{"nrhp_refnum":"08000531","name":"Macy-Colby House","other_names":["Obadiah Colby House"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"257 Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Amesbury","county":"Essex County","state":"MA","lat":42.84621074900008,"lon":-70.93011292699998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2008-06-16","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Community Planning and Development"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A 2½-story wood-frame Colonial saltbox house at 257 Main Street, Amesbury, Massachusetts, built about 1745 for blacksmith Obadiah Colby on the site of an earlier house by Thomas Macy. It sits on a one-acre lot with a rear ell and several roadside objects.","why_significant":"The house retains its mid-18th-century floor plan and a notable mix of high-style Georgian paneling and a corner cupboard in the formal rooms, with plainer finishes elsewhere. It is also tied to Thomas Macy, Amesbury's first town clerk, who was persecuted for sheltering Quakers and fled to Nantucket, and to generations of the Colby family who owned it.","narrative":"Standing on Main Street in Amesbury's old Ferry District, this saltbox house was built about 1745 for Obadiah Colby, a blacksmith who had returned from Boston. It is a 2½-story wood-frame dwelling with a center brick chimney, a full-width rear leanto, and a later one-story ell. Inside, the original floor plan survives largely intact. The front hall and parlor have raised-field paneling, bolection moldings and a Georgian corner china cupboard, while the upstairs rooms and kitchen are plainer. The house appears to incorporate the foundation of an earlier dwelling built before 1654 by Thomas Macy, Amesbury's first town clerk, who was persecuted for harboring Quakers and left for Nantucket in 1659. A granite marker placed in 1894 and a Tercentenary Commission sign from about 1930 commemorate that story. The Colby family held the property for generations, and the house now serves as a museum beside the Bartlett and Union cemeteries.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"Builder unknown; joiner Samuel Blaisdell has been speculated to have done much of the woodwork","architectural_style":"Colonial","criteria":[],"status_note":"Historically a single dwelling; current function is listed as a museum. Several modern objects (fences, flagpole, sign) are noncontributing.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:13:04.426813-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/0/7948/63794800/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_MA/08000531.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000531/84f9409e88-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/08000531/84f9409e88-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Daderot at en.wikipedia","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Macy-Colby_House_(rear)_-_Amesbury,_Massachusetts.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Daderot at en.wikipedia</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Macy-Colby_House_(rear)_-_Amesbury,_Massachusetts.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/63794800","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macy%E2%80%93Colby_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6725867"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/massachusetts/essex-county/macy-colby-house-08000531/"}