43 Pine Street NANTUCKET
A House History
A Brief History 43 Pine Street
43 Pine Street, circa 1900
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n October 31, 1808, house carpenter Abner Howard purchased twenty-two square rods of land on Pine Street for $250.00. Two years later he sold the property, with a dwelling house, to mariner David Swain 2nd (1784–1841) for $1,350. Swain became a master mariner and was captain of a number of whaling vessels: Lydia, 1808–09 and 1810–12; John Jay, 1815–17; States, 1818–20; Constitution, 1821–23; and Lydia again on two more voyages, 1825–28 and 1830–33. His first wife, Phebe Ellis (1791–1831), spent most of her married life managing the household and four young children while David was at sea; she died while he was away on his last whaling voyage in the Lydia. In 1834, shortly after his marriage to second wife Eliza Bunker (1799–1868), Swain sold the house at 43 Pine to another master mariner, Seth Coffin Jr.
Ships flags from whaleships Criterion and Aurora Lydia Coleman Coffin
Seth Coffin Jr. (1790–1844) was captain of the whaleships Criterion, 1820–23, and Aurora, 1823–26. He was married to Lydia Coleman (1793–1872) and they had a large family: three sons and three daughters ranging in age from two to eighteen in 1834; a fourth son was born at 43 Pine Street in 1836. The Coffin family owned the house until 1886, when daughter Charlotte M. Brock sold it to Obed Mendell, who owned it only three years before selling the land and the house to Houghton Gibbs for $135.41 in 1889. Joseph J. Araujo, a fisherman, purchased the house in 1910. He had immigrated to the United States from the Azores in 1900, at the age of forty, and four years later his wife, Beatrice, and four daughters joined him. The U. S. Census for 1920 indicates that the daughters all lived at home with their parents: the two middle daughters worked as housekeepers for private families, the youngest was a nurse, and the eldest was unemployed. The Araujos also rented a room to an Azorean man who worked as a mason. In 1954, David and Mary Elizabeth Masters of Pennsylvania purchased the house at 43 Pine Street from the estate of Joseph J. Araujo for $6,825. They owned the house for more than thirty years. The house Abner Howard built two hundred years ago is an example of a “typical” Nantucket house: two and a half stories high, four bays wide, with a ridge chimney. Late-nineteenth-century photographs show that it had a clapboard front façade and glass lights above the front door, the latter a feature that was restored when the house was renovated in 1988.
43 Pine Street, early twentieth century
43 Pine Street, 1975
43 Pine Street, 1954
43 PINE STREET: OWNERS Abner Howard, house carpenter, and Sally Meader Howard David Swain 2nd, master mariner, and Phebe Ellis Swain and Eliza Bunker Swain Seth Coffin Jr., master mariner, and Lydia Coleman Coffin and heirs Obed T. and Sarah J. Mendell Houghton Gibbs Joseph J. and Beatrice Araujo David and Mary Elizabeth Masters Carol B. Masters Brown David Masters Jeffrey K. Tallman Barbara Hope Dreyfus and Rhoda Mae Dreyfus Moncure L. Chatfield-Taylor and Laurie McArthur Barnett Chatfield-Taylor The Gray Cat, LLC Prepared by Betsy Tyler
Nantucket Preservation Trust
November, 2011
Historic images courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association
1808–1810 1810–1834 1834–1886 1886–1889 1889–1910 1910–1954 1954–1977 1977–1980 1980–1988 1988–1990 1990–1994 1994–2011 2011–
Nantucket Preservation Trust Advocates, Educates, and Celebrates the Preservation of Nantucket’s Historic Architecture
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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.
Nantucket Preservation Trust Post Office Box 158 • Nantucket, MA 02554 www.nantucketpreservation.org Copyright © 2012 Nantucket Preservation Trust
nantucket preservation trust Post Office Box 158 • Nantucket, Massachusetts www.nantucketpreservation.org