Thomas Macy House - NHA

Nantucket Historical Association 44

» OLD GAOLTHOMAS MACY HOUSE

Thomas Macy House

JEFFREY ALLEN, 2012

Properties Guide | Thomas Macy House 45

THOMAS MACY HOUSE

Thomas Macy House

Eunice Coffin Macy (1788–1843) was pleased to move from her

husband Thomas’s rather modest home on Summer Street to a

larger and more stylish house at 99 Main Street.

The daughter of Zenas Coffin, one of the

island’s wealthiest whale-oil merchants,

Eunice married Thomas Macy in 1824,

shortly after his first wife died. He brought

four young children to the marriage and

she brought the promise of an inheri-

tance, received in 1828. From her father’s

extensive estate she acquired, among

other bequests, the eighteenth-century

Valentine Swain house on upper Main

Street, in a prime location at the “Court

End” of town, situated directly across

from a large Quaker Meeting House at

the corner of Main and Pleasant streets

and near the Court House on the corner

of Milk Street, but it was no more stylish

than their house on Summer Street. By

1832, however, she and Thomas were

remodeling, creating an elegant house

that almost replicated her sister Lydia

Coffin Crosby’s house at 90 Main. It

would establish the Macys as one of the

ADDRESS

99 Main Street

CONSTRUCTED

circa 1800

remodeled and

expanded 1832

DISTANCE FROM

WHALING MUSEUM

.5 miles

Nantucket Harbor

Lily Pond Park

Brant Point

Main Street

Upper Main St.

Broad St.

SteamboatWharf

StraightWharf

Civil WarMonument

NHA Whaling Museum& Museum Shop

Greater Light

Oldest House& Kitchen

Garden

Old Gaol

HadwenHouse

Thomas Macy

House

1800House

Old Mill

NHA Research LibraryWhitney Gallery &

Quaker Meeting House

Macy-ChristianHouse

Thomas Macy Warehouse

Fire HoseCart House

Eleanor HamPony Field

Mill St.

York Street

Prospect Street

How

ard Ct.

Vestal St.

Pleasant Street

Gard

ner St.

Liberty St.

Milk

St.

Sunset Hill Lane

West Chester St.

Oran

ge St.

S. M

ill S

t.

Washington St.

Easton Street

No

rth Liberty St.

Lily

St.

Chester St.

Cli� Road

N. W

ater St.

S. Beach

St.

India St.

Hussey St.

Centre St.

Ray’s Ct.

Judith Chase Ln.

Lucretia Mott Ln.

School St.

Hillers Ln.Charter St.

Fair St.

Kite Hill

N. C

entre St.

North Ave.

MacKay Way

Harborview Way

N. Beach St.

Cornish St.

Walsh St.

Willard St.

Hulbert Ave.

East Lincoln Ave.

Swain St.

Cen

tre St.

We

stm

inst

er

St.

Gay St.

Quince St. Chestnut St.

Federal St.

S. Water St.

Cambridge St.Oak St.

Acad

emy

Ln.

Ash Ln.

Ash St.

Sea St.

Step Ln.

Easy St.

Can

dle St.

Salem St.

Commercial St.

New

Wh

ale St.

Straight Wharf

Wash

ing

ton

St.

Un

ion

St.

Summer St.

Pine Street

Winter St.

Walnut Ln.

New

Do

llar

Starbuck Ct.

Candle House Ln.

Angola St.

Darling St.

Tattle Ct.

Farmer St.

Twin St.

Lyon St.

Je�erson St.

Eagle Ln.

Silver Street

Quaker Road

Low

ell P

l.

Madaket Rd.

Copper Ln.

Milk St.

Green Ln.

New

Lan

e

Bar

nab

as L

n. W

oodb

ury

Ln.

Franklin St.

Saratoga Lane

Mt. V

erno

n St.

Joy

St.

Hummock Pond Rd.

Vesper Lane

ProspectHill

Cemetery

New

Mill

St.

Mill Hill Lane

QuakerCemetery

MADAKET RD.

BIKE PATH

CLIFF RD. BIKE PATH

SUR

FSID

E B

IKE

PA

TH

PROSPEC

T ST. BIKE PATH

Atl

anti

c A

ve.

