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Salem, Massachusetts
—  City  —
Salem mass
Salem Maritime National Historic Site
Flag of Salem, Massachusetts
Flag
Official seal of Salem, Massachusetts
Seal
Nickname(s): The Witch City
Salem ma highlight
Location in Essex County in Massachusetts
Coordinates: 42°31′10″N 70°53′50″W / 42.51944, -70.89722
Country United States
State Massachusetts
County Essex
Settled 1626
Incorporated 1629
A City 1836
Government
 • Type Mayor-council city
 • Mayor Kimberley Driscoll
Area
 • Total 18.1 sq mi (46.8 km2)
 • Land 8.1 sq mi (21.0 km2)
 • Water 10.0 sq mi (25.8 km2)
Elevation 9 ft (3 m)
Population (2007)
 • Total 40,922
 • Density 5,052.1/sq mi (1,948.7/km2)
Time zone Eastern (UTC-5)
 • Summer (DST) Eastern (UTC-4)
ZIP code 01970 / 01971
Area code(s) 351 / 978
FIPS code 25-59105
GNIS feature ID 0614337
Website www.salem.com

Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County.[1] Home to Salem State University, the Salem Willows Park and the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem is a residential and tourist area which includes the neighborhoods of Salem Neck, The Point, South Salem and North Salem, Witchcraft Heights, Pickering Wharf, and the McIntire Historic District (named after Salem's famous architect and carver, Samuel McIntire).

Salem was one of the most significant seaports in early America. It has the first National Historic Site designated by Congress, Salem Maritime National Historic Site, which protects Salem's historic waterfront.

Featured notably in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, much of the city's cultural identity is reflective of its role as the location of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692: Police cars are adorned with witch logos, a local public school is known as the Witchcraft Heights Elementary School, the Salem High School football team is named The Witches, and Gallows Hill, a site of numerous public hangings, is currently used as a playing field for various sports.

Tourists know Salem as a mix of important historical sites, New Age and Wiccan boutiques, and kitschy Halloween or witch-themed attractions.


History[]

Nathaniel Hawthorne statue - Salem, Massachusetts

Nathaniel Hawthorne by Bela Pratt

Salem shipping colonial color

Early scene along the Salem waterfront, Salem, Massachusetts

Salem was founded at the mouth of the Naumkeag river in 1626 at the site of an ancient Native American village and trading center (it was originally called Naumkeag and was renamed Salem three years later) by a company of fishermen from Cape Ann led by Roger Conant, and incorporated in 1629. Conant’s leadership had provided the stability to survive the first two years, but he was immediately replaced by John Endicott, one of the new arrivals, by order of the Dorchester Company. Conant graciously stepped aside and was granted 200 acres (0.81 km2) of land in compensation. These “New Planters” and the “Old Planters” agreed to cooperate, in large part due to the diplomacy of Conant and Endicott. In recognition of this peaceful transition to the new government, the name of the settlement was changed to Salem, a corruption of the Hebrew word ‘shalom'.[2]

Naumkeag was first settled in 1626 by the Dorchester Company with Roger Conant as Governor. That settlement was located east of the present day Salem commuter rail station.

A year later, Governor John Endicott arrived in Naumkeag and a patent was solicited by the Massachusetts Bay Company in England. Endicott moved the Great House from Cape Anne reassembling on what is now Washington Street north of Church Street. And a year later, the Massachusetts Bay Charter was issued creating the Massachusetts Bay Colony with Thomas Craddock as Governor and Endicott as a Governor's Assistant. A challenge to Endicott's authority in Naumkeag arose in London and was settled within the Massachusetts Bay Company. One week later, Governor John Winthrop was elected Governor and John Endicott was re-elected Governor's Assistant, followed by the Great Puritan Migration/Fleet of 1629/1630. Endicott's greeting of Winthrop is the subject of a plaque on the Boston Common.

