About the Baskets

WheelerBaskets.com

The Nantucket Lightship Basket eveolved on Nantucket in the early 1700's and was refined in the Lightships anchored off the Nantucket coast in the 1800's.  The first makers were most probably makers of wooden barrels (coopers) who turned their skills to basket making.  The Nantucket Lightship, a floating lighthouse moored thirty miles off the southeast coast of the island, provided warning of the treacherous shoals and was largely manned by Nantucket residents who were stationed on board for four months at a time.  Basket making became a pastime among the ships crews between 1850 and 1905.  The Lightship name remained even after basket were made on shore.

The basket type is unique and is distinguished by certain characteristics:  It has a wooden base, is woven over a mold, and is woven of cane.  Cane and rattan were obtained through trade with China once Nantucket's whaling fleet got into the Pacific Ocean.  Many Nantucket Lightship Basketshad wooden staves (ribs) others used rattan, particularly during the early 1800's.  The staves of each basket are cut to size, tapered at one end and fit into a narrow slot in the base.  The can weaver is inserted into the wooden base and is tightly woven over and under the staves.  The can is usually damp, making it more pliable.  Reed rims, inner and outer, are cutto fit and joined over the top of the basket fastened with brass pins.  Typically a curved oak handle is attached to the basket rim with copper or brass pins either through the rim of through wood or brass "ears" inserted between the rims.  Since the late 1940's many basket handles are attached with decorative bone of ivory knobs.

The Nantucket Lightship Basket purse, often an oval shape, is typically made with a lid woven around a wooden plaque adorned with a carving of piece of scrimshaw reflecting the island's whaling history.  The baskets have become collector's items and some finely woven new baskets sell fro hundreds of dollars.  Antique baskets are often worth much more, two or three thousand dollars is not uncommon for an old one is good shape by a respected maker.  The basket type is very durable with some lasting well over 100 years.

The famed Nantucket purse was invented by Jose Reyes in the late 1940's.  His purses always used rattan staves and the tops were decorated with carvings of ebony or ivory.  Mr. Reyes moved to Nantucket from his native Philippines shortly after World War II, married a Nantucketer and learned to make baskets from Mitchy Ray, one of the last Lightship basket makers at the time.  Mr. Reyes baskets quickly became famous.  He died in 1980 and his purses routinely fetch 2-3 thousand dollars or more at auction.

Lawrence Wheeler's award winning baskets use rattan staves and the highest grade cane weavers.  For ecological reasons no elephant ivory or whalebone is used in any of Mr. Wheeler's baskets.  Exotic woods, where used, are purchased through dealers who buy from managed forests.  Mr. Wheeler lived on Nantucket in the early 1970's where he first learned his craft.