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Salem, MA

Always Wear A Helmet

In the 350 years since Salem was founded, the city's history and fame have centered around witches, sea captains and merchants, prominent statesmen, and a native son named Nathaniel Hawthorne. The House of the Seven Gables, which was the setting and title for one of Hawthorne's novels, is visited by thousands of tourists each year. Historic buildings and sites in the Derby and Pickering Wharf areas are evidence of Salem's past fame as a foremost American seaport. The Peabody Museum, with maritime and natural history collections on display, opened in 1799, and is the oldest museum in America. Also a popular tourist attraction is the Essex Institution Museum Complex, where many of Salem's beautiful old homes can be toured and fascinating historic memorabilia have been preserved.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SALEM

Salem is one of America’s oldest and most fascinating cities. Originally called Naumkeag, or “comfort haven,” Salem was settled in 1626 by a small band of Englishmen led by Roger Conant. Three years later the settlement became part of the new Massachusetts Bay Colony, and, in 1643, Salem was designated the shire town of Essex County.

During the “witchcraft delusion” of 1692, hysteria rose among some young girls who accused more than 150 men and women of witchcraft. The accusers claimed that certain friends’ and neighbors’ shapes or specters tormented tem. The infamous Witchcraft Trials of 1692 sentenced nineteen innocent people to death, 18 by hanging and one by crushing.

Governor William Phipps eventually appointed a new court that did not allow “spectral” evidence, ending the tragic chapter in Salem’s past. Thanks to its burgeoning codfish trade with the West Indies and Europe and despite the disruptive impact of the Witchcraft Trials of 1692 and the French and Indian Wars, the town grew and prospered.

By the time of the American Revolution in 1775, it was the seventh-largest city in the colonies. Salem’s fleet contributed mightily to the patriotic war effort, capturing or sinking 455 British vessels. At the war’s end, Salem merchants began trading in the rich East Indies.

Over the next 30 years, Indian silks, Sumatran pepper, and other profitable imports formed the foundation of many a Salem fortune. That new-found wealth was reflected in magnificent federal mansions, many designated by Salem’s noted architect-carver Samuel McIntire that appeared on the city’s streets. It also spawned a number of important cultural institutions, including the Essex Institute, the Peabody Museum, and the Salem Athenaeum. Among the Athenaeum’s subscribers was an aspiring Salem writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1863), who would later pen The House of the Seven Gables and The Scarlet Letter.

Hawthorne’s rise to fame in the mid-19^th century coincided with Salem’s incorporation as a city (1836) and its metamorphosis into an important manufacturing and retail center. Irish and French Canadian immigrants poured into Salem to work in its new leather and shoe factories or at the Naumkeag Steam Cotton Company on Stage Point. The Italians and Eastern Europeans followed in the early 1900s, and by the time of the great Salem Fire of 1914, which destroyed more than 400 buildings and left 3,500 families homeless, the city’s population had swelled to more than 40,000.

Salem was able to survive the Great Depression, which enveloped the nation in the 1930s, because of its balanced economy. The decades following the depression saw the city’s retail center grow into one of the busiest in New England, while companies like Hytron, Sylvania, and Parker Brothers Games gradually replaced Salem’s declining shoe and leather industries as major employers.

Preservation and rehabilitation stimulated Salem’s budding tourism industry in the 1970s. That industry, along with health care (the North Shore Medical Center) and higher education (Salem State College) became the foundations of Salem’s economic base.

Today the Salem community works to ensure Salem’s future through preserving the history that has molded the city. As you explore Salem, you are sure to discover a little history in every step.

Salem Timeline – 375 Years of History

1626	Roger Conant arrived in Naumkeag with the first English settlers.
1620s	In the late 1620s Naumkeag was renamed Salem, which means “peace,” because the English and the Native Americans coexisted so peacefully.
1636	The first Salem ship sailed to the West Indies to trade salted cod.
1686	Salem Selectmen purchased the land that is today Salem, Peabody and Danvers from the heirs of the Naumkeag tribe for 20 pounds.
1692	The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 condemned 20 innocent people and accused and jailed hundreds.
1775	The first armed resistance of the Revolution happened in Salem when the Salem militia blocked British Lt. Col. Leslie and his men from their mission to capture ammunition stored in Salem.
1776	Salem-based privateers captured or sank 445 British vessels during the Revolutionary War.
1813	Salem Captain William Driver was the first to refer to the American flag as “Old Glory.”
1850	Nathaniel Hawthorne completed The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne’s novel The House of the Seven Gables would be published one year late, in 1851.
1873	The last Salem-based merchant ship to sail to the Orient returned, ending a once-fabulous era of wealth and trade.
1877	Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone for the first time at the Lyceum Hall in Salem. Bell telephoned his assistant Thomas Watson in Boston.
1914	The Great Salem Fire tour through the city, talking 1,800 buildings. 15,000 people lost their homes; remarkably, no lives were lost.
1938	The Salem waterfront was designated a National Historic Site under the National Park Service.
1949	The Salem-based Parker Brothers Corporation introduced Clue®, the world’s most famous “whounit” board game.
1948	The Jonathon Corwin House, restored by the new Historic Salem, Inc. preservation society, was opened to the public by the City of Salem as The Witch House, an historic house museum representing the Salem Witch Trials’ era.
1970	The television series Bewitched filmed in Salem, generating national attention for Salem’s “Witch History.”
1971	The Chestnut Street Historic District was established. This was Salem’s first historic district. Today it is known as the McIntire Historic District.
1982	Salem hosted the first Salem Haunted Happenings festival. It lasted for one day.
1992	The Salem Witch Trials Memorial was dedicated by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel to commemorate the tercentenary anniversