History of the Brass Lantern B&B in Nantucket

The Brass Lantern has offered lodging since the late nineteenth century – but the history of Nantucket is much longer...

The Town of Nantucket

When Nantucket, the ‘faraway isle’, was founded in 1641, it was home to over 3000 Wampanoag and a handful of English settlers who were farmers and sheepherders. The waters around the Island was rich with cod, finfish and shellfish. Occasionally, drift whales, which were prized for their oil, would wash ashore.

By the 1690s, Nantucketers began to organize expeditions to capture whales off the coast and, by the mid-eighteenth century, built ocean going whaling vessels and were hunting deep ocean whales all over the world on expeditions that lasted up to five years.

For almost 150 years, Nantucket was the whaling capital of the world and many of the magnificent homes in the Historic District were built during this time. The names of many of the leaders of Nantucket’s whaling industry – Macy, Gardner, Hussey, Folger and Starbuck – still resonate on Nantucket.

But, by the 1840s, kerosene, a less costly alternative, was beginning to replace whale oil, Nantucket Harbor began to silt over so the whale ships no longer had easy access and, in 1846, the Great Fire roared through Nantucket Town, destroyed over 300 buildings and left hundreds homeless. During the same period, gold was discovered in California and hundreds of men, former whalemen, went there to seek their fortune.

In the late 1800s, Nantucket started to attract leisure visitors who wanted a unique time and space – and this trend continues to the present day.

The Brass Lantern in Historic Downtown Nantucket

The Brass Lantern's Main Building was built after the Great Fire near the end of the Whaling Era. To evoke that part of Nantucket's history, the guestrooms in the main building are named after whaling ships that sailed from Nantucket when the Inn was built during the mid-nineteenth century.

The Garden Wing, designed to blend harmoniously with the original Greek Revival design, was built in the early 1990s, long after the Brass Lantern had become a popular lodging establishment on Nantucket. The guestrooms in the Garden Wing are named after flowers in our garden, which the wing overlooks, and provide a more spacious accommodation with a contemporary Nantucket decor.