The Jethro Coffin House is the oldest surviving building on Nantucket, a stark, low-slung saltbox that has outlasted the whaling boom, the great fire of 1846, and three and a half centuries of Atlantic storms. It sits on a quiet street at the edge of the historic district, unpainted and unadorned, exactly as New England Puritan architecture demanded.
The Nantucket Historical Association manages the house as a historic property. The interior has been carefully preserved and reflects the austere domestic life of Nantucket's earliest English settlers. Guided tours explain not just the architecture but the politics and family alliances that shaped the young community.