2 lily street brief history by Nantucket Preservation Trust

2 Lily Street NANTUCKET

A House History

A Brief History 2 Lily Street

Jonathan Perry, shipwright, circa 1815

Watercolor by H. Anthony Dyer, circa 1910

In 1771, Jonathan Perry (1745–1823) purchased the property at the corner of Lily and North Liberty Streets that would be owned by his family for three generations. His parents are not recorded in local genealogies, indicating that his origins were elsewhere. He was married first to Anna Kidder, whose birthplace is also unknown, but after she died he married Susanna Gardner (1756–1825) of Nantucket. They had six children, born on the island in the period 1784–1800.

Looking east on Lily Street, circa 1870s, photograph by C. H. Shute

There was a dwelling on the property when Perry, a shipwright, purchased it from Caleb Bunker Jr. (1736–1810). Although the age of that house and the original builder are not known, by evidence of the earliest available maps (Coffin, 1834; Bache, 1849; Walling, 1858) the house was situated close to the conjunction of Lily and North Liberty Streets, and it would have faced south, as was traditional for houses of that era. The old house was listed for sale in 1854: “On Saturday, April 14th, at 10 o’clock in front of Sales Room, the Dwelling House and Barn and all the Bricks and Stones situated on the corner of Liberty and Lily Street known as the Perry House. Said buildings are to be removed from the land one week from time of sale.”

Jonathan Perry built a second dwelling on his property; facing Lily Street, it was originally a three-bay house, but was later expanded to four bays, and the front door was moved from the left to the right side of the house. Interior architectural features, particularly Federal-style mantels, indicate that the house may have been built around 1815, the year Jonathan sold it to his son, Alexander (1788–1829), for $1,000. Alexander was a mariner, captain of the whaleship Kingston on a voyage from 1825 to 1828 that returned to Nantucket with more than 2,000 barrels of sperm oil. He died the next year, when he was forty-one, leaving a wife, Valina Folger (1795–1842), and three children. When surviving children Alexander Jr. and Margaret sold the property in 1870 to Joseph H. Perry (1818–92), a mariner born in England, it included two dwelling houses, which is a little puzzling, unless the old house listed for sale in 1854 never sold. The first Sanborn Insurance Company map of the town, published in 1887, shows only one house on the property, the house now known as 2 Lily Street. It has not yet been determined if Joseph H. Perry was related to the Perry family on Nantucket, but one would suspect a connection. Joseph was married to Emmeline James and they had one daughter, Ann Louisa, born in 1842. She was a “non compos” in 1913, when her guardian sold the Lily Street house to Harriet Ayers. Two other women, Anna C. Baxter and Ada B. Barrett, were owners in the first half of the twentieth century, before William and Alma Coffin purchased the property in 1949; it remained in the Coffin family sixty years before the current owner purchased it in 2009.

View over Lily Street, Lily Pond, and Egypt from Academy Hill, circa 1880s

Prepared by Betsy Tyler Nantucket Preservation Trust

August 2011 Historic images courtesy the Nantucket Historical Association

2 Lily Street, circa 1949, photograph by William Haddon

2 LILY STREET OWNERS: Jonathan Perry and Susanna Gardner Perry

1771–1815

Alexander Perry & Valina Folger Perry, and children Alexander Jr., Susan, & Margaret Joseph and Emmeline Perry, and daughter, Ann Louisa Harriett A. Ayers

1815–1870 1870–1913

1913–1920

Anna C. Baxter

1920

Ada B. Bassett

1920–1925

Anna C. Baxter

1925–1942

Horace G. and Ethel T. Cleveland

1942–1949

William W. and Alma C. Coffin

1949–1990

Carolyn Coffin Marlowe and Marilyn Coffin Brown

1900–2009

2–4 Lily Street LLC

2009–

Nantucket Preservation Trust Advocates, Educates, and Celebrates the Preservation of Nantucket’s Historic Architecture

his brief history is an important contribution to the island’s architectural record. Documentation is one of the ways the Nantucket Preservation Trust celebrates the more than 2,400 historic homes, farms, and workplaces that contributed to the island’s designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1966. By providing owners of historic houses, island residents, schoolchildren, and visitors a broad spectrum of programs and projects, we encourage the preservation of irreplaceable structures, architectural features, and cultural landscapes. Lectures, walking tours, house markers, special events, and publications—including the house histories and neighborhood histories—define our unique work on Nantucket. We hope you enjoy the history of this house, its past owners, and its place in Nantucket’s remarkable architectural heritage.

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