In 1639, his was one of the signatures on the building contract for enlarging the meeting house in Town House Square for the First Church in Salem. This document remains part of the town records at City Hall. He was active in the affairs of the town throughout his life. Roger Conant died 1679, at the age of 87 but to celebrate this majestic life, a gigantic statue stands overlooking Salem Common. Salem originally included much of the North Shore, including Marblehead. Most of the accused in the Salem witch trials lived in nearby 'Salem Village', now known as Danvers, although a few lived on the outskirts of Salem. Salem Village also included Peabody and parts of present-day Beverly. Middleton, Topsfield, Wenham and Manchester-by-the-Sea, too, were once parts of Salem. One of the most widely known aspects of Salem is its history of witchcraft allegations, which started with Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, and their friends playing with a Venus glass and egg. Salem achieved further legal notoriety as the site of the Dorthy Talbye trial, where a mentally ill woman was hanged for murdering her daughter, because at the time Massachusetts made no distinction between insanity and criminal behavior.[3]

On February 26, 1775, patriots raised the drawbridge at the North River, preventing British Colonel Alexander Leslie and his 300 troops of the 64th Regiment of Foot from seizing stores and ammunition hidden in North Salem. A few months later, in May 1775, a group of prominent merchants with ties to Salem, including Francis Cabot, William Pynchon, Thomas Barnard, E.A. Holyoke and William Pickman, felt the need to publish a statement retracting what some interpreted as Loyalist leanings and to profess their dedication to the Colonial cause.[4]

Salem Harbor Fitz Hugh Lane

Salem Harbor, oil on canvas, Fitz Hugh Lane, 1853. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

During the Revolution, the town became a center for privateering. Although the documentation is incomplete, about 1,700 Letters of Marque, issued on a per-voyage basis, were granted during the American Revolution. Nearly 800 vessels were commissioned as privateers and are credited with capturing or destroying about 600 British ships.[5] By 1790, Salem was the sixth largest city in the country, and a world famous seaport—particularly in the China trade. Codfish was exported to the West Indies and Europe. Sugar and molasses were imported from the West Indies, tea from China, and pepper from Sumatra. Salem ships also visited Africa, Russia, Japan and Australia. During the War of 1812, privateering resumed.

Prosperity left the city with a wealth of fine architecture, including Federal style mansions designed by one of America's first architects Samuel McIntire, for whom the city's largest historic district is named. These homes and mansions from Colonial America now comprise the greatest concentrations of notable pre-1900 domestic structures in the United States.

This wealth of architecture in Salem can be directly attributed to the Old China Trade, which was ongoing for years with America and Great Britain. The neutrality of the United States was tested during the Napoleonic Wars. Both Britain and France imposed trade restrictions in order to weaken each others' economies. This also had the effect of disrupting American trade and testing the United States' neutrality. As time went on, harassment by the British of American ships increased by the British Navy. This included impressment and seizures of American men and goods. After the Chesapeake Leopard Affair, Thomas Jefferson was faced with a decision to make regarding the situation at hand. In the end, he chose an economic option: the Embargo Act of 1807 and Thomas Jefferson basically closed all the ports overnight, putting a little damper on the seaport town of Salem. The embargo of 1807 was the starting point on the path to the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

Incorporated as a city on March 23, 1836 [6], Salem adopted a city seal in 1839 with the motto "Divitis Indiae usque ad ultimum sinum", Latin for "To the farthest port of the rich Indies." Nathaniel Hawthorne was overseer of the port from 1846 until 1849. He worked in the Customs House near Pickering Wharf, his setting for the beginning of The Scarlet Letter. In 1858, an amusement park was established at Salem Willows, a peninsula jutting into the harbor. It should be noted that up until the War of 1812, the port of Salem was a major center of trade in America.

But shipping declined throughout the 19th century. Salem and its silting harbor were increasingly eclipsed by Boston and New York. Consequently, the city turned to manufacturing. Industries included tanneries, shoe factories and the Naumkeag Steam Cotton Company. More than 400 homes burned in the Great Salem Fire of 1914, leaving 3,500 families homeless from a blaze that began in the Korn Leather Factory. The fire ripped into one part of the city, but historical places including City Hall from 1837, the oldest contunually operated City Hall in America. The historic concentration of Federal architecture on Chestnut Street, where grand mansions form the China Trade can trace there roots were spared. Thankfully Salem was really lucky that day because the fire left mostly all of Salem's architectural legacy intact, which helped it develop as a center for tourism.

