Phoebe's Light Read online

  © 2018 by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Ebook edition created 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  ISBN 978-1-4934-1249-5

  Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the King James Version.

  This is a work of historical reconstruction; the appearances of certain historical figures are therefore inevitable. All other characters, however, are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Published in association with Joyce Hart of the Hartline Literary Agency, LLC

  “Phoebe’s Light is another work of art and heart by Suzanne Woods Fisher; a beautifully told tale that honors the early Quakers of colonial Massachusetts and their rich heritage on unique, lovely Nantucket Island. Inspired by actual historical figures, these characters and this place meld into a remarkably poignant page-turner. An inspiring start to what is sure to be a beloved series!”

  —Laura Frantz, author of The Lacemaker

  “Set sail on an absorbing adventure with Fisher’s delightful new book, Phoebe’s Light. Fisher brings to life Nantucket Island with her vivid descriptions and true-to-life characters. Shedding light upon Quaker customs and beliefs as well as the whaling era, Fisher plunges her readers into turbulent waters with plenty of plot twists and intrigue that lead to a satisfying conclusion.”

  —Jody Hedlund, author of Luther & Katharina, Christy Award winner

  “You can always trust Suzanne Woods Fisher to write a compelling story that has readers turning pages as fast as they can to see what happens next. She’s done it again with Phoebe’s Light, a surefire mix of engaging characters, fascinating Nantucket Island history, and even a whaling trip on the high seas. If you like romance mixed with history and adventure, you’re going to love Phoebe’s Light.”

  —Ann H. Gabhart, bestselling author of These Healing Hills

  To Mary Coffin Starbuck (1645–1717),

  a Weighty Friend to all Nantucketers.

  A woman far ahead of her times,

  who did indeed build something that endured.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Endorsements

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Cast of Characters

  Glossary

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek of Minding the Light

  Discussion Questions

  A Note to the Reader

  Historical Notes

  The Quakers of the 17th and 18th Centuries

  Acknowledgments

  Resources

  About the Author

  Books by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  Author’s Note

  The story of Nantucket Island, nearly thirty miles out to sea off the sharp elbow of Cape Cod, begins long before Phoebe’s Light picks up. Native Americans farmed this crescent-shaped island in relative peace and quiet, able to avoid many of the problems with English colonists that mainland Natives could not. In 1660, a group of white settlers moved to Nantucket, including fifteen-year-old Mary Coffin, hoping to build something that would endure.

  Sheepherding became a natural industry for these new settlers, far from predators like wolves. In fact, sheep gave Nantucket its economic base until whaling overshadowed it. Whaling became such a great source of revenue, through the late eighteenth century and into the middle of the nineteenth century, that Nantucket Island was considered the wealthiest port in the world.

  And that is when this story begins . . .

  Cast of Chacters

  17th century

  Mary Coffin: daughter of one of the first proprietors of Nantucket Island—highly revered; considered to be like Deborah the judge of the Old Testament

  Tristram Coffin: proprietor of Nantucket Island, father of Mary, husband of Dionis

  Nathaniel Starbuck: son of proprietor Edward Starbuck

  Peter Foulger: surveyor, missionary to the Wampanoag Indians of Nantucket Island, joined the proprietors

  Eleazer Foulger: son of Peter Foulger

  18th century

  Phoebe Starbuck: great-granddaughter of Mary Coffin

  Barnabas Starbuck: father of Phoebe

  Matthew Macy: cooper on Nantucket Island

  Phineas Foulger: whaling captain of Fortuna

  Silence Foulger (Silo): cabin boy

  Sarah Foulger: daughter of Captain Phineas Foulger

  Hiram Hoyt: first mate of Fortuna

  Libby Macy: mother of Matthew

  Jeremiah Macy: brother of Matthew

  Zacchaeus Coleman: constable of Nantucket

  Glossary

  Language of 18th-Century Nantucket

  ambergris: a waxy, grayish substance found in the stomachs of sperm whales and once used in perfume to make the scent last longer

  baleen: the comblike plates of cartilage in a whale’s mouth to strain plankton and other food from the water; very valuable for its strength and flexibility

  boatsteerer/harpooner: crew at the bow of the whaling boat whose job is to spear the whale

  broken voyage: a whaling ship that returns home with less than a full load of oil

  cat-o’-nine (or cat-o’-nine-tails): a multi-tailed whip used to flog sailors

  cooper: barrel maker

  cooperage: workplace of the cooper

  crosstree or crow’s nest: the part of the ship, near the top of the mast, where the sailor on lookout duty watches for whales

  cuddy: a small room or compartment on a boat

  disowned: under church discipline

  elders: historically, those appointed to foster the vocal ministry of the meeting for worship and the spiritual condition of its members

  Facing Benches: the benches or seats in the front of the meeting room, facing the body of the meeting, on which Friends’ ministers and elders generally sat

  fin up: dead

  First Day: Sunday (Quakers did not use names for days of the week, nor for the months, as these had pagan origins)

