5 New Dollar Lane NANTUCKET
A House History
A Brief History 5 New Dollar Lane George Prince, mariner, circa 1808
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n 1809, Richard Macy gave his daughter, Miriam Macy Prince (1775–1867), and son-in-law, George Prince (1780–1812), a parcel of land on New Dollar Lane where Prince had recently built a house for his family. It was just north of land Macy owned at the corner of New Dollar Lane and Mill Street, where his son, Job, lived and across the street from Joseph Starbuck’s house built around the same time. Prince, a mariner, died in St. Thomas just four years later, leaving Miriam with four children under the age of eight. A note in the Macy Genealogy states that George Prince was from Sweden and “left that country in 1790, in care of Capt. Paul Ray, and came to Nantucket.” It is not known why Paul Ray, a whaling captain who was married to another of Richard Macy’s daughters, Priscilla, was in Sweden, or why he convinced Prince to accompany him to Nantucket.
Catherine Prince Wood
In his will dated 1814, Richard Macy bequeathed to his children the houses where they were living, and Miriam Prince, then a widow, was given “the Dwelling House in which she now lives, together with the land on which the same stands … being all the land she hath got enclosed.” The bequest appears redundant, since the property was deeded to Miriam and George five years earlier. In 1849, when she was seventy-four years old, Miriam transferred the house to her daughter Catherine Prince (b. 1812), “in consideration of the many valuable services rendered to me.” Miriam, who lived to be ninety-two, retained a life right in the property where she resided the rest of her life with her daughter, who married William W. Wood in 1852. The Woods did not have children.
Detail of Coffin map, 1833
The house remained close to the Macy family when widower William W. Wood sold it to Mary S. Whippey in 1897. George Prince Jr., son of George and Miriam, had married Phebe Gardner in 1804; he died when he just thirty, in 1834, and Phebe married second husband, William Whippey, sometime in the 1840s. Mary Sophronia Whippey (b. 1849) was their daughter. She did not marry, and she may not have lived at 5 New Dollar Lane: the U. S. Federal Census for 1900 shows her in a household with her older brother, George F. Whippey, on Centre Street. Mary Sophronia sold the house to the Boys Improvement and Industrial Association, for “one dollar and other valuable consideration” in 1901. The association had been founded by women, mainly mothers and teachers, to offer boys an opportunity to improve their morals, manners, and habits and to provide manual, or industrial, training. Whether the house at 5 New Dollar was a site for meetings and classes is not known, but the association disintegrated in 1908; the members voted to sell the house and land with the view of assisting the boys with the proceeds. The house sold for $800 to neighbors Arthur H. Cook and Willard B. Marden, who lived on Milk Street on either side of New Dollar Lane. A little over a year later, they sold the property to Englishman Thomas B. Bickerstaff, who ran a bakery on Lower Pearl Street, next to the Atheneum. Bickerstaff and his wife, Minnesota native Emma Borden, and their eleven children born on Nantucket made 5 New Dollar Lane their home for more than thirty years. A typical house from the early nineteenth century, 5 New Dollar is a two-and-half story, shingled house with four bays and a kitchen extension in the rear; an early photograph shows the large central ridge chimney that was removed before 1945. The Greek Revival doorway was probably added in the 1830s or ‘40s when that style became popular on the island. The footprint of the house remained the same on all the Sanborn Insurance maps published from 1887 to 1949. By 1972, when Clay Lancaster wrote The Architecture of Historic Nantucket, the house had acquired a small addition on the north side.
OWNERS OF 5 NEW DOLLAR LANE: Note: From about 1880 to 1940, New Dollar Lane was known as Risdale Street.
Miriam Macy Prince and George Prince
1809–1849
Catherine Prince Wood and William W. Wood
1849–1897
Mary Sophronia Whippey
1897–1901
The Boys Improvement and Industrial Association
1901-1908
Arthur H. Cook and Willard B. Marden
1908–1909
Thomas Bickerstaff
1909–1941
Louise M. Riddell
1941–1945
Violet V. Gesell
1945–1958
Ruth G. Soule
1958–1985
Sandra S. Ashley, Andrea S. Graces, and Nicole S. Egenberg (Fenwick Trust) 1985–2009 Gregory G. Fowlkes and Annabelle Brown Fowlkes
Prepared by Betsy Tyler Nantucket Preservation Trust
August, 2011 Historic images courtesy of the Nantucket Historical Association
2009–
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 © 2011 Nantucket Preservation Trust
nantucket preservation trust Post Office Box 158 • Nantucket, Massachusetts www.nantucketpreservation.org