longer – all the water was gone. But as many a child would, she kept her deed to herself. Until , she was on her deathbed.


Love lived to be a very old woman. She had created the rivulets when she was about ten years old or so – about 1720. It was not until she lay dying that she made her confession and people learned of why the Lily Pond was drained to basically become what we see today. I am sure that Maria Mitchell was well-aware of this story.


The story is further enhanced that the Town tossed pieces of the former Nantucket Railroad into the Pond area when the railroad was dismantled. Thus clogging it up a bit more. The area is basically a marsh, not a pond, now but it attracts an incredible array of bird, plant, and wildlife, including human life. So I guess we cannot be entirely dismayed by Love’s actions, though I think the people of her time may still hold a grudge wherever they are!


JNLF

Recent Posts

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • July 7, 2025
July 31, 1883. I had two or three rich days! On Friday last I went to Holderness, N.H.. to the Asquam House; I had been asked by Mrs. T to join her party. There was at this house Mr. Whittier, Mr., and Mrs. Cartland, Professor and Mrs. Johnson, of Yale . . . The house seemed full of fine, cultivate people. We stayed two days and a half. And first of the scenery. The road up to the house is a steep hill, and at the foot of the hill it winds and turns around two lakes. The panorama is complete one hundred and eighty degrees. Beyond the lakes lie the mountains.  The Asquam House sat atop Shepard Hill and was built in 1881. A hotel, it has space for fifty guests, it was located near Squam Lake and became part of a summer enclave that developed there in the later part of the nineteenth century. Today, the area is a National Historic Landmark, but sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1948. Maria would have been familiar with these people seen here – and others I did not include – but particularly John Greenleaf Whittier who was something of a family friend. He was close to one of her younger brothers, William Forester. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: July 2025

July 1, 2025
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF
Show More