08/06/2026
Early Island Boats- From Mishoons to Shallops
Boats have always kept the connection between the islands and the outside world at least since the Woodland and Colonial periods.
The waters around the Elizabeth Islands, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket produced mariners adept at navigating the rocky shores- capable of dodging boulders in strong seas, making beach launches and landings and navigating shallow waters.
Using flat bottomed double ended mishoons (‘mishoonash'/dugout canoes), the Wampanoag ancestors stayed connected to their kin and alliances across the watery highways.
Renowned for their boat handling skills, the coastal tribes of the Northeast were linked for centuries to whaling and were engaged with the European newcomers in whaling and trade.
The diaries of Bartholomew Gosnold’s 1602 voyage to ‘Northern Virginia’ (the Cape and the Islands), describe an encounter with natives dressed in European clothes, sailing a Basque shallop. The Basques had been fishing for cod locally since the 1500s.
English explorers Gosnold and John Smith packed these accessory ‘run abouts’ onto their mother ships enabling them to explore the unfamiliar shallow waters after assembling them on arrival.
People and cargo movers, shallops, like mishoons and whaleboats, were small, flat bottomed boats capable of reversing direction with ease. They could be sailed or rowed to work around the vagaries of winds and tides. Moving cargo by water was faster and easier than porting goods over rough roads with oxen as on the mainland.The island owners depended on these boats to ferry livestock and supplies to and from the islands.
During the Revolutionary war, native islanders' hyperlocal depth of knowledge of the waters gave them an advantage over the British in moving small loads of illicit goods into the many hidey holes around the islands.
Cuttyhunk’s legendary native son, Paul Cuffe, the son of an enslaved man brought to New England from Africa, and a Wampanoag woman, achieved international business success in a world in which he lacked every right granted by birth to white men.
Having grown up on the Elizabeth Islands owned by the Quaker Slocum family, he had familiarity with their fleet of boats, their private wharves and knowledge of their trading partners.
In the lead up to the Revolutionary war, Britain had the largest navy in history, and coastal Massachusetts towns were highly vulnerable to blockade and attack. After the 1774 Boston Tea Party, the Royal Navy closed Boston Harbor to all commercial shipping, cutting off trade, starving the local economy, and escalating tensions that led to the Revolutionary War. The British blockade closed off Quaker mercantile and privateering harbors including Newport, New Bedford, Tarpaulin Cove on Naushon and Nantucket.
While Nantucket declared neutrality because of their Quaker pacifist beliefs they were trapped between British blockades, mainland patriot suspicions and devastating shortages of fuel and food.
From 1779 to 1782, Paul Cuffe showed daring, courage and maritime chops by running the British blockade in shallops to deliver critical food and supplies to the Quaker stronghold of Nantucket.
His insider knowledge of the existing secret passages and hidey holes used by the Slocums between Cuttyhunk and Nantucket kept him alive and ultimately led to his future successes.
By Allison Thurston
A replica of the shallop carried on the Mayflower is scheduled to visit Cuttyhunk August 17-19.
Details https://www.cuttyhunkhistoricalsociety.org/event-details/blockade-runners-mayflower-ii-fuller-shallop-tour
Photos
Reconstruction of the shallop marking the 400th anniversary of Capt. John Smith’s historic journeys around the shallow waters of the Chesapeake. Like Gosnold’s shallop, it was constructed of 2 halves that could be used independently.
From 1779 to 1782, Paul Cuffe ran the British blockade in shallops. Illustration: Ray Shaw
Cuffe Islands # Nantucket ’s Vineyard
