“The Island has nothing deserving of notice but its inhabitants; here you meet with neither ancient monuments, spacious halls, solemn temples nor elegant dwellings; not a citadel nor any kind of fortification, not even a battery to rend the air. Their rural improvements are all of the most simple and useful kind. Sherburn is the only town on the Island, which consists of about 530 houses that have been framed on the main. They are lathed and plastered within, handsomely painted and boarded without. Each has a cellar underneath, built with stones also fetched from the main. They are all of a similar construction in appearance, plain and entirely devoid of exterior or interior ornament. I observed but one which was built of bricks, belonging to Mr. ----, but like the rest it is unadorned. Quayes is a small but valuable tract long since purchased by Mr. Coffin where he has erected the best house on the Island. The differences which I observed in the people are founded on nothing more than the good or ill success of their maritime enterprises and do not proceed from education. That is the same through every class: simple, useful and unadorned, like their dress and their houses. They are well acquainted with the cheapest method of procuring lumber from the Kennebeck and Penobscot Rivers. All their houses are neat, convenient and comfortable. Some of them are filled with two families, for when the husbands are at sea the wives require less house room. Those who possess the greatest fortunes at present belong to the Society of Friends. They yearly go to different parts of this continent, constantly engaged in sea affairs. Sometimes they have emigrated like bees. Some have settled on the famous river Kennebeck, clearing the heaviest timbered land in America, and instead of entirely consuming their timber as we are obliged to do, some parts of it are converted into useful articles for exportation, such as staves, boards, hoops, barrels, etc. For that purpose they keep a correspondence with their native island, and I know many of the principal inhabitants of Sherburn, who though merchants and living at Nantucket, yet possess valuable farms, on that river, from whence they draw a great part of their substance, meat, grain, firewood, etc. Yet there are not at Nantucket so many wealthy people, after having considered their great successes. The reason of this, I believe, is that their island supplies the town with little or nothing (with few families excepted). Everyone must procure what they want from the main. Here are neither Scotch, Irish nor French, as in the case in most other settlements. They are an unmixed English breed.” 1791--By Walter Folger, jun., dated Nantucket, May 21, (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll.)