Nahant Historical Society is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, firmly stamping itself into the framework of the town as the keeper of stories.
“Despite Nahant being the smallest town in Massachusetts, the town has some significant events in its past that tell the story of its remarkable history,” former NHS Board member Tom Costin wrote. “The most important work the Society does is to collect and preserve the stories, events, documents, and artifacts of the town’s storied history in order to foster knowledge, understanding, and community engagement for future generations.”
Late Nahant resident Calantha Sears (1921-2024) co-founded the NHS in 1975 while working to organize the Town’s 1976 Bicentennial Parade as part of her work with the Nahant Historical Commission. According to Bonnie Ayers D’Orlando, Sears’ influence remains strong in the NHS — which befits the “First Lady of Nahant,” as she was informally known.
When the NHS was first established, it was headquartered in the Costin family home, “one of the town’s oldest homes, known as the Whitney Homestead,” Costin wrote. Past President Lynne Spencer explained that, as time went on and the Costin clan grew, sharing their home with the society eventually became untenable. They moved to a rented space in the Country Club, but a permanent space was needed.
In 1996, Spencer was on the NHC with Sears. As a historical building restoration expert by trade, Spencer was asked to participate in the process of salvaging historical artifacts from the old Valley Road School. It’s this building that eventually became the NHS’s permanent home.
The Valley Road School was originally slated to be sold for $166,000 and demolished to develop two homes. Before that happened, Spencer and Sears visited the building to determine if the building or its contents could be salvaged.
As she and Sears went through the building, Spencer recalled being touched by the two marble columns that were donated to the Town Library by William Wood in 1819. When the Town built the school at Valley Road, the columns were moved there.
Spencer said, “I turned to Calantha and said ‘I don’t know about salvage. Why don’t we just save the building?’”
So began a campaign of phone calls spearheaded by Stanley Paterson, then-president of the NHS. Spencer said, “Calantha was too diffident to ask too much at that point, but Stanley was fearless.”
They then sent in a delegation to the Board of Selectmen. With the support of Bob Risch and Jeff Musman, the NHS eventually convinced the Town to give it a chance to raise the funds needed to prevent the demolition, but it was a slim chance: one week. Against the odds, $160,000 was raised that week.
Spencer said that “people actually understood there was more value than just two house lots,” but there was still more work to be done. Just raising the money wasn’t enough; they needed to convince the people of Nahant that the building should be saved.
According to Spencer, it took a seven-hour Special Town Meeting and two secret ballot polls.
“There was a lot of emotion (at that Town Meeting), and logic, but logic actually gets diminished when there’s a lot of emotion,” she said.
According to the meeting minutes — written by Town Clerk Diane Dunfee — after three and a half hours of debate, the first vote failed by just two votes, with the final tally coming out to 214 to 110.
There is a provision in the Town bylaws that a motion may be made to reconsider a vote, so long as such a motion is made within 15 minutes of the original vote. After the recount was done on the first vote, a motion to reconsider was put forward and passed 175 to 94, Dunfee wrote.
By then, people had started to leave the meeting.
“At that point, cell phones were about the size of a shoe box,” Spencer explained. “But a couple people went outside and started calling out to people, (saying,) ‘Hey, you’d better get back in there!’”
The second vote, also a secret ballot, tallied to 212 to 105. There were 317 voters, two-thirds of which is 211.3, meaning this second vote passed by fewer than one vote.
Once the NHS had secured the building, it took about five years and $1.3 million dollars to restore it, a “combination of investment and sweat equity,” Spencer said. She added, “Volunteerism is a huge part of what makes this organization work.”
