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 The History of the Charles Hussey House This year the Nantucket Preservation Trust Show House is a typical Nantucket house, built in the architectural style that was prevalent on the island for three quarters of a century, flourishing particularly during the last decade of the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth century. There are about 175 typical Nantucket houses scattered throughout town, with sixteen fine examples creating a continuous façade on the north side of India Street. Nantucket’s population was predominantly Quaker for a large part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the Quaker principle of simplicity is the hallmark of the dwelling houses they built. A typical Nantucket house is two and a half stories high front and back, with a central chimney. It is a wooden house in and out, with transoms at the top of interior doors, presumably for the detection of fires in such susceptible structures. Four bays, or windows, traverse the front of the house on the second floor, with three windows and a door on the first floor. The staircase to the second floor faces you when the front door is opened, and chambers are grouped around the central chimney. Variations on the basic style exist, but one thing remained constant - there was nothing fancy about the typical house, and nothing extraneous. It was solidly built out of high quality materials, functional, plain, and successful - much like the Nantucket Quakers themselves. In 1803 Charles Fittenberry Hussey purchased land on Pearl Street, the former name of India Street, from his parents Reuben and Phebe Hussey. Charles was one of the fifth generation of the Hussey family on Nantucket. He was a twenty-eight-year-old rope maker, married to Sarah Jenkins, with three young children. Successful at his trade and with a growing family Charles was ready to build his own home, which he probably did by 1804. Charles and Sarah owned 37 India until 1813. The house was full of children – two more were born in the new house, bringing the total brood to five children under the age of fourteen. Sarah Hussey’s brother Silvanus Jenkins, a successful merchant living in New York, bought the house and several other pieces of property from Sarah and Charles in 1813. During the time that Jenkins owned the house, from 1813 to 1830, the Hussey family may have continued to live there since a deed dated 1831 from the heirs of Silvanus Jenkins to Zenas Coleman mentions that Sally Hussey, the wife of Charles F. Hussey, had dower rights in the premises. Some Nantucket houses were occupied by generations of the same family, others have had a succession of owners. 37 India falls into the latter category. Owners from 1831 to 1865 include Zenas Coleman; Nathaniel Tallant, a trader; Philander Fisher, a shipwright; and Freeman Parker, a cooper. In 1865, Robert and Augusta Foster of Brooklyn, NY purchased 37 India Street for $700. Their four daughters, Lillian, Mary, Edith, and Mabel, must have looked forward to their annual trip to the home on Pearl Street, which they named “Seaweeda.” One of the earliest photographs of 37 India Street, taken in the late nineteenth century, shows family and friends on the porch and lawn enjoying summer activities. “Seaweeda” was the Foster summer home for almost sixty years. In 1929, the house became known as “The Lodge,” and in 1931 as “The India House,” serving as a boarding house for the summer crowd. Then in the late 1960s Steven DeBaun opened the India House Inn and Restaurant. The restaurant remained one of the best known on Nantucket for the remainder of the twentieth century. After seventy years of hospitality to summer visitors 37 India Street is ready to be a residence once again. Imagine the neighborhood two hundred years ago. Eliminate the automobiles, tear the macadam off the cobblestones, remove the telephone poles. Look down the street and see a row of houses built to last for centuries, as inviting today as they were then. Open the door to 37 India and step back into Nantucket history. |
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