The book "The Salem-India Story" written by Vanita Shastri narrates the adventures of the Salem seamen who connected the far corners of the globe through trade. This period (1788–1845) marks the beginning of US-India relations, long before the 21st century wave of globalization. It reveals the global trade connections that Salem, Massachusetts, had established with faraway lands, which were a source of livelihood and prosperity for many.

Geography and transportation[]

Salem Ferry

The Salem Ferry approaching its dock off Blaney Street.

Salem is located at 42°31′1″N 70°53′55″W / 42.51694, -70.89861 (42.516845, -70.898503).[7] According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.1 square miles (46.8 km²), of which, 8.1 square miles (21.0 km²) of it is land and 9.9 square miles (25.8 km²) of it (55.09%) is water. Salem lies on Massachusetts Bay between Salem Harbor, which divides the city from much of neighboring Marblehead to the southeast, and Beverly Harbor, which divides the city from Beverly along with the Danvers River, which feeds into the harbor. Between the two harbors lies Salem Neck and Winter Island, which are divded from each othe by Cat Cove, Smith Pool (located between the two land causeways to Winter Island) and Juniper Cove. The city is further divided by Collins Cove, and the inlet to the North River. The Forest River flows through the south end of town as well, along with Strong Water Brook, which feeds Spring Pond at the town's southwest corner. The town has several parks, as well as conservation land along the Forest River and Camp Lion, which lies east of Spring Pond.

The city is divided by its natural features into several small neighborhoods. The Salem Neck neighborhood lies northeast of downtown, and North Salem lies to the west of it, on the other side of the North River. South Salem is south of the South River, lying mostly along the banks of Salem Harbor southward. Downtown Salem lies fifteen miles (24 km) northeast of Boston, sixteen miles southwest of Gloucester and Cape Ann, and nineteen miles (30 km) southeast of Lawrence, the other county seat of Essex County. Salem is bordered by Beverly to the north, Danvers to the northwest, Peabody to the west, Lynn to the southeast, Swampscott to the south, and Marblehead to the southeast. The town's water rights extend along a channel into Massachusetts Bay between the water rights of Marblehead and Beverly.

The connection between Salem and Beverly is made across the Danvers River and Beverly Harbor by three bridges, the Kernwood Bridge to the west, and a railroad bridge and the Essex Bridge, from the land between Collins Cove and the North River, to the east. The Veterans Memorial Bridge carries Route 1A across the river. Route 1A passes through the eastern side of the city, through South Salem towards Swampscott. For much of its length in the city, it is coextensive with Route 114, which goes north from Marblehead before merging with Route 1A, and then heading northwest from downtown towards Lawrence. Route 107 also passes through town, entering from Lynn in the southwest corner of the city before heading towards its intersection with Route 114 and terminating at Route 1A. There is no highway access within the city; the nearest highway access to Route 128 is along Route 114 in neighboring Peabody.

Several lines of the MBTA Bus service pass through the city. Salem has a station on the Newburyport/Rockport Line of the MBTA Commuter Rail. The railroad lines are also connected to an abandoned portion of the Springfield Terminal lines which lead into Peabody, and a former line into Marblehead has been converted into a bike path.

From late spring through early fall, the Salem Ferry provides ferry service between Salem and Boston, taking less than an hour's ride.[8]

The nearest small airport is Beverly Municipal Airport, and the nearest national and international service can be reached at Boston's Logan International Airport.

Demographics[]

Historical population
Year Pop. ±%
1635* 900
1765* 4,427 +391.9%
1790 7,921 +78.9%
1800 9,457 +19.4%
1810 12,613 +33.4%
1820 12,731 +0.9%
1830 13,895 +9.1%
1840 15,082 +8.5%
1850 20,264 +34.4%
1860 22,252 +9.8%
1870 24,117 +8.4%
1880 27,563 +14.3%
1890 30,801 +11.7%
1900
1910 43,697
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990 38,091
2000 40,407 +6.1%
sources:[9]
 [10]
Essex Street, Salem, MA

Essex Street in c. 1920

As of the census[11] of 2000, there were 40,407 people, 17,492 households, and 9,708 families residing in the city. The population density was 4,986.0 people per square mile (1,926.1/km²). There were 18,175 housing units at an average density of 2,242.7/sq mi (866.3/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 85.37% White, 3.15% African American, 0.22% Native American, 2.00% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 6.74% from other races, and 2.47% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11.24% of the population.