CLIFF RD. BIKE PATH

MADAKET RD. BIKE PATH

CLIFF RD. BIKE PATH

Deaco

n’s W

ay

CommercialWharf

Faye

tte S

t.

Meader S

t.

Fran

cis St.

West Dover StreetE. Dover St.Weymouth St.Mulberry St.

York Street

Warren Street

New Street

Back Street

Williams S

treet

Cherry Stre

et

Williams Ln.

Sparks Ave.

Bear Stre

et

Lower Pleasant Street

Coon St.

Beaver St.

Spring St.

Unio

n St.

Lower O

range St.

Salt Marsh Way

Washin

gto

n St. E

xt.

Boyer’s Alley

Gardner P

erry Ln

.

Tristram Co�n

Homesite Marker

Wyers Way

NewNorth

Cemetery

OldNorth

Cemetery

Grove Lane

Old NorthWharf

Old SouthWharf

Folger-Franklin Memorial Boulder and Bench



leading families of the neigh-

borhood, joining all of Eunice’s

siblings who had built new

homes or, like Thomas and

Eunice, remodeled old ones

in the early 1830s: Henry and

Charles G. Coffin at 75 and

78 Main Street; Henry Swift

(Mary Coffin’s widower) at 91

Main Street; Matthew Crosby

(Lydia Coffin’s widower) at 90

Main Street; and Matthew and

Lydia’s daughter, Ann Crosby,

at 86 Main Street. The Coffins

claimed Main Street a decade

before Joseph Starbuck’s sons

moved into the Three Bricks at 93, 95, and 97 Main Street.

Nantucket was thriving economically, and the Quaker influence

being much less pervasive than it had been in the previous century,

islanders were more open to influences from abroad. Local architec-

ture of the 1830s and ’40s reflects cosmopolitan tastes, translated and

interpreted by local builders. Eunice and Thomas, along with teenage

sons Isaac and Phillip, and little Mary Macy born in 1828, moved into

the new house in 1833. With his business partner, brother Peter Macy,

Thomas owned a candle factory, a cooperage, and a large warehouse

on Straight Wharf as well as shares in a number of whaling vessels.

An active man of means and a town leader, Thomas Macy also found

time, in his later years anyway, to enjoy his home and family. In a

letter written to his daughter Mary in January 1857 (she and husband

Valentine Hussey were living in New York) Thomas describes time

spent during a harbor freeze-up.

It is a comfort however to be able to say that we are all well

and bright, lacking nothing – I have a plenty of tobacco and

Mother has cider enough for mince pies, and what more

can we ask?

Thomas Macy, by James Hathaway,

circa 1845 89.141.1


THOMAS MACY HOUSE

Later in the same letter he mentions the low temperature of eleven

degrees below zero on January 24, and the condition of his green-

house, an addition to his property that is no longer standing: “Our

Green House is buried up with snow and Charles has succeeded in

keeping the plants free from frost.” It is easy to imagine the distin-

guished gentleman smoking his pipe and writing on a wintry day, while

someone else scrambled to keep the fires lit in the greenhouse stove.

Mary Macy Hussey inherited the house at 99 Main from her father

in 1864; she lived with her husband, Valentine, in Factoryville on Staten

Island, New York, so did not occupy the house, and in fact sold it to her

stepbrothers Isaac and Philip in 1871. Philip and his wife, Susan, lived

there for thirty years, and after them, their daughter Mary Eliza Macy

became a fixture of upper Main Street for another thirty years. By the

end of her life she appears to have become a walking anachronism:

As the years went on leaving her in an ever-increasing lone-

liness, gradually, in spite of herself and her distaste for no-

toriety, she became a conspicuous figure in the social life

of the town, for although gently tolerant towards changing

conditions, she was never in the least modernized.

