9 howard street brief history

A Brief History 9 Howard Street

Thomas Macy (1598–1682) established the Macy family on Nantucket, arriving with his family in 1659. His great-grandson, Zaccheus Macy (1713–97), a boat-builder, historian, and “bonesetter,” lived at 107 Main Street, at the corner of Gardner Street, and owned a homestead that included the barn that is now Greater Light. Howard Street was originally called Macy’s Court because it abutted property owned by Macy. Zaccheus Macy’s son, Richard (1742–1814), lived on the east

9 Howard Street on right

side of Gardner Street, near his father’s house, and he owned several other houses that his children divided among themselves in 1816. In that division, Judith Starbuck Macy, recent widow of Richard’s son, Zaccheus (1768–1814), who died just a few months before his father, acquired the house at 9 Howard Street; it is where she and Zaccheus and their six children had been living for a number of years. The house was originally a lean-to, facing south, with the back of the house facing Howard Street.

Like so many of the early houses of Nantucket, the origins of the dwelling at 9 Howard Street are obscure. Henry Barnard Worth, an authority on the ancient houses of Nantucket, wrote in Nantucket Lands and Land Owners in 1901 that the house was probably built by Zaccheus Macy Jr. [son of Richard, he was not actually a “junior”] around the time of his marriage in 1790. But, because the house belongs to a much earlier style than that of houses built near the turn of the nineteenth century, Worth suggests that it was probably moved to the site from another location where it had been built in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Whatever its origins, 9 Howard was a Macy house for fifty or more years, part of a compound of houses belonging to the family at the “Court End” of town, so-called because the Town House, or Court House, was located on the corner of Main and Milk Streets.

Judith Macy was forty-five years old when she was widowed. Her oldest daughter, Sally, was already married. Second daughter, Mary, is listed in a local genealogy as “insane;”whether she was afflicted from birth is not known, but she died at the Bloomingdale Asylum in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1850. Judith’s other children—Richard, Judith, Zaccheus, and Lydia—likely lived at home, although Richard, who was seventeen, may have been apprenticed in a trade, or at sea.

In 1844, four years after Judith died, her children sold the family home to Benjamin Folger 2nd. During the time that Folger owned the house, the north roof was raised to its present height.

Sarah Austin Paddack, recently widowed, bought the house in 1874, and at her demise it descended to her two unmarried sisters, Catherine and Mary. It was known as the Austin house in the early twentieth century. The house changed hands a number of times in the twentieth century; major repairs and renovation occurred in 2008–09.

Sarah Austin Paddock

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9 Howard Street: Title Trail Heirs of Richard Macy to Judith Macy, for the children of Zaccheus Macy, deceased (Book 23, pp. 385-90)

1816

Heirs of Zaccheus Macy to Benjamin Folger 2nd, trader (Book 44, pp. 351-52)

1844

Devisees of Benjamin Folger 2nd, deceased, to David Folger (Book 66, pp. 33-34)

1873

David Folger to Sarah S. Paddack (Book 63, p. 95)

1874

Heirs of Sarah S. Paddack (James Austin, Samuel Austin) to Catherine Austin (Book 71, p. 416)

1887

Albert Brock, executor of the estate of Catherine Austin, to Mary L. Austin (Book 82, p. 546)

1900

Mary L. Austin to Marie Brace Kimball (Book 98, p. 396)

1920

Philip Brace Kimball to Grace T. Jewett (Book 110, p. 94)

1943

Grace T. Ramsdell to George A. Sanderson (Book 113, p. 232)

1951

Heirs of George Sanderson to Margaret P. Kelley (Book 122, pp. 239-241)

1961

Margaret P. Kelley to John E. Wulp and Joseph Currieri (Book 131, p. 140)

1967

Joseph Currieri to John E. Wulp (Book 141, p. 340)

1973

John E. Wulp to Joseph F. Horning and Lynne N. Horning (Book 153, p. 66)

1975

Joseph F. Horning & Lynne N. Horning to the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region (Book 1073, p. 301)

2007

Community Foundation for the National Capital Region to Peter E. Georgantas (Book 1102, p. 165)

2007

Peter E. Georgantas to Howard Street Property Trust (Book 1268, p. 52)

2011

Prepared by Betsy Tyler Nantucket Preservation Trust March 2011 Historic images courtesy the Nantucket Historical Association