America will be dealing with Nantucket History a great deal this year. This first section will deal with very early Nantucket History. The following notes come from Nat Philbrick’s Away Off Shore.

Nantucket is where “the icy shovel of the bull dozer stopped.” The glaciers pushed Nantucket out to sea and, as they melted, the water flowed south.

So, the sand on the south shore is outwash plain and the sand is finer than the sand on the north shore.

Nantucket was still connected to the mainland, however.

Jack pines and spruce appeared. A few thousand years later, there were Oaks.

(Trees are a disputed point in Nantucket history. There have been very thick stands of trees on the island, notable in Coatue. Fires probably destroyed much of the island’s woods. The ones that survive are surrounded by swamp or water

The glaciers continued to melt and Nantucket seperated from the mainland. The harbor formed and flooded out all the trees and animals.

Indians arrived. They were a hunting culture and hunted caribou. As the caribou thinned, they probably started some berries and some farming. Sandy soils were good for their tools. When the plow arrived, they happily adopted it.

Indians killed off most of the game animals, including deer, raccoon, and fox.

Afterwards, they probably became a farming community, although there is little evidence.

Indians probably helped clear off all the trees.

Settler’s and Indians worked together on developing the land as farmland.