A Brief History 40 Fair Street Seth Pinkham, master mariner, 1827
40 Fair Street circa 1890s
On April 19, 1827, young retired whaling captain Seth Pinkham (1786–1844) and housewright Isaiah Nicholson signed a contract stating that Nicholson would build a dwelling house for Pinkham ―of the form and fashion and dimensions, outside and in, of Laban Paddack. ― Paddack’s house—a typical four-bay, center chimney, shingled house at 3 Darling Street— was built just a few years earlier, likely by Nicholson. The new house on Fair Street, with a new barn in back, was to be fenced all around and painted like Paddack’s, with green shutters. In exchange for the house built to Pinkham’s specifications, Nicholson was to receive $850 plus a clear deed to Pinkham’s old house next door at 42 Fair Street.
Portrait of Seth Pinkham
Portrait of Mary Brown Pinkham
Seth Pinkham was forty-one years old in 1827 married to Mary Brown (1792–1874), with a houseful of daughters—Mary, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Malvina, and baby Harriett, all under ten years old—when they moved into the new dwelling just after Thanksgiving. Two younger children, Seth Junior and Helen, were born at 40 Fair. Pinkham had begun his career at sea at the age of thirteen, and was captain of the whaleship Dauphin when he was twenty-nine-years old, in 1815. He retired in 1823, when he was thirty-seven, only to return as captain of the Henry Astor in 1840 in the hopes of recouping some of his investment losses in the late 1830s. The voyage was a financial success, but he died of illness in Pernambuco, Brazil, in 1844, on his way home. The story of his family is told with charm by his great-granddaughter, Florence Bennett Anderson, in Through the Hawse-Hole, published in 1932; chapter XII, ―The New House,‖ is full of details about 40 Fair Street.
Ship Henry Astor
Seth Pinkham’s whale stamp
Mary Brown Pinkham lived at 40 Fair the rest of her life, joined there in 1866 by daughter Elizabeth and her husband, William Crosby, when they sold their house at One Pleasant Street. William and Elizabeth were childless, but took on the care of their niece and nephew, children of Harriett Pinkham Locke, when she died in 1874. The heirs of Seth and Mary Pinkham sold the house to Helen Marshall, granddaughter of Seth and Mary, in 1895, and she sold the house to Annie M. Worth in 1908. The Worth family owned the house until 1967 after which it changed ownership five times in the late twentieth century.
Mary Pinkham’s Rocking Chair
40 Fair circa 1930s (from the book Through the Hawse- Hole)
Prepared by Betsy Tyler Nantucket Preservation Trust January 2011 Historic images courtesy the Nantucket Historical Association
40 Fair Street Owners:
BOOK 29/PAGES 224-25 Job Thurston, trader, to Seth Pinkham, master mariner
1827
BOOK 79/PAGES 43-47 Heirs of Seth Pinkham to Helen Marshall
1895
BOOK 89/PAGE 293 Helen Marshall to Annie M. Worth
1908
Estates of Annie M. Worth, James T. Worth, and Gladys M. Worth, Nantucket Probate BOOK 130/PAGE 361 Agnes F. Sylvia, Eunice Sjolund, and James E. Worth to Pamela G. Jelleme
1967
BOOK 166/PAGE 114 Pamela G. Jelleme to Ernest S. Barvoets Jr.
1978
Estate of Ernest S. Barvoets Jr., Nantucket Probate BOOK 189/PAGE 01 Betsy Barvoets to Carol D. Chinn
1982
BOOK 239/PAGE 94 Carol D. Chinn to Cecile Schacht
1985
BOOK 554/PAGES 332-34 [Confirmatory Deed: Estate of Ernest S. Barvoets Jr. ]
1997
BOOK 554/PAGE 335-36 1997 Cecile Drackett, formerly known as Cecile Schacht, to George and Maria Roach