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THERE ONCE WAS A BASKET FROM NANTUCKET BY JAMES R. BARNETT
Friendship basket purse made by José Formoso Reyes in 1950
FOR MANY REASONS, boat lovers and landlubbers love Nantucket. The well-known island 30 miles off the Massachusetts coast has great maritime history, picturesque scenery, unspoiled beaches, boutique shopping, a nice marina and seafood galore. It’s also home to a unique basketmaking tradition developed in the second half of the 19th century by manly men who manned the lightships that warned of dangerous waters around the island. Today, the Nantucket baskets they wove are ubiquitous to the island as both a popular souvenir and a highly collectible object that reflects the island’s fascinating history and heritage. Baskets Born of Necessity and Boredom In 1820, the United States began building and converting ships into lightships in coastal waters and the Great Lakes. These vessels served as floating beacons to identify perilous shoals, reefs and shifting channels in places where lighthouse construction wasn’t possible.The ships housed bright and navigational light beacons atop their masts to guide maritime traffic. The waters around Nantucket were well traversed and very treacherous. In Nantucket Sound, sandbars muddled traffic, so the U.S. government placed a lightship there in 1823 to help mark a safe path by the island along a popular commercial route between New York and Boston. It
Nest of lightship baskets made by former whaling captain James Wyer, circa 1870
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