The Nantucket Macys, by E. A. Stackpole

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The Nantucket Macys

AT SOME TIME between the years 1635 and 1639, Thomas Macy (1612-1682) left his home in Wiltshire, one of the southern counties of England, to come to New England with his wife and settled at Newbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He joined a group establishing a new settlement at Salisbury in 1639, and soon became a Freeman and later oine of the elected selectmen. He was a merchant and dealt in textiles, as well as being a planter. All of his children were born in Salisbury, and the Nantucket Macys stem from his son John, who was four years old when the family moved to Nantucket. Thomas held a number of positions of trust in Salisbury and in 1654 he was elected to the General Court.

The government of the Puritans in Massachusetts made strict allegiance to the Protestant church mandatory, and among the rigid rules was a regulation against the new sect of the Society of Friends called Quakers. Thomas Macy, who had allowed some traveling Quakers to come into his home during a rain storm, was fined for breaking this discriminatory order. Recognizing the threat to the lives of free men through living in a colony which sanctioned such bigotry, Thomas Macy joined with some of his neighbors and acquaintances to purchase land on the Island of Nantucket.Ten men, who later took ten partners, formed the first company, and one of the original group was Thomas Mayhew, a merchant of Watertown, Mass., who had obtained grants for the settlement of both Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket following negotiations with agents of the Crown.

Thomas Macy was a friend and relative of Mayhew and it is probable that he first learned of Nantucket as an available place of settlement from Mayhew.

It took men of courage to remove themselves from the comparative safety of Salisbury to a remote island, inhabited only by Indians, and a good deal of the character of Thomas Macy may be gleaned from this fact as well as from his spending the first winter on the island with his wife and family, together with Edward Starbuck and a 12-year-old boy, Isaac Coleman. That first winter was spent in a rude habitation on the shores of Madaket harbor, and it was no doubt an exploratory period for Macy, who kept the record.

The first agreement that concluded with the deed to the first ten purchasers of Nantucket was recorded for "Mr. [Tristram] Coffin and Mr. Macy," and dated at Salisbury on July 2, 1659. The island was then under the Colony of New York. Macy was a man of education as his letters show, especially the one he wrote to the General Court explaining his reasons for "harboring" the Quaker wayfarers. He had married Sarah Hopcot in England before coming to America, and as already stated, all his children were

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born in Salisbury, Mass., two sons and three daughters. As his partner in the Nantucket venture Thomas Macy chose Edward Starbuck.

While Tristram Coffin, Sr., played a leading role in the settlement of Nantucket, with his sons and daughters, Thomas Macy was the second leader. Both men became Chief Magistrates of the island community, and held dominant roles. When the famous "Revolt of the Half Share Men" occurred, Thomas Macy showed more understanding of the situation than did Tristram Coffin. The strong personalities of both men were factors in that important part of Nantucket history. Macy died in 1682, and his son John (1635-1691) was his worthy successor. John married Deborah Gardner, daughter of Richard and Sarah, and their descendants carried the name of Macy from Nantucket all over the world. John's sister, Bethiah, married Joseph Gardner, brother of Deborah, and another sister, Mary, married William Worth, thus combining families of first settlers.

During the next four generations the sons, grandsons and great-grandsons of John Worth inter-married with others of the first families — John the second marrying Judith Worth; Jabez, son of John the second, marrying Sarah Starbuck; Thomas (great-grandson of Thomas) marrying Deborah Coffin; and Richard, son of Thomas, marrying Deborah Pinkham. The Macy girls carried on this interwoven relationship of the first settler families by becoming the wives of the Russell, Coleman, Clasby, Jenkins, Barney, Gorham, Swain, Barnard, Cartwright and Rotch men. With the adoption of the Society of Friends as the dominant religious force on the Island these family ties were even more strongly forged.

It would take a volume of considerable size to describe the lives of the various generations of Macy. However, mention of several who had outstanding careers and who contributed much to island history will be in keeping with this short account. The first John Macy was a house carpenter and it is entirely possible that the present Nathaniel Macy house on Liberty Street may have been his original homestead. The second John Macy (16751751) and his wife Judith Worth were the first of that generation of Macys to join the Society of Friends, the date being 1711. Jabez Macy (1683-1776) followed in the footsteps of his father and was a house carpenter.

Thomas Macy, great-grandson of Thomas, was in the whaling trade, and in 1720 shipped some whalebone to London and with the proceeds in part bought a copy of Sewell's History, a bolt of Irish linen, and a clock. The latter was taken to North Carolina where his grandson Paul Macy migrated in 1773; thence to Ohio, where his son migrated, and so far as is known it is still in that State.

