Josiah Macy was born on February 25, 1785 at Nantucket, Massachussets, the son of Jonathan and Rose (Pinkham) Macy. He was a descendant of Thomas Macy (or Macie), one of the first settlers of Nantucket. Like the majority of the islanders, the Macys were members of the Society of Friends.
Education
Josiah received a common-school education.
Career
Beginning his career under his father in a coastwise trading voyage, Josiah engaged in coastwise trade for fifteen years, becoming a shipmaster when hardly out of his teens. On outbound voyages cargoes of sperm and whale oil, whalebone, and sperm candles were carried; these were sometimes consigned, but frequently were peddled from port to port. The proceeds were reinvested in outfits required by the Nantucket whalemen and in provisions needed in the homes of the islanders.
Macy made his first foreign voyage to Gibraltar, Cadiz, and Lisbon with a Nantucket cargo in 1807. In 1808, word of an intended embargo having been brought to Nantucket, he immediately loaded and cleared his one-hundred-ton ship for Spain and was towed out of the harbor and over the bar by a flotilla of whaleboats, according to the practice of that day.
After a voyage of continuous anxiety, he reached the island of Fayal, disposed of his cargo, and returned to Nantucket with a load of wine, oranges, and specie. After an interval of coasting, in 1810, he sailed in the brig Little William to the Mediterranean. In 1812, he bought the ship Prudence, of 243 tons, and sailed for Spain.
On his return, he made New York and from there was the first to bring to Nantucket the news of the United States' declaration of war against Great Britain. His ship was laid up until the cessation of hostilities. Nantucket was an unprotected island town of about 8, 000 inhabitants, wholly at the mercy of either force. The islanders were non-combatants. Under the circumstances they preserved a tacit neutrality throughout the war, but their trade was gone and there was great difficulty in securing bare necessities.
In October 1813, Macy went to Baltimore and commenced buying flour, shipping it in small schooners to Nantucket. A number of these arrived at their destination, but several were captured. Later he commanded one of three vessels, to which the British gave letters of protection, for the purpose of proceeding to Philadelphia for provisions. By accepting British papers the ships were open to capture by American naval vessels; but the plight of the islanders was well understood and sympathized with by the mainlanders, and the ships were not searched.
At the conclusion of the war, Macy entered the New York-Liverpool trade with a new ship, the Edward, of 346 tons. The next fourteen years, he spent on the western ocean, concluding his final voyage as shipmaster in 1827. The following year, he founded in New York the shipping and commission house of Josiah Macy & Son, with William H. Macy, his eldest son, as partner. When they came of age, his two younger sons were admitted to the firm.
Achievements
Personality
Retiring from business in 1853, having amassed a considerable fortune, Macy spent the remainder of his life on his farm in Rye, New York. A number of men who afterward achieved distinction have testified to the aid given, and the good influence exerted in their early lives by Macy; among them, Capt. Benjamin Morrell, who was the first American to explore south of the Antarctic circle.
Connections
At the age of twenty, on February 6, 1805, Macy married Lydia Hussey.