Island Home

Island Home is located in Gardner, Louisiana. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 5, 1984.

References

Island Home (steamboat)

The Island Home was a sidewheel steamer operating as a ferry serving the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Nantucket ferry service

Island Home was built in 1855 in Greenpoint, New York. Its machinery was manufactured at the Morgan Iron Works in New York. Leonard Merritt, superintending engineer of the New Haven Steamboat Company, supervised the machinery construction.

Island Home first arrived at Nantucket on September 5, 1855 under the command of Capt. Thomas Brown. It was the first purchase of the new Nantucket and Cape Cod Steamboat Co., which had been formed from the Nantucket Steamboat Co. earlier that year when the new railroad terminus wharf was built in Hyannis, Massachusetts. It was 184 feet long, with a 29'8" beam and measured 536 tons. It initially sailed the waters between Hyannis and Nantucket. Capt. Brown had previously commanded the island ferry steamers Eagle's Wing and Massachusetts. He was followed by Capt. Nathan Manter (1818–1897), who commanded the Island Home for thirty years.