Nantucket Lightship Basket

Nantucket Lightship Baskets are a type of basket originating, in the 19th century, on Nantucket Island Lightships. Lightship baskets are all made from rattan and wood, have an odd number of staves, a solid wooden base, a nailed and lashed rim, a rattan weaver, and are woven over a mould. Oak, Pine, and Ash are the most traditional type of wood used on baskets, but today many other types are utilized such as cherry and ebony. Often modern Lightship Baskets incorporate multiple types of wood.

Baskets began being made on Nantucket Island by Native Americans of the Wampanoag Nation; these were generally of the splint type, and bear little resemblance to Nantucket Lightship Baskets. Nevertheless, these early baskets may have inspired later basket makers on Nantucket and aboard the lightships. The earliest form of basket made by white settlers on Nantucket, originated on whaleships in the early 1800s. These baskets were made free form (without a mould) and are thus only vaguely similar to later Lightship Baskets. These baskets, however, do begin to show early principles of Lightship Basket design, often incorporating a solid wooden base and a rattan weaver. The inspiration is thought to be based upon barrel manufacture due to the similar nature of a solid base and wooden staves. The utilization of rattan in basket making is most likely due to whalers picking up the material while sailing in the South Pacific.

The first true Lightship Baskets were made in the mid- to late 1800s aboard the Lightship stationed on the Nantucket Shoals. The first Lightship Station on the Nantucket Island Shoal was established in June 1854 and crewed by six men. Deployments aboard the Lightship often lasted for 30 days and the crewmembers generally had little to do. The earliest Lightship Baskets begin appearing in the 1860s and are generally of more utilitarian form. The first purse style basket with a lid was made by Lightship Captain Charles Ray (1798–1884), and is relatively similar to the type sold today. Lightship basket bases, rims, and staves tended to be made on-island, with lightship crewmembers bringing these items on board the ship to do the actual weaving, and help pass the time. The moulds were originally made from old cut-up ships' masts. According to the Nantucket Lightship Basket Museum, some of these early Lightship Basket makers included: “Captain Davis Hall, Captain Andrew Sandsbury, Roland Folger, Thomas W. Barrallay, William D. Appleton, George W. Ray, Charles F. Ray, Joe Fisher, Charlie Sylvia, SB Raymond and Isaac Hamblin.” Lightship Baskets stopped being made on board the Nantucket lightships in 1900, when the government stopped allowing crewmembers to spend time doing so. The process continued on Nantucket Island. José Formoso Reyes began making the first true lightship basket purses in the 1940s, calling them “Friendship Baskets” after learning the craft from Captain Charles Ray’s grandson Mitchel Ray. Charlie Sayles, Sr. is credited with creating the original Ivory Whale adornment for a basket top in the 1940s, a practice that is ubiquitous today.

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