Firsts on the Fourth

The Fourth of July was a day of two firsts for me. This was the first year I've celebrated Independence Day by serving as one of the readers of the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights in the annual community celebration held at our 200-year-old historic Nantucket Unitarian Church. We had a full house of over 400 attendees of all ages and it was truly a moving experience, complete with patriotic music and the opportunity for young and old to sign a mock copy of the Declaration of Independence situated at the front of the church.

Later in the day I travelled with good friends for the first time out over a long stretch of sand out to Great Point, the most northermost point of Nantucket island that is a narrow split of sand bounded by Nantucket Sound on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. It's a breathtaking view with swans in the ponds and a peaceful ambience. We had to be especially careful on our drive out to avoid hitting any of the threatened, though not endangered, piping plover chicks recently hatched.

Our friends have a wonderfully rustic cabin, only one of three structures at the extreme end of the Point, which include another cabin and the Great Point Light, where I took the photo above. The cabin has been in the family since the 1940's and we enjoyed lots of entertaining stories about all the happenings through the years involving friends and family visitors.

The lighthouse was first built in 1784. It was orginally wooden and was destroyed by fire in 1816. According to Wikipedia, the following year a stone tower was built and stood until it was toppled in a storm in 1984. It was then rebuilt again in 1986 with the stone tower built to replicate the former one. It still is in operation today.

This weekend marked the official beginning of the tourist invasion of the island. Sunday was unfortunately not a Chamber of Commerce kind of day for the local businesses and tourists with a sewer spill erupting on Orange Street and running down Main Street, which was filled with crowds. It happened earlier in the year as well near the same spot so it looks as though there is some serious work to be done by the Department of Public Works!