There were 17,492 households out of which 24.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.8% were married couples living together, 13.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 44.5% were non-families. 34.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.24 and the average family size was 2.95.

Pickering House, Salem, MA

Pickering House in c. 1905

In the city the population was spread out with 20.2% under the age of 18, 10.4% from 18 to 24, 33.4% from 25 to 44, 21.9% from 45 to 64, and 14.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 86.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $44,033, and the median income for a family was $55,635. Males had a median income of $38,563 versus $31,374 for females. The per capita income for the city was $23,857. About 6.3% of families and 9.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12.2% of those under age 18 and 7.9% of those age 65 or over.

Education[]

Salem State University is the largest state university in Massachusetts (note that State Universities are separate from the University of Massachusetts system), with 7,000 undergraduates and 2,500 graduate students; its campus comprises 108 acres (0.437 km2) and 33 buildings. It hosts a regular Speaker Series, featuring major invited speakers. It was originally founded as the Salem Normal School (for teacher training) in 1854, thanks to the efforts of Horace Mann who is considered the "Father of American Public Education."

Public elementary schools include the Bates, Bentley, Carlton, Horace Mann, Nathaniel Bowditch, Saltonstall and Witchcraft Heights schools. Collins Middle School, Nathaniel Bowditch School, and Salem High School are located on Highland Avenue. Private schools are also located in the city, including two independent, alternative schools, The Phoenix School and the Greenhouse, as well as the Salem Academy Charter School.

Salem also once had a very strong Roman Catholic school system. Once home to almost a dozen schools, the last school in the city, St. Joseph School, closed in June 2009 after over 100 years of providing Catholic Education. St. James High School, St. Chretienne Academy, St. Chretienne Grammar School and St. Mary's School closed in 1971, St. James Grammar School closed in 1972, St. Thomas the Apostle School closed in 1973, St. Anne School closed in 1976, St. John the Baptist School closed in 1977 and St. Joseph High School closed in 1980.[12]

In late 2007 and early 2008, the city's public school system garnered regional and even national attention after officials announced a $4.7 million budget shortfall that threatened the jobs of teachers and other staff members. The Massachusetts General Court passed legislation, and residents raised enough money, that averted teacher layoffs. Several dozen support workers were still laid off.[13] Police were investigating what happened to the money in a search for criminal violations of the law.[14]

Tourism[]

Witch-related tourism[]

Salem Witch Museum on Halloween

People lined up to visit the Witch Museum on Halloween

Since the decline of the city's industrial base, tourism has become an increasingly important part of Salem's economy. Tourism based on the 1692 witch trials dates back to at least the first half of the 20th century, when dry goods merchant Daniel Low sold souvenir spoons with witch images. Such tourism expanded significantly in the 1970s, when the television comedy Bewitched filmed several episodes here.[15] Witch-related tourism expanded significantly in the 1990s, and the city added an official "Haunted Happenings" celebration during the October tourist season. In 2007, the city launched the Haunted Passport program which offers visitors discounts and benefits from local tourist attractions and retailers from October to April. In 2010, The City of Salem once again had record attendance from the previous years, with 10,000 on the day of Halloween!

The goal of the program is to get visitors to come back to Salem after Halloween and experience businesses that may not be directly tied to Halloween. Thousands watched in 2007 as Mayor Kim Driscoll started a new trend with a massive fireworks display that kicked off at 10:00 pm on Halloween.[16]

In recent years, tourism has been an occasional source of debate in the city, with some residents arguing the city should downplay witch tourism and market itself as a more upscale cultural center. In 2005, the conflict came to a head over plans by the cable television network TV Land to erect a bronze statue of Elizabeth Montgomery, who played the comic witch "Samantha" in the 1960s series Bewitched. A few special episodes of the series were actually filmed in Salem, and TV Land said that the statue commemorated the 35th anniversary of those episodes.

