F.Y.I.

Nantucket is a small island twenty-eight miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. During the second great whaling era of the late 1700s and early 1800s, ships from Nantucket sailed the Pacific, and in some of the ports that they visited, crew members found a material that was strong and easily used for weaving. Rattan, or cane, was transported back to Nantucket where it was incorporated into the basket with the wooden base that we now know as the Nantucket Basket. By 1869 the whaling trade had declined, and at about the same time, tourism began. Visitors came to the quaint island for the summer and when they left, they took some of the unique Nantucket baskets with them.