In 1871, prominent Boston surgeon Henry Bigelow built a summer home on the west end of Tuckernuck Island, a home he called “Tuckanuck” (spelling the name of the cottage the way the locals pronounced the name of the island itself). The building was rustic and isolated, without indoor plumbing or gaslight, but sea breezes provided a welcome break from Boston’s stifling summer heat. The home was eventually inherited by Henry’s only child, William Sturgis Bigelow, who set about turning it into a summer retreat for a very different sort of family.