Located at the major intersection of Essex & Washington Street, the statue was sculpted by StudioEIS under the direction of brothers Elliott and Ivan Schwartz. Many felt the statue was good fun and appropriate to a city that promotes itself as "The Witch City", and contains a street named "Witch Way". Others objected to the use of public property for what was transparently commercial promotion. Some felt that the statue trivialized history by encouraging visitors to recall a sitcom rather than the tragic Salem witch trials. The statue was later vandalized with red spray-painted "X"s over the face and chest, and flags placed in the statue's hands.

To understand the rich history of the City of Salem, many visitors decide to take a Segway [3] Tour during the day to view this historic city. Others decide on a walking tour [4] with many of the licensed guides or hop on a Trolley [5] for an easy view of this great city!

The best value are two free movies shown daily by the United States Park Service that show. One is located on the waterfront at Derby Wharf and the other is at the visitors center across from the Peabody Essex Museum. The Parks Service [6] also takes people on tours of the Customs House where Nathanial Hawthorne penned The Scarlett Letter and on the Friendship.

New Self Guided Walking Tours and Guides Available to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Salem architect and carver Samuel McIntire, the National Park Service, Historic New England, and the Peabody Essex Museum have released a newly revised edition of the McIntire Historic District Architectural Walking Trail. The new guide to historic architecture in Salem, Architecture in Salem: A Guide to Four Centuries of Design has also been released. Copies of these guides are available from the NPS Visitor Center in Salem, or can be downloaded here [7].

In 1692, 14 women and 6 men were accused of being witches, were tried, convicted, and executed. Executions took place on June 10, July 19, August 19, September 19 and September 22, 1692. To this day, the events of 1692 are used as a yardstick to measure the depth of civility and due process in our society.

To remember the events of 1692, The City of Salem dedicated The Witch Trials Memorial, designed by by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel in August 1992 as part of the Salem Witch Trials TerCentenary.

Major interest in the the design of the The Witch Trials Memorial resulted in a international competition that received 246 entries. The winning design by Maggie Smith and James Cutler was inspired by the Vietnam Memorial.

The Memorial consists of 20 granite benches cantilevered from a low stone wall surrounding an area adjoining the Old Burying Point. The benches are inscribed with the name of the accused and the means and date of execution. [8]

Going into the memorial, visitors walk over a slab of granite where some of the final words of the condemned are carved into granite. The artist who made the memorial did this so that the visitors would walk over the words similar to how the words of the condemned fell on deaf ears!

During Halloween 2010, an estimated 100,000 celebrated Halloween in the city of Salem.

Other sites[]

Friendship of Salem

The Friendship replica docked off of Derby Street

The replica tall ship Friendship was built at the Scarano Brothers Shipyard in Albany, New York, and delivered on the 1st of September 1998 [[9]] to the National Park Service's Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

Friendship is a reconstruction of a 171-foot (52 m) three-masted Salem East Indiaman trading ship, originally built in 1797, that traveled the globe many times over to South America, China, the Caribbean, England, Germany, Batavia, India, & The Mediterranean, and Russia Empire.

Friendship was captured as a prize of war by the British in September, 1812, and then sold for pieces.

Friendship is the largest wooden, Coast Guard certified, sailing vessel to be built in New England in more than a century.

Friendship is the largest wooden sailing ship built in Scarano Boat Builders' 25-year history and will be the largest, full-rigged, US built vessel in the modern era of tall ships. Rigging and final outfitting took place at Derby Wharf.

Plans for the ship were drawn up by Bay Marine Inc., based upon a 9-ft. model of the Friendship at the Peabody Essex Museum. Each of the 39 frames on each side of the ship was laid out on full sized patterns with an accuracy of 1/16 of an inch. Each frame was constructed from 16 layers of Douglas Fir which were bent to shape and glued together with Resorcinol epoxy.

A rigging shed 2,000 sq. feet located on Derby Wharf is the location of the wood shop, of The Friendship where many local businesses contribute atop the hundreds who make Friendship a reality.

Unlike many replicas, this ship is designed to sail. Laminate epoxy construction makes the replica stronger than the original while eliminating the threat of dry rot that can threaten conventional wooden construction after as little as ten years. Beneath an exterior that appears much like the original are two engines, two generators, a modern galley, fire-fighting equipment and a wheel chair lift from the first deck to the second. Where the original used cargo as ballast, the replica uses 100 lead blocks, each weighing 3000 pounds.

