Timeline of Nantucket

• 1621 – Island granted to Plymouth Company of London.[1]
• 1641 – Island bought by Thomas Mayhew.[2]
• 1659
  • Island sold to Thomas Barnard, Peter Coffin, Tristram Coffin, Christopher Hussey, Thomas Macy, William Pike, John Swayne, and Richard Swayne.[3]
  • Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Land established.[4]
• 1660 – Island becomes part of the Province of New York.[2]
• 1661 – Settlers arrive from Amesbury and Salisbury, Massachusetts.[2]
• 1665 – Maddequet Ditch (canal) dug.
• 1671 – Town incorporated.[5]
• 1672 – Town relocated to Wescoe from Madaket.[6]
• 1673 – Town named "Sherburne."[5]
• 1683 – Island becomes part of Dukes County, Province of New York.[6]
• 1686 – Jethro Coffin house built.[6]
• 1692 – Island becomes part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay.[2]
• 1695 – Nantucket County established.[6]

Map of the Island of Nantucket, 1782, by Crèvecœur

• 1712 – Sperm whaling begins.[6]
• 1713 – Tuckernuck Island becomes part of Nantucket County.[6]
• 1732 – Quaker meeting house built.[7]
• 1746
  • Lighthouse and East Mill constructed.[8]
  • The Old Mill an historic windmill.[6]
• 1774 – Population: 4,545.[5]
• 1775 – Nantucket tentatively states their neutrality during the American Revolutionary War.[9][10]
• 1779 – April: British loyalists raid island.[9]
• 1784 - Great Point Light established.[6]
• 1795 – Town of Sherburne renamed "Nantucket."[5]

• 1810
  • Second Congregational Meeting House incorporated.[11]
  • Population: 6,807.[12]
• 1814 – Nantucket declares neutrality in the US-British War of 1812.[13]
• 1816 – May: Nantucket Gazette newspaper begins publication.[14]
• 1817 – Fragment Society formed.[15]
• 1820
  • Nantucket Mechanics' Social Library Society founded.[16]
  • Population: 7,266.[17]
• 1821 – The Inquirer newspaper begins publication.[14]
• 1823
  • Columbian Library Society founded.[16]
  • United Methodist Church built.[18]
• 

  1853 drawing of a Nantucket shark, by Jacques Burkhardt
  1827 – United Library Association[16] and Lancasterian school[6] founded.
• 1834 – Nantucket Athenaeum incorporated.[18]
• 1835
  • African Methodist Episcopal Church incorporated.[19]
  • Silk Factory in business.[20]
• 1836 – Ladies' Howard Society formed.[21]
• 1838 - Nantucket High School established.
• 1839 – Trinity Church built.[18]
• 1840 – First Baptist Church built.[18]
• 1846 – Fire.[3]
• 1848 – Atlantic House hotel in business in Siasconset.[22]
• 1850 - Sankaty Head Light built.
• 1854 – Lightship Nantucket and Town Library[16] established.
• 1855 - Death of Dorcas Honorable, Nantucket's last Native American Wampanoag Indian.
• 1856
  • Nantucket Agricultural Society founded.[23]
  • Lighthouse rebuilt.[5]
• 1864 – Josiah Freeman photography studio in business.[24]
• 1866 – Union Benevolent Society founded.[15]
• 1869 - Nantucket's last whaler sailed.[6]
• 1873 – Nantucket Relief Association founded.[15]
• 1875 – Civil War monument erected.[5]
• 1877 – Sherburne Lyceum organized.[5]
• 1881 – Nantucket Railroad built.
• 1883 – Siasconset Union Chapel,[18] Nantucket Hotel, Surf-Side Hotel and Springfield Hotel built.[5]
• 1886
  • Electric telegraph installed.[5]
  • New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket Steamboat Company formed.[25]
  • Wyer's Art Store in business (approximate date).[24]
• 1892 – Point Breeze Hotel in business.[5]
• 1894 – Nantucket Historical Association founded.[18]
• 1895 – Goldenrod Literary and Debating Society founded.[26]

Original Nantucket Railroad reaches bankruptcy, Nantucket Central Railroad Company established

• 1897 – Church of St. Mary-Our Lady of the Isle built.[18]

