The history books preserved the names of the three Nantucket residents who were directed to oversee the light construction: Ebenezer Calef, Obed Hussey and Jabez Bunker. As weird as their names may sound today, these three gentlemen were certainly white and Anglo-Saxon, just members of the island’s then big and thriving community of Quakers. Most Quakers had exotic Biblical names, and this fact plays an important part in Moby-Dick.

And since Moby-Dick was mentioned, it is impossible not to talk about whaling. In the eighteen and nineteen centuries whale oil (and especially sperm oil, the oil on the sperm whale) was what petroleum oil is today: a wander liquid that runs the economy. Whale oil was used for lighting, as machine oil, to treat metal, in medicine and in cooking. Just as today, oil revenues were enormous, distorting the overall economy. A few people got very rich.

Unlike the crude oil, though, whales live out in the ocean, and oceans don’t belong to any particular country. Any coastal place could have become the world’s top whaling center. Somehow the tiny Nantucket managed to be that place.

On this undated (“early”) engraving you can see Brant Point Light and two whaling ships being built nearby.

Easy walk or bike ride from town. No lifeguard. Strong current and high boat traffic. Though technically a swimming beach – Brant Point is much more suited to sitting a watching the harbor traffic. Scenic beach with Brant Point Lighthouse