Summer Kitchens Open for Touring
In early Colonial homes the kitchen was frequently the only room with a heat source—the fireplace—and it was the center of many home activities. The colonial housewife began her day well before dawn and worked until sunset. The main meal of the day was dinner, usually served around 2 pm. Most cooking was done in large fireplaces, with an open fire used for heating pots of boiling water, and coals banked for broiling. A Colonial kitchen was dangerous—many women were killed when their long dresses or aprons caught fire.
For many years salt (usually obtained from seawater) was the only means of seasoning food, and virtually all Colonial kitchens had a salt box that was kept near the fireplace to help keep the salt dry. Cutlery was a precious possession and in order to keep them clean and dry, they, too, were stored near the fire. Householders made most wooden items themselves, and because the average home didn't have pictures on the wall, these boxes also served as decoration.
Kitchens today bear little re semblance to those used centuries ago, and many historic structures on Nantucket that have been lovingly preserved are equipped with state-of-the-art fixtures and kitchen appliances. Eleven homes illustrating this will be open to the public on Thursday, July 19, from 10 am to 4 pm when Nantucket Preservation Trust holds its annual Summer Kitchens Tour.
Photo courtesy of Pixel Perfect
The variety of kitchen styles being showcased during the tour highlight various architectural details and Nantucket building types. This year, several homes are typical of the last quarter of the 18th century. From simple Nantucket kitchens which evoke memories of childhood summers to those considered state of the art, all illustrate a shared respect for Nantucket’s architectural heritage and the owners’ roles as stewards of this unique legacy.
Summer Kitchens 2007 brings participants to historic India Street, originally laid out in 1678 as part of the Wescoe Acre Lots and the town’s first division of land. India Street, officially known as Pearl Street until the 20th century, was also called “India Row” as early as 1811 due to the “number of residents who live in ease and affluence there.” Both names suggest a South Seas connection and the residents’ association with the East Indies trade. Tickets for the tour are $40, and can be purchased the day of the tour or in advance by calling 508-228-1387 or by visiting the Nantucket Preservation Trust office, upstairs at 2 Union Street.
The following are excerpts from the house tour program, which is available to tour participants.
Number 19 India: Zaccheus Hussey, merchant, 1808
The front part of this five-bay house—one room wide with brick outer walls and end chimneys—was constructed in the Federal Style and was built so close to its neighbor at 21 that it appears to be joined. The home was built by Zaccheus Hussey, a dealer in provisions. Hussey also constructed a large ell to house his wares on the northwest side that once extended almost to Hussey Street. Master Mariner Joseph Winslow bought the house in 1864, after returning from a six-year whaling voyage on the Constitution with his wife Susan and four daughters, two of whom were born at sea. Clara Winslow, who was on board the Constitution as an infant, was owner of the family home until 1947.
Number 20 India: Jonathan Rathbone, mariner, c. 1797
Jonathan Rathbone’s maritime career was not looking particularly promising in 1812, the year the war broke out between the United States and Britain, which may have been the reason he sold the house he built on India Street that year. Jonathan and his wife Lydia, left Nantucket that same year. The new resident Robert Inott, whose family retained the house until the early 20th century, was a whaling master, and captain of the steamship Savannah on her maiden voyage from New York to Savannah in 1819. Robert Inott’s life was cut short in 1825, when he died of yellow fever in Tampico, Mexico. His body was returned to Nantucket in a barrel of pickle for burial on the island.
Number 25 India: built c. 1794 for Mary Norris of Pennsylvania
Nantucket house-carpenter John Jenkins and his brother Perez built the adjoining house at 23 India Street around the year 1795, and it seems certain that they built 25 India Street as well. The first local owner of the property, Daniel Coffin, was a yeoman, married in 1784 to Huldah Bunker, with four children. Associated with the house for most of the 19th century were Rebecca Joy Coffin Nickerson and her husband Joseph H. Nickerson, trader, ship owner, and captain, whose account books reveal a lucrative business in staples ranging from apples to shingles, and including luxury items such as cigars, wine, and tobacco. The Greek Revival portico and pilasters on the sides of the south-facing façade were probably added by the Nickersons, whose family owned the house for 80 years until 1918.
Number 32 India : Peleg West, mariner, c.1807
In 1803, mariner Peleg West bought the land at 32 India Street for $350. He went to sea, and his wife Elizabeth, who held a power of attorney for her husband, sold the land to Peleg’s father Charles, a ship carpenter, for $725. Charles sold the property back to Peleg, for the same price, in 1807. The sale to Peleg’s father in 1803 may have been a way for Elizabeth to have some cash on hand while she and her two young daughters, waited for Peleg to return. A successful voyage allowed him to repay his father and build a new house at 32 India, where the family lived until 1815. It may have been blacksmith Benjamin Knowles who added the Greek Revival elements to the house in the 1830s; his deed of sale in 1837 refers to “the same premises which I now improve.” Greek Revival doorways and porticos had become a popular architectural fashion statement of the day on Nantucket, and must have kept carpenters busy fashioning embellishments for the homes of the well-to-do.
