Mrs. Pleasant stated she was indentured/employed by a Grandma Hussey (pronounced HUZZY) when living on Nantucket. There has been some confusion about “which” Mrs. Hussey ran the store. The names of Hussey, Starbuck, Coffin and Folger were prominent on Nantucket and first names often repeated. After a visit to the Nantucket Historical Association, the candidate was narrowed and identified.
MEP maintained close friendships with the widow Phebe Folger Hussey and her daughter Phebe Hussey Gardner (often referred to as Phebe Jr.) However, Mrs. Mary Mooers Hussey, widow of Peter Hussey, ran the general goods business.
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Prior to his death, Peter Hussey ran a thriving general goods business, his ledger book is available at the Nantucket Historical Association . After his death, Mrs. Hussey sold several parcels of property to stay afloat as is evident in the Town of Nantucket records. There are mentions in other records and interviews that Grandma Mary had to help support a widow in the family. Likely Phoebe Sr and her daughter, Phoebe Jr. While some members of the Hussey family were financially solid, it does not appear that was the case with this particular branch. This would can also help explain why money MEP’s father sent annually for her education was not utilized as he wished. The families needed all available funds to exist. The whaling industry which supported Nantucket was beginning to encounter a financial slow down that would go until the whaling industry collapsed in the 1860s. Already in the 1830s fewer whales further away kept the men at sea for 3-5 years. With the whaling vessels would be gone anywhere from 3-5 years, the women left behind fended for themselves financially.
Finding MEP in the census proves difficult. However, the federal 1820 census for Mrs. Phebe Folger Hussey has a slave boy under 14 in her household. However, a review of the Nantucket handwritten record shows the boy to be “Mary Pompey, daughter of John”.
Photo: 1820 Nantucket Census, in the Coffin Family Papers, Nantucket Historical Association.
John Pompey was a well regarded Nantucket Negro sailor serving for a time aboard Captain Edward Gardner’s ship, The Enterprise. [Note: Captain Gardner would in 1839 marry Phoebe Hussey, Jr.] A review of John Pompey’s family does not find a daughter named Mary but Almira, Mercy and Nancy. Might the census record be a simple mis-identification by the census worker? While the years differ slightly there could be explanations: (1) it is not Mary Ellen Williams, (2) they ‘aged’ Mary to 9 as she was “working” for Grandma Hussey or she simply appeared older , (3) Mary’s year of birth which has been reported as between 1812-1815 may have been even earlier, 1810. It could also be a combination of 2 and 3. These records are all we have and not 100% accurate (as the federal census had the child as a “boy” but the local record clearly identifies a “girl”.
Strangely, Mary’s name does not appear in Grandma Mary Hussey’s or Phebe Folger Hussey’s households for the 1830 census. The 1830 Nantucket census records are curious in themselves, as it appears the census was conducted several times by different persons. A clearly identifiable Mary Ellen Williams is not easily spotted. One census taker noted specifically people of color within households, the others do not; the other census takers listed people of color at the end of the census.
On another note, Grandma Mary Hussey per reference of the Barney Genealogic Record at the Nantucket Association, was not the grandmother of either Phebe Folger Hussey or her daughter Phebe Hussey Gardner, rather they were cousins. Grandma Mary and Phebe Folger Hussey’s husbands were first cousins, their fathers were brothers. As a small, close-knit community, there are likely more familial ties, but this one is the most obvious. And confusion about identities from outsiders is likely due to the reuse of family names. When reviewing the census finds several Phebes and Marys.
[Note: an I895 San Francisco Examiner interview with MEP misidentifies “Grandma Hussey” as Phoebe Folger Hussey.]