Chris Perry Column: History Being Made On History

It all started in May of 2025 in West Sussex, England.

That’s where Russ Pike, a summer resident on Nantucket, started the ball rolling.

Led by Mary Lacoursiere, Nantucket Historical Association’s artistic director of heritage craft, Pike was part of a handful of NHA members who made the trek to the UK last year for their first-ever Nantucket Windsor Chair-Making Workshop with James Mursell.

As the group was working on their Windsor chairs, Pike rhetorically asked:

“Why don’t we weave a basket on the Nantucket Lightship?”

Hearing the suggestion while working on her own chair at the West Sussex workshop, Lacoursiere paused for a moment, looked up and said, “That’s genius. It’s so obvious. I can’t believe that no one thought of it earlier.”

Last weekend, what was originally a crazy idea turned into the NHA’s “Three Days Aboard The Historic Nantucket Lightship LV-112: Nantucket Baskekmaking Masterclass.”

And, as they say, the rest is history.

Initially, Lacoursiere thought she would have a tough voyage ahead.

“I knew the NHA would be on board with the idea. However, I thought the hardest part would be approaching the Nantucket Lightship Museum, which owns the Nantucket Lightship, and securing the services of someone qualified enough to lead such a unique adventure,” Lacoursiere said.

“I couldn’t have been more wrong on both fronts,” she confessed.

Almost immediately, she reached out to well-known artisan and master basket weaver, Kathleen Myers, who had studied under instructors trained by Nantucket masters Nap Plank and Alan Reed. Moreover, Myers was very familiar to the NHA community, having taught classes herself for over 30 years.

“Before I finished the question, Kathleen jumped at the idea,” said Lacoursiere, who knew Myers would prepare painstakingly for the opportunity to teach a basket-weaving class aboard the iconic Nantucket Lightship.

Clearly, securing Myers was a huge. The Frankenmuth, Michigan native is internationally known for her weaving and teaching skills; and for many years, she hosted an on-island, summertime “Bed & Basket” program before moving permanently to Nantucket in 2017.

“After speaking with Mary and the NHA, I was adamant about not wanting to ‘copy' an existing lightship basket,” Myers said to me as I sat and watched her teach a class at the 1800 House on the day she was leaving for Boston.

“I wanted each participant to make a replica, not a copy, of a lightship basket that held true to the four foundations of a lightship basket being a wood base, woven on a wooden mold with cane and a rim that’s nailed and lashed.”

Certainly, I wasn’t one to argue, and it was clear that Myers meant business.

In fact, the master weaver spent one full year researching various well-known basket weavers and their distinctive styles before settling on a specific basket made famous by Andrew J. Sandsbury.

Sandsbury was born in 1830 and died in 1902. One of his first whaling voyages was aboard the brig Quito in 1848, whose journey was ultimately abandoned off the coast of Chile when Captain John C. Brock opted to head to San Fransico instead, drawn by the lure of the California gold rush.

By 1851, Sandsbury made his way back to New England and eventually to Nantucket, where he married Martha Chadwick in 1855. After several successful whaling trips, Sandsbury joined the South Shoal Lightship as a crewman in 1872 and was named captain in 1881, serving 11 years in that capacity before being appointed “Keeper of the Brant Point Lighthouse” in 1892.

“Most people are familiar with scrimshaw,” added Myers. “But another popular hobby was basket weaving, which, ironically, was forbidden in 1902 by the Life Saving Service because it was too distracting to the lighthouse crews.”

Myers continued, “Sandsbury had a distinctive style and couple that with his ties to the South Shoal Lightship and the fact that the class was being taught in the Nantucket Lightship, I thought Sandsbury’s basket was the perfect choice.”

Director Lacoursiere wasn’t done yet.

With Myers on board, she needed to reach out to Robert Mannino, president of the U.S. Lightship Museum, who, on behalf of the USLM, purchased the lightship vessel. Declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989, the Nantucket Lightship has had an incredible history, serving several stints at full attention, anchored off Nantucket’s coast, saving lives and guiding commerce.

“I thought it would be an incredible experience, and I was fully on board with the idea,” said Mannino, who visited Lacoursiere on Nantucket last November to work out the details.

Mannino went on to give me a brief history of the Nantucket Lightship, including the tragic story of Lighthouse Vessel-117, Nantucket Lightship-112’s predecessor, which was rammed in heavy fog on May 15, 1934, by the Olympic - a sister ship to the Titanic - and sunk, killing seven of the 11 souls on board.

Nantucket Lightship-112’s last deployment was from 1960 to 1975, after which she was “withdrawn from Nantucket station” and decommissioned in March of 1975. From there, the ship had a bumpy ride, neglected for a while while docked in Oyster Bay, NY, before being rescued in 2008 and eventually purchased by the United States Lighthouse Museum in 2009 and relocated to Boston Harbor in 2010. Under the capable leadership of Mannino, the Nantucket Lightship has been going through a two-phase restoration project playing out at the Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina, where the Lightship acts as a floating museum open to the public.

“This whole experience has been incredible. I don’t think we could have envisioned a more perfect role for the Nantucket Lightship and a better place for a NHA class,” said Mannino, sounding more like a proud father.

But for Mannino and the entire class, the best moment from this past weekend’s weaving adventure was an unanticipated “reunion” of sorts.

Paul Sabo is a volunteer on the Nantucket Lightship. On Saturdays, Paul gives tours of the Lightship to the public, and since he was stationed on the Nantucket Lightship during the 1970s, he is intimately familiar with LV-112 from bow to stern. Knowing there was a Nantucket contingency on board, his volunteer duty held special significance that day.

He just didn’t know how much.

Chris Dean was part of the NHA class that traveled up from Nantucket. Dean lives in Vero Beach, FL, has summered on Nantucket for the past 23 years, and is a Nantucket native born at the Nantucket Cottage Hospital in 1961.

More importantly and unbeknownst to most on board, Chris’ father, J.H. Perry, was the Commanding Officer on the Nantucket Lightship for two years in 1972 and 1973.

With Sabo addressing the class in the Officer’s Ward Room where they were working on their baskets, it did not take long for Paul and Chris to connect the dots and realize Sabo served under her father as his chief petty officer and second in command aboard the Nantucket Lightship.

“Your dad and I played many hands of cribbage at the same table you are weaving your basket,” Sabo announced, admittedly caught off guard by the poignant exchange shared by all in the room.

“It was a very emotional moment,” said Mannino. “This ship has a soul. Over the years, it has brought so many different people together from all over the world. Saturday was no different. I don’t think there was a dry eye on board.”

Interest in Nantucket Lightship baskets has been enjoying a renaissance lately, but for this group, as they headed home on Sunday with their newly woven baskets protectively tucked away and topped off with a commemorative scrimshaw button etched by Lee A. Papale, something was different. As Nantucket Lightship Director Mannino said to me, “This was no class to make a lady’s purse.”

The weekend’s weaving adventure was a rare opportunity to step back in time aboard the Nantucket Lightship under the tutelage of Kathleen Myers and honor the history of a unique island tradition.

“It is important to make this craft accessible. Traditionally, basket makers want to keep their skills a secret. They do not want to pass it along to others unless it is within the family. However, this past weekend, I think in some small way, we did that because it was great,” said Myers.

Perhaps Robert Mannino summed it up best: “It was history being made on history…”