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HISTORIC NANTUCKET

In the third Nantucket generation Richard Macy (1689-1779) was only two years old when his father John died. He became an apprentice to a carpenter and at maturity had progressed to become one of the leading craftsmen on the island. He was probably the strongest man in the history of Nantucket, and one story relates that he once lifted a cannon on Martha's Vineyard that weighed 1,800 pounds. But his historical record is best represented by the fact that he was the builder of Straight Wharf in 1723, the first substantial wharf on the "Great Harbor." He also constructed one of the first windmills here.

The grandmother of Edwin Stanton, the famous Secretary of War in/ the Civil War cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, was Abigail Macy, who was born at Nantucket in 1753, daughter of David and Dinah (Gardner) Macy. She moved with her family to New Garden, N. C., where she married Henry Stanton in 1774. John Macy, her uncle, had also joined the Nantucket migration to North Carolina in 1771, and settled at Guilford. One of the provisions of his will was a gift of 160 acres in Guilford to his daughter Bethiah, who had married Paul Macy, a second cousin. Other members of the Macy clan moving to North Carolina were Joseph and Matthew Macy, and some of them later removed to the Ohio country, where many of their descendants still reside.

Among the gifted members of the family was Zaccheus Macy (1713-1797) known in his time as the "Bone-setter." Possessed of a natural ability as a physician he performed many operations in resetting of broken and fractured limbs, and true to his Quaker principals never asked for payment. By trade he was a boatbuilder, constructing whaleboats, employing several men. He invested in the whaling business and owned shares in a number of successful sloops. He was a contributor to the Massachusetts Historical Society's collections, and his papers on the early settlement of the island, the Indians, and the progress of the whale fishery. Zaccheus may well be called the first Nantucket historian, and could well have been the inspiration for the first formal history of Nantucket by Obed Macy, his nephew, the son of his younger brother Caleb.

Caleb Macy (1719-1798) had married Judith Gardner, widow of James Gardner, and the daughter of Daniel Folger, who was lost at sea with one of his sons in 1744. Judith was a sister of Kezia Folger Coffin, the famous woman of the Revolutionary War period, who was a skilled business woman and trader. Thus, Obed Macy and his brothers Barzillai and Silvanus, were descended from strong-minded and enterprising islanders.

All three sons of Caleb Macy followed his example of making voyages on whaleships while still young, and also entering the coasting trade. Knowledge gained first hand in this way enabled them to launch their partnership, embarking on several enter-

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prises, including cod-fishing, shoemaking and the manufacture of sperm candles. Barzillai Macy died at the comparatively young age of 29, and Silvanus and Obed carried on their partnership for a period of forty-seven years — probably the most extraordinary record in Nantucket's history. The two brothers married two of the Pinkham sisters, Silvanus taking Anna Pinkham as his bride, and Obed marrying Abigail Pinkham, both daughters of Daniel Pinkham and Eunice Jenkins.

Birthright members of the Society of Friends the Macy brothers were sincere followers of the philosophy of the Quakers. Becoming agents of as well as part owners of whaleships the Macy firm prospered and despite heavy losses incurred by the captulre of several vessels during the Quasi War with France and during the 1812 war with Great Britain they maintained a successful partnership, ended only by the death of Silvanus in 1833. The harmony which prevailed in the family business was continued by the association of Obed's sons, Thomas and Peter Macy. Upon the death of Peter Macy in 1849, the sons of Thomas. Isaac and Philip Macy, carried on the firm until the decline of Nantucket's whaling brought to a close a most unusual business activity.

Obed Macy (1762-1844) wrote the first full history of Nantucket, which was published in 1835 and republished a half century later. A new edition was printed only a few years ago. The "Worthy Obed," as Melville called him, was always interested in the history of his native place, and kept a diary of local happenings from 1799 until a few years before the loss of his eyesight curtailed his activities. His home on Pleasant Street is still a sturdy structure, and symbolizes the durable character of the man. During the mid-19th century it was the home of Obed's son, Dr. Reuben Macy. Next door, at 17 Pleasant, was the home of Peter Macy, another son of Obed.

Silvanus Macy (1756-1833) lived at 89 Main Street during his active business career. A man of similar disposition as his brother Obed he had one experience that caused him much soul-searching, and that was his investigation into the background of the robbery of the Nantucket Bank in 1795. Silvanus conducted a number of private meetings at his home, which were construed as secret meetings for the purpose of implicating certain prominent members of the community. This was vigorously denied by Captain Macy, but the emotions of the time ran high in the town and he and his friends were criticized.

(To Be Continued)

E. A. S.