Mary Macy Hussey (b. 1828)

CDV1279

Philip Macy (1819–1901)

GPN122



Mary Eliza bequeathed her family home with all its furnishings and

contents to Ella H. Still of Passaic, New Jersey, the youngest child of

her aunt Mary Macy Hussey, wife of Valentine. Mary Eliza Macy was

eighty-six years old when she died in 1931; her cousin, Ella H. Still,

was twenty years her junior, with two married daughters, Mrs. Francis

Biggs and Mrs. Lester Troast. One wonders about the condition of

the house after Mary Eliza’s long tenure; her resistance to modern-

ization probably ensured that the house was not much changed on

the interior from its original appearance, with perhaps the addition of

modern plumbing and heating. Unfortunately, there is only one inte-

rior photograph of the house prior to 1930. Exterior photographs, as

well as Sanborn Insurance Company maps, show that the exterior of

the house remained unchanged except for a few minor alterations.

Ella’s daughters inherited the house, which they sold two years lat-

er to Flora K. Todd of Easton, Maryland. The Todds had been summer

residents of Nantucket for several years previous to their purchase of

The Macy Dining Room, Nantucket, colored print of watercolor by

Edgar W. Jenney, circa 1930 GIFT OF MISS MARY TURLAY ROBINSON 74.37.2


THOMAS MACY HOUSE

the property; their tenure at the house was brief. A notice of the sale

of the Macy house in 1945 states:

Mr. and Mrs. Charles S. Todd, who have been summer

residents of Nantucket for several years, have purchased

the Thomas Macy House on Main Street. Known to artists

and architects as the house with “the beautiful doorway,”

this typical Nantucket dwelling of the early 1800s has been

sketched and photographed more than any other island

house, with the possible exception of the Oldest House on

Sunset Hill. . . . Mr. and Mrs. Todd are deeply interested in

Nantucket and are happy to be the new owners of this fine

old island dwelling.

The Todds sold 99 Main to Jacqueline Garda Stephens Harris

(1892—1979) two years later. Jacqueline had first visited Nantucket with

her husband, Julian, in 1925. In

the early 1930s, the Harrises built

a summer home on the north

shore of Nantucket at Dionis,

perched on the bluff in what was

then a remote area of the island.

Later in her life, after she had

been a widow for many years,

Jacqueline purchased 99 Main

Street, which would be her

home until she died there in

1979 at the age of eighty-sev-

en. In 1965, she welcomed the

Historic American Buildings

Survey (HABS) to 99 Main. The HABS report on alterations and ad-

ditions to the house mentions nothing after Thomas Macy’s major

remodeling in the 1830s, so any changes made subsequently were

either considered minor or occurred after 1965.

Jacqueline’s daughter, Sallie Gail Harris Tupancy, and husband,

Oswald (“ Tup”), inherited the Thomas Macy house and made it their

home, with the understanding that it was Jacqueline’s wish that the

Jacqueline Harris P430A



Historic American Buildings Survey drawing of main entry frontispiece and porch

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION, HABS MAS-1277, SHEET 14


THOMAS MACY HOUSE

Sallie Gail Harris Tupancy, by an

unknown artist, 1937 95.319.1

Oswald A. Tupancy, by Elmer Wesley

Greene, 1956 95.320.1

property eventually be donated to the Nantucket Historical Association.

Oswald observed that the absence of an endowment for the NHA’s

Hadwen House was the reason that maintenance and repairs were not

always timely, and he had no intention of subjecting 99 Main Street to

the same fate. He set up the Tupancy-Harris Foundation of 1986 to pro-

vide funds for the permanent maintenance of the Thomas Macy house.

All costs associated with the house — from major repairs to insurance,

landscaping, and housekeeping — are provided by the foundation.

In 1987, the NHA became the owner of the Macy house. After re-

pairs and improvements to house and grounds, a plan for the use of

the property was formulated. A staff apartment was created in the sec-

ond-floor ell, the first-floor kitchen was expanded to make it suitable

for catering large gatherings, and the little Harris greenhouse addition

on the first floor was turned into a service bar. The Thomas Macy

House became the NHA’s site for gracious entertaining and accom-

modation; visiting scholars and lecturers are provided with lodging

there, and the small apartment has provided housing for various staff

members over the years. Thanks to the foresight of Jacqueline Harris

and her daughter and son-in-law, the house that was fashioned into its

Federal-style grandeur by sophisticated Quaker businessman Thomas

Macy has been preserved in a streetscape of equally stately homes.

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Thomas Macy House - NHA