Photo courtesy of Pixel Perfect
Number 35 India: built by George Lawrence, mariner, c. 1786; Gilbert Swain Homestead, 1799-1880
From 1783 to 1785 George Lawrence (1740-1820) acquired six parcels of land on the north side of India Street in what was known as the “Coffin Squadron.” Described variously in deeds as a blockmaker, mariner, and merchant, Lawrence married two great-great-granddaughters of the original Tristram Coffin, who had been allotted four shares in the third squadron. Lawrence’s first wife, Mary Coffin, died in 1763; a few years later he married Judith Coffin, with whom he had four children. The house he built at 35 India Street between 1785 and 1788 is one of the earliest on the street, conforming to the typical style of Nantucket houses of the period. Lawrence and his family left Nantucket in 1801 and moved to his native Virginia, after he had sold every lot on the north side of Main Street, numbers 15 through 35. In 1795, the house was purchased by Martha Swain. The house remained in the Swain family for 85 years. Twentieth-century owner Frances Devens (Daisy) Parrish, gained some local literary fame as author of Poilu, Petit Chien de la Guerre, a memoir of her adventures as a nurse in France during World War I, with her heroic and faithful canine companion Poilu.
Number 37 India : Charles Fittenberry Hussey, ropemaker, c.1804
Charles Fittenberry Hussey, a 28-year-old ropemaker, purchased land on Pearl Street from his parents Reuben and Phebe Hussey in 1803. The house was built between 1803 and 1809. In 1813, Charles and Sarah sold their home and other property, including a store and ropewalk to Sarah’s brother Silvanus Jenkins, a merchant living in New York. A series of tradesmen—among them a shipwright and a cooper—owned the house between 1830 and 1865. One of the first “off-island” families to discover Nantucket’s summer charms, Dr. Robert Foster and his wife Augusta, of Brooklyn, New York, purchased 37 India Street in 1865 as a vacation home, which they and their three daughters named “Seaweeda.”
Number 41 India: Silvanus Bunker, c.1760
Although some sources suggest that this house was moved to its site on India Street around 1761, it seems as likely that it was built there. Its angle to the road is not in keeping with later houses, but the age of the dwelling (it is believed to be the oldest house on the street) may reflect a disregard for what was undoubtedly an ill-defined throughway in the mid-18th century. It was a Bunker family home for about 100 years.
Number 42 India : John B. Nicholson, c.1834
Nineteenth-century maps reveal several changes at this end of India Street, corroborated by a list of homeowners preserved in the Nantucket Historical Assn. Research Library titled “Pearl St. as Mrs. Emily Shaw Forman remembers it before the Great Fire of 1846.” Forman lists Francis Colburn as the owner of the house at 42 India, but it was actually Mary Colburn, wife of Francis, and daughter of Reuben Baxter who acquired the house at 42 India in a division of the property among the heirs of Reuben Baxter in 1861. Reuben bought the house at 42 India from John B. Nicholson, who also built 38 India in 1831. Both houses are two-and-a-half stories high, with three bays, in typical Nantucket style, although number 42 is dressed up with a clapboard façade and Greek Revival pilasters at the front door.
12 Westminster Street
Information suggests that the house at 12 Westminster was built in the late 1700s and moved to town from the old settlement near Capaum Pond. Robert and his wife Miriam purchased the lot 1807, and are listed along with Luther and Phebe Gifford as owners in a deed that year. Miriam Hussey and Phebe Gifford were sisters, so it is logical to assume that the families may have lived together. Luther Gifford was a mariner and was absent from the island for 3 or 4 years at a time when whaling. Robert remained on-island supporting his family as a blacksmith, making everything from thimbles to lances for the whaling industry. Robert Hussey continued to live at the house on Westminster Street until 1830.
The current owners have retained the homes historic integrity. The kitchen has been updated, but with an eye to retaining the character of the house, including keeping the 1940s wooden paneling made of attic floorboards.
3 North Liberty
This house was at one time numbered 47 North Liberty. One of its best known residents was Tony Sarg, an illustrator and described as “American’s puppet master. During his tenure in the in the 1920s and 30s, the home was estimated to be 175 years old, which would make it a mid-18th century house.
22 Hussey St.
This home was built by William M. Andrews (1811-1877) in 1834 - the first house of several he built on the island. Andrew is credited with the construction of the amazing Greek Revival house at 14 Orange Street for his family four years after the building of this house. Unfortuantely, Andrews went bankrupt shortly thereafter and sold 14 Orange Street to Levi Starbuck and left the island.