The original Fame was a fast Chebacco fishing schooner that was reborn as a privateer when war broke out in the summer of 1812, taking 20 captures before being wrecked in the Bay of Fundy in 1814.

The new Fame is a full-scale replica of this famous schooner. Framed and planked of white oak and trunnel-fastened in the traditional manner, Fame was launched in 2003. She is now based at Salem's Pickering Wharf Marina [10] ,where she takes the paying public for cruises on historic Salem Sound.

In 1944, the threatened destruction of The Witch House became the catalyst that launched a new wave of restoration in Salem. A group of concerned citizens raised the $42,500 needed to move and restore the building. The new museum officially opened to the public in 1948.

The Witch House, home of Judge Jonathan Corwin, is the only structure still standing in Salem with direct ties to the Witchcraft Trials of 1692.[11] Operated by the city of Salem as a tourist spot every year from the start of April thru Haloween and is located on Essex Street at the inersections of North & Summer Street.

Although the Salem Athenæum's charter and name date from 1810, its history actually begins fifty years earlier with the founding of two earlier institutions: the Social Library in 1760; and the Salem Philosophical Library in 1781. [12]

In 1760 a group of Club members donated 175 guineas toward the foundation of a library for their mutual use. The new Social Library was stocked both by donations from members' own libraries and by new purchases from London booksellers. Membership was not technically restricted as long as applicants could meet the £11 yearly cost (approximately $1500 in current dollars).

In 1905, the Athenæum sold the building at 132 Essex Street to the Essex Institute (now the Peabody Essex Museum), and with the proceeds constructed the building it currently occupies, at 337 Essex Street. Dedicated in 1907, this handsome red brick structure was modeled on Homewood, an estate in Maryland built by Charles Carroll (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) for his son.

Today the Athenæum is celebrating 200 years and home to over 50,000 volumes in its circulating and research collections and is dedicated to renewing its commitment to its core mission: to enrich the lives of its members and its North Shore community by lending, preserving, and adding to its collection of books and documents, by maintaining and enhancing its historic buildings and grounds, and by offering cultural and educational programs that provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and life-long learning.

The Peabody Essex Museum is a leading museum of Asian art and culture and early American maritime trade and whaling; its collections of Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese art, and in particular Chinese export porcelain, are among the finest in the country. It is now America's oldest continuously operating museum, having been founded in 1799. The museum owns and exhibits a number of historic houses in downtown Salem. Free to residents of the City of Salem and passes are available at the Salem Library for people visiting the city! [13]

Salem Public Library is located in the McIntire Historic District of Salem, Massachusetts in an 1855 renovated brick mansion originally owned by sea merchant John Bertram.

With a multi year building project costing 100 million to the oldest museum in america, founded in 1799, in 2003 The Peabody Essex Museum completed a massive multi-year renovation and expansion, designed by architect Moshe Safdie. The centerpiece of the redesign was the 200-year-old 16-room Chinese home in the lobby of the museum, moved from Xiuning County in southeastern China to America, assembled on another site, reconstructed in Salem.

The Pioneer Village, created in 1930, was America's first living-history museum. The site features a 3-acre (12,000 m2), recreated Puritan village, and allows visitors the opportunity to participate in activities from the lives of Salem's earliest English settlers.

The Old Salem Jail, an active facility until 1991, once housed captured British soldiers from the War of 1812. It contains the main jail building, an imposing granite and brick structure built in 1813 and renovated in 1884; an 1813 jail keeper's house; and a barn, also dating to about 1813. The jail keeper's house, a fine example of a three-story brick, Federal-period building, has been gutted and rebuilt from the inside.[17] The Old Salem Jail completed renovation and opened in 2010 and is now private residences called 50 Saint Peters Street and the Great Escape[14].

