The Jethro Coffin House (The Oldest House) on Nantucket was built as a wedding gift in 1686 for Jethro Coffin (1663–1727) and Mary Gardner (1670–1767). This five-minute excerpt from an NHA 2020 house history virtual presentation posted on July 30, 2025 by Nantucket History follows the evolution of this historic structure from these early days to the time it was sold to the Nantucket Historical Association in the 1920s.
Tradition tells us that the Oldest House was built as a wedding gift for Jethro and Mary Gardner Coffin (above, center). Also known as the Jethro Coffin House, it was built in 1686 and is believed to be the oldest residence on Nantucket still on its original site. The island’s English population at the time totaled several hundred, and the Native population outnumbered them by at least three to one.
By the late nineteenth century, the house was abandoned and had fallen into disrepair, but a Coffin family reunion (photos below) held on the island in 1881 ignited renewed interest in the property. The NHA acquired the house in 1923, and four years later, the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA, now Historic New England), commenced an extensive reconstruction in an attempt to return the house to its historic appearance.
Although the Oldest House is closely associated with Mary and Jethro Coffin, four generations of the Paddack family lived there. Many of them were mariners, reflecting Nantucket’s change from an agricultural to a maritime community in the eighteenth century. In 1839, George Paddack sold the house out of the family to a cooper named George Turner for $300, ending a hundred and thirty-one years of Paddack ownership.