Nantucket, 1937

• 1901 – Brant Point Light rebuilt.
• 1902 – Maria Mitchell Association founded.
• 1908 – Maria Mitchell Observatory built.[27]
• 1910 – Population: 2,962 (county).[6]
• 1917 - Nantucket Central Railroad Company closes after all available trains were commandeered by the United States Army to serve in the Western Front of World War One
• 1923 – Sankaty Head Golf Club opens.
• 1925 – Nobska (steamship) begins operating in region.
• 1930 – Whaling Museum opens.[28]
• 1940 – Straight Wharf Theatre established.[15]
• 1945 – Murray's Toggery Shop in business.[29]
• 1956 – July 25: SS Andrea Doria wrecked offshore.
• 1966 – Nantucket Historic District established.
• 1970 – Population: 3,774.
• 1972 – Hy-Line ferry begins operating.
• 1974 – Coskata-Coatue Wildlife Refuge established (approximate date).[30]
• 1975 – Nantucket National Wildlife Refuge established.
• 1976 – December 15: MV Argo Merchant wrecked offshore.
• 1990 – Population: 6,012.
• 1995 – Nantucket Regional Transit Authority begins operating.
• 1997 – Bill Delahunt becomes U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 10th congressional district.
• 1999
  • October 31: EgyptAir Flight 990 crashes south of island, 217 dead.
  • African Meeting House restored.[18]

• 2001 – Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound organized.
• 2010
  • Cape Wind (wind farm) development approved.[31]
  • Population: 10,172.
• 2011 – William R. Keating becomes U.S. representative for Massachusetts's 10th congressional district.

• History of Nantucket
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Nantucket County, Massachusetts

Published in the 19th century

• "Nantucket". Edinburgh Gazetteer. Edinburgh. 1822. hdl:2027/yale.39002088370268.
• Jedidiah Morse; Richard C. Morse (1823), "Nantucket", A New Universal Gazetteer (4th ed.), New Haven: S. Converse
• William Darby; Theodore Dwight Jr. (1834), "Nantucket", New gazetteer of the United States of America (2nd ed.), Hartford: E. Hopkins
• Obed Macy (1835), The history of Nantucket, Boston: Hilliard, Gray and Co., OL 6905739M 2nd ed., 1880
• "Nantucket County". Massachusetts Business Directory. Boston: George Adams. 1856.
• John Hayward (1857), "Nantucket", New England Gazetteer (2nd ed.), Boston: Otis Clapp, OCLC 3441657
• "Nantucket". Lippincott's Magazine. 1868.
• Richard Luce Pease (1876), Guide to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, printers, OL 18095063M
• Frederic Denison (1879), "Nantucket", Illustrated New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, Providence: J.A. & R.A. Reid, OCLC 22869619
• Joseph Sabin, ed. (1880). "Nantucket". Bibliotheca Americana. Vol. 12. New York. OCLC 13972268.
• Edward K. Godfrey (1882), The Island of Nantucket: what it was and what it is, Boston: Lee and Shepard, OL 22961957M
• Robert Grieve (1889), "Nantucket", Illustrated Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Taunton, New Bedford, Fall River (2nd ed.), Providence, Rhode Island: J.A. & R.A. Reid, OCLC 10563002
• M.S. Dudley (1895). Nantucket Centennial Celebration, 1695, 1795, 1895. Nantucket: R.B. Hussey, printer.

Published in the 20th century

• Tourist's Guide to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, Boston: John F. Murphy, 1902, OL 24158445M
• J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur (1904), Letters from an American Farmer, New York: Fox, Duffield & Company, OL 7093278M Reprint of 1782 London ed.
  • Letters 4-5, 7-8: Description of Nantucket, etc.
• Sea-Girt Nantucket: a hand-book of historical contemporaneous information for visitors. Nantucket: H.S. Wyer. 1906.
• Flagg (1907). "Nantucket County". Guide to Massachusetts Local History. Salem, Massachusetts: Salem Press Co.
• "Nantucket" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 166.
• John Henry Robinson (1918), Guide to Nantucket (3rd ed.)
• Samuel Eliot Morison (1921). "Newburyport and Nantucket". Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783–1860. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. hdl:2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t3bz6407p.
• Alexander Starbuck (1924), History of Nantucket, Boston: C.E. Goodspeed & Co., OCLC 3813742
• Winston Williams (1977), Nantucket Then and Now, being an updated history and guide, New York: Dodd, Mead, OL 4904260M
• Nathaniel Philbrick (1993). ""Every Wave Is a Fortune": Nantucket Island and the Making of an American Icon". New England Quarterly. 66 (3): 434–447. doi:10.2307/366005. JSTOR 366005.
• "An Island in Time: An Overview of the NHA's Collections with Accompanying Timeline". Historic Nantucket. Nantucket Historical Association. 49. 2000.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to History of Nantucket.

• Library of Congress, Prints & Photos division. Items related to Nantucket, various dates.
• Europeana. Items related to Nantucket
• Digital Public Library of America. Works related to Nantucket, various dates