Points of interest[]

  • Nathaniel Bowditch House (c. 1805) Founder of modern navigation
  • Crowninshield-Bentley House (c. 1727–30)
  • John Tucker Daland House (1851)
  • Derby House (c1762)
  • Gedney House (c. 1665)
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace (c. 1730–45)
  • House of the Seven Gables (1668), aka Capt. John Turner Mansion
  • The Witch House, the home of Salem Witch Trials investigator Jonathan Corwin, and the only building still standing in Salem with direct ties to the Witch Trials
  • Salem Common
  • Misery Islands
  • Peabody Essex Museum (1799) Oldest continually operated museum in America.
  • Phillips Library
  • Stephen Phillips Memorial Trust House (1800 & 1821)
  • Pickering House, Broad Street (c. 1651)
  • Salem Architecture from the 17th and 18th Centuries
  • Ropes Mansion (late 1720s)
  • McIntire Historic District, greatest concentration of 17th and 18th century domestic structures in the U.S.
  • Salem Maritime National Historic Site, the only remaining intact waterfront from the U.S. age of sail
  • Pioneer Village, Forest River Park (c. 1930)
  • Salem Willows Park (1858), a small oceanfront amusement park.
  • Joseph Story House
  • Winter Island, park and historic point of the U.S. Coast Guard in WW2 for U-boat patrol

Notable residents[]

  • Nehemiah Adams, clergyman & author
  • Brunonia Barry, author of The Lace Reader
  • Frank W. Benson, artist
  • John Prentiss Benson, artist
  • Bob Villa, craftsman
  • William Bentley, Unitarian Minister, Salem diarist
  • Samuel Bowden, Medal of Honor recipient for gallantry in Indian Wars at Wichita River, Texas, 5 October 1870.[18]
  • Nathaniel Bowditch, mathematician and navigator
  • Rick Brunson, former NBA player
  • Robert Ellis Cahill, sheriff, historian and author
  • Eli Barrows, noted physicist
  • Laurie Cabot, Wiccan high priestess
  • Roger Conant, founder of Salem
  • Crowninshield family, Boston Brahmins who later helped settle Salem
  • Elias Hasket Derby, merchant, first American millionaire [19]
  • Joseph Horace Eaton, artist and military officer
  • John Endecott, governor
  • Thomas Gardner (planter), co-founder of Salem
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer
  • Jeff Juden, major league baseball pitcher
  • Frederick W. Lander, Civil War General, wagon trail and railroad surveyor, poet
  • John Larch, actor (1914–2005),
  • Dudley Leavitt (1720–62), early Harvard-educated Congregational minister,[20] New Hampshire native, married to Mary Pickering,[21] Salem's Leavitt Street named for him [22]
  • Mary Lou Lord singer/songwriter grew up in Salem
  • Samuel McIntire, architect & woodcarver
  • Charles Grafton Page, inventor
  • George Swinton Parker, founder of Parker Brothers
  • Samuel Parris, minister
  • The Rev. John Perkins (bef.1583-bef.1654), 1st Minister of Salem
  • Timothy Pickering, 3rd secretary of state
  • Benjamin Pickman, early Salem merchant for whom Salem's Pickman Street is named [23]
  • Dudley Leavitt Pickman, (1779–1846), state legislator,[24] Salem merchant, partner, Devereux, Pickman & Silsbee,[25] wealthiest Salem merchant of his day [26][27]
  • Sarah Parker Remond, abolitionist
  • Aaron Richmond, impresario and artist manager
  • Samuel Sewall, magistrate
  • Brian St. Pierre, QB for the Carolina Panthers
  • Roger Williams, theologian
  • Steve Thomas, former host of PBS's "This Old House"
  • Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric grew up in Salem, attended Salem High School

Notable Colonists  []

First Families of Salem[]

  • Alderman family
  • Archer family
  • Burrill family
  • Burroughs familly
  • Corwin family
  • Crowninshield family
  • Derby family
  • English family
  • Flint family
  • Gardner family
  • Gaskoyne family
  • Hathorne family Hutchinson family
  • Hodges family
  • Holyoke family
  • Kichen family
  • Lambert family
  • Macmallin family
  • Manning family
  • Needham family
  • Nurse family
  • Pickering family
  • Porter family
  • Prince family
  • Putnam family
  • Ropes family
  • Sargent family
  • Skerry family
  • Stone family
  • Town family
  • Turner family
  • Williams family

Wealthiest Families of Salem[]