  First Month: January

  flensing: butchering of the whale

  Friends and Society of Friends: Quaker church members

  gam: to visit or talk with the crew of another whaling ship while at sea

  gangplank: a movable bridge used to board or leave a ship

  greenhand or greenie: an inexperienced sailor making his first whaling voyage

  hold in the Light: to ask for God’s presence to illuminate a situation or problem or person

  idler: a crewman whose tasks require daylight hours (cook, cooper, cabin boy)

  lay: the percentage of a ship’s pr
ofit that each crew member receives; a sailor’s lay usually depends upon his experience and rank

  lookout: the sailor stationed in the crosstree to watch for whales

  Meeting: church

  minding the Light: an expression used to remind Quakers that there is an Inward Light in each of them that can reveal God’s will if its direction is listened to and followed

  mortgage button: a Nantucket tradition of drilling a hole in the newel post of a household’s banister, filling it with the ashes of the paid-off mortgage, and capping the hole with a button made of scrimshaw (called a Brag Button in the South)

  moved to speak: an experience, in the quietness of the meeting, of feeling led by God to speak

  mutiny: an uprising or rebellion of a ship’s crew against the captain

  Nantucket sleigh ride: a term used to describe the pulling of a whaleboat by a whale that has been harpooned and is “running”

  Quaker: the unofficial name of a member of the Religious Society of Friends; originally the use was pejorative, but the word was reclaimed by Friends in recognition of the physical sensation that many feel when being moved by the Spirit

  quarterboard: a wooden sign with carved name displayed on each ship

  rigging: the ropes and chain used to control a ship’s sails

  saltbox: traditional New England–style wooden frame house with a long, pitched roof that slopes down to the back; a saltbox has just one story in the back and two stories in the front

  scrimshaw: whalebone adorned with carvings

  seasoning: a process to ensure that decisions are truly grounded in God’s will

  seize: to tie up a sailor in the rigging as a form of punishment

  slops: sailors’ clothing (a ship’s captain will charge his crew for any clothes he supplied)

  syndicate: a group of businessmen who own a whaling ship or ships

  tryworks: a brick furnace in which try-pots (a metallic pot used on a whaler or on shore to render blubber) are placed

  Weighty Friend: a Friend who is informally recognized as having special experience and wisdom

  worldly: having to do with secular values

  1

  8th day of the ninth month in the year 1767

  Phoebe Starbuck flung back the worn quilt, leapt out of bed, and hurried to the window. She swung open the sash of the window and took in a deep breath of the brisk island air tinged with a musky scent of the flats at low tide. It was how she started each morning, elbows on the windowsill, scanning the water to see which, if any, whaling ships might have returned to port in the night. It was how most every Nantucket woman greeted the day.

  Drat! She couldn’t see the flags among the jumble of bobbing masts.

  Phoebe grabbed the spyglass off the candlestand and peered through it, frantically focusing and refocusing on each mast that dotted the harbor, counting each one. And then her heart stopped when she saw its flag: the Fortuna, captained by Phineas Foulger, the most-admired man on all the island, in her opinion. And the ship sat low in the water—indicating a greasy voyage, not a broken one.

  Today Phoebe was eighteen years old, a woman by all rights. Would the captain notice the vast changes in her? She felt but a girl when he sailed away two years ago, though her heart had felt differently. What a day, what a day!

  “Make haste, Phoebe dear,” her father called up the stairs. “Something special awaits thee.”

  The morning sun brightened the room as Phoebe scooped up her clothes. She tugged on a brown homespun dress and combed her hair until it crackled. She wound her thick hair into a flattering topknot, pinned it against the back of her head, then covered it with a lace cap. She gave her bedroom a quick tidy-up, plumping a goosefeather pillow and smoothing the last wrinkle from the bed.

  Downstairs, Phoebe smiled as she entered the warm keeping room, its fire crackling. Father, the old dear, a small and gentle man, sat at the head of the table with a wrapped bundle in his hands and a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary look on his weathered face, seamed with lines.

  “There she is, my daughter, my one and only. Happy birthday, Phoebe.” He rose and held the seat out for her. When he stood, she noticed the patches on his overcoat, the sheen at the elbows, the fraying threads at his sleeve cuffs. Not today, she thought. Not on this day. I will not worry today.

  Barnabas Starbuck was considered the black sheep of the Starbuck line—oddly enough, because of sheep. Her father had continued to raise sheep for profit, providing a very modest income at best, despite the fact that all his kinsmen were deeply enmeshed in the whaling industry and growing wealthy for it. The gap between Barnabas Starbuck and all other Starbucks had widened enormously in the last decade.

  Phoebe loved her father, but she was not blind to his shortcomings. He was a kind and generous man but lacked the business acumen common to his relations. Barnabas Starbuck always had a venture brewing. New enterprises, he called them, always, always, always with disastrous results. He would start an enterprise with a big dream, great enthusiasm, and when the idea failed or fizzled, he would move on to something else.

