Nantucketers took a dim view of off-islanders. They called them “strangers” or, even worse, “coofs,” a term of disparagement originally reserved for Cape Codders but broadened to include all of those unlucky enough to have been born on the mainland. It might have earned Thomas Nickerson some regard on the island if his mother had at least come from old Nantucket stock, with a last name like Coffin, Starbuck, Macy, Folger, or Gardner.