Colonial[]

  • Derby
  • Crowninshield
  • Putnam
  • Turner

Sister cities[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ "Find a County". National Association of Counties. http://www.naco.org/Counties/Pages/FindACounty.aspx. Retrieved 2011-06-07. 
  2. ^ Richard Gildrie, Salem Massachusetts 1626-1683, 4.
  3. ^ Albert Christophe. The Romantic Story of the Puritan Fathers: And Their Founding of NewBoston. http://books.google.com/books?id=648_AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=dorothy+talbye&source=web&ots=3yh_eFoua8&sig=gTpgLoNymx_uf9umOuCnSXtz19o#PPR5,M1. Retrieved 2007-11-14. 
  4. ^ The Loyalists of Massachusetts and the Other Side of the American Revolution, James H. Stark, James H. Stark, Boston, 1910
  5. ^ John Fraylor. Salem Maritime National Historic Park http://www.nps.gov/revwar/about_the_revolution/privateers.html
  6. ^ Salem history
  7. ^ "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2011-02-12. http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html. Retrieved 2011-04-23. 
  8. ^ The Salem Ferry
  9. ^ "Census". United States Census. http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1850a-02.pdf.  page 36
  10. ^ Campbell Gibson. "Population of the 100 largest cities and other urban places in the United States: 1790 to 1990". United States Bureau of the Census. http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0027/twps0027.html. 
  11. ^ "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. http://factfinder.census.gov. Retrieved 2008-01-31. 
  12. ^ Salem News
  13. ^ Salem News
  14. ^ Salem News
  15. ^ Harpies Bizarre
  16. ^ Salem News
  17. ^ Jailkeeper's house rebuilt
  18. ^ "Medal of Honor recipients". United States Army. http://www.history.army.mil/html/moh/indianwars.html. Retrieved 2010-11-19. 
  19. ^ Hasket Derby Pickman, Harvard College class of 1815 and son of Col. Benjamin Pickman Esq. and his wife Anstiss Derby, daughter of merchant Elias Hasket Derby and his wife Elizabeth Crowninshield, died the year he graduated from Harvard.[1]
  20. ^ The Native Ministry of New Hampshire, Nathan Franklin Carter, Rumford Printing Co., Concord, N.H., 1906
  21. ^ The Life of Timothy Pickering, Vol. II, Octavius Pickering, Charles Wentworth Upham, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1873
  22. ^ Leavitt was minister of a splinter church of Salem's First Church. Upon Leavitt's untimely death in 1762, the church elected to call itself 'the Church of which the Rev. Mr. Dudley Leavitt was late Pastor.'[2]
  23. ^ Naturalization papers of Benjamin Pickman, Dudley Leavitt Pickman Papers, Phillips Library Collection, Peabody Essex Museum, pem.org/museum
  24. ^ Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court, Russell, Cutler & Co., Boston, 1812-1815
  25. ^ George Nichols, Salem Shipmaster and Merchant, George Nichols, Martha Nichols, Reprinted by Ayers Publishing, 1970
  26. ^ Yankee India: American Commercial and Cultural Encounters with India in the Age of Sail, 1784–1860, Susan S. Bean, Peabody Essex Museum, Published by Peabody Essex Museum, 2001
  27. ^ History of Essex County, Massachusetts, Vol. I, Douglas Hamilton Hurd, J.W. Lewis & Co., Philadelphia, 1888
  28. ^ Chico considers establishing permanent sister city guidelines - Chico Enterprise Record
  29. ^ This resulted from the affiliation between Salem's Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) and the Ota Folk Museum in Japan.

See Also[]

References[]


Further reading[]

  • Richard J. Morris. Redefining the Economic Elite in Salem, Massachusetts, 1759-1799: A Tale of Evolution, Not Revolution. The New England Quarterly, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Dec., 2000), pp. 603-624.
  • In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, Mary Beth Norton, Knopf, 2002, hardcover, 432 pages, ISBN 0-375-40709-X

External links[]

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Coordinates: 42°31′01″N 70°53′55″W / 42.516845, -70.898503


This page uses content from the English language Wikipedia. The original content was at Salem, Massachusetts. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with this Familypedia wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons License.
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