Mary Ann (Hathaway) Tripp

(1810-1906)

The first American woman to sail around the world lived most of her life in her father’s hometown of Fairhaven. Married to Capt. Lemuel C. Tripp in 1828, she first sailed on one of his voyages in 1833-34. The sixteen-month trip not only circumnavigated the earth, it stopped in China where Mary Ann Tripp became the first American woman to venture inside the walls of Canton. She later sailed on two other round-the-word voyages. Capt. Tripp built the house at the corner of Adams and Spring streets that would later become the summer house of Theodore Thomas. Following her husband’s death, Mary Ann Tripp moved to a home at the northeast corner of Washington and William Streets. She died in 1906 at the age of 96.