Edward Fitch Underhill: Renaissance Man of Siasconset

Edward Fitch Underhill (1830-98) was a man of many trades, engaged in the new occupations and reforms of mid-nineteenth century America. Settled in New York City as a journalist, he was a reporter during the Civil War for the New-York Times.
Margaret Moore Booker's account of his development as a war correspondent is exceptional, as his dispatches from the Maryland/West Virginia front provided a rare first-person view of the war in 1860. Underhill discovered Nantucket in 1879, and the focus of Booker's story shifts to 'Sconset, where he became a major developer of tourism and entrepreneur.