  For a brief time Barnabas fancied himself a trader of imports. There were the iron cook pots he had ordered from a smooth-talking Boston land shark, far more pots than there were island housewives, so many that the lean-to still had pots stacked floor to ceiling. Oversupply, he had discovered, was a pitfall. Thus the pots remained unsold and unwanted, rusting away in the moist island air.

  And then Barnabas had an idea to start a salt works factory in an empty warehouse on Straight Wharf but once again neglected to take into account the high humidity of the island. The drying process needed for salt production was so greatly hindered by the summer’s humidity that the salt clumped and caused condensation on all the warehouse’s windows.

  Her father was quite tolerant of his business failures. “Just taking soundings!” he would tell Phoebe with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Part and parcel of the road to success.”

  What her father refused to accept was that all roads on Nantucket Island led to the harbor. Nearly every islander understood that truth and was involved, to some degree or another, in the making of tools necessary to outfit whaling and fishing vessels. Phoebe had tried to encourage her father to consider investing in sail making, blacksmithing, ironworks, rope manufacturing. Anything that would tie his enterprise to the sea. But he was convinced whaling was a short-term industry, soon to fizzle out.

  Phoebe had a dread, and not an unfounded one, that her father would soon be declared Town Poor by the selectman. The Starbuck kin had made it abundantly clear that they had reached the end of their tether to bail Barnabas out of another financial failure.

  And what would become of them then? The Town Poor were miserably provided for.

  Not today, she reminded herself as she poured herself a cup of tea. I am not going to worry today. Today is a special day.

  Leaning across the table, her father handed her a brown parcel, tied with twine.

  “A gift? I thought we had agreed no gifts this year.” And here was another sweet but conflicting characteristic to her father—he was a generous gift giver, despite a steady shortage of disposable income.

  “This is an inheritance,” he said, beaming from ear to ear. “It has been waiting for thee until the time was right.”

  Carefully, Phoebe untied the twine and unfolded the paper, both items to use again. Inside the package was a weathered book, bound in tan sheepskin. When she opened it, she had to squint to read the faint ink. “What could it be?” She looked up at him curiously.

  “What could it be? Why, none other than the journal of Great Mary!”

  Great Mary? Phoebe’s great-grandmother, her father’s grandmother. Great Mary’s father, Tristram Coffin, was one of the first proprietors to settle the island. Mary was his youngest daughter, regarded as a wise and noble woman, a Weighty Friend to all, oft likened to Deborah in the Old Testament. “I thought the existence of Great Mary’s journal was naught but rumor
.”

  “Nay! Nay, ’tis truly hers. Passed along to me from my father and given to him by his father. ’Tis meant to be passed from generation to generation, to whomever would most benefit from the wisdom of Great Mary. For some reason, my father felt I needed it the most.”

  Reverently, Phoebe stroked the smooth brown sheepskin covering. “And thee has read it?”

  He was silent for some time, staring into his teacup. “Truth be told, I always intended to but never found the time.” His smile disappeared and he looked uncharacteristically chagrined. “The script is faint, my eyes are weak . . . Ink is so vulnerable to humid conditions.” He put down his fork and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “And then . . . I have been so busy with my enterprises.”

  Phoebe had to bite on her lip not to point out the irony of this conversation. “I thank thee, Father. I will take good care of it, and when the time is right, I will take care to pass it on to the person who most needs Great Mary’s wisdom.”

  It was only after breakfast, as Phoebe knotted the strings of her black bonnet under her chin, swift and taut, eager to hurry to the harbor and catch a glimpse of the Fortuna’s captain, that she realized the sharp point of irony was jabbed not only at her father but also at her. For she was the one in this generation, amongst dozens and dozens of Starbuck cousins, to whom the journal of wisdom had been passed.

  A fine, fair morning it was, with the air washed fresh by the rain. The countryside was soft, shades of green, hints of yellows and reds with the coming autumn. Matthew Macy tipped his hat to bid goodbye to the constable and left the gaol, tucked away on Vestal Street, heading toward the wharf where his cooperage was located. A second-generation cooper, Matthew was, with the knowledge of barrel making passed down from his late father. Late . . . but not forgotten. Never that.

  He filled his lungs with crystalline air, happy to be outside on this lovely morning and far away from the wretched gaol, at least for the next ten hours. After that, sadly, he was due to return.

  He strode down Milk Street, turned the corner, and paused to stop and look down toward the harbor. It was a view that always affected him. How he loved this little island. Thirty miles away from the mainland—not too far but far enough. The rain last evening had chased away the usual lingering fog, and even cleansed the air of the pervasive stink of rendering whales. At the moment the sea was calm, shimmering in the morning sun, but it could change in the blink of an eye, with nary much warning, into a deadly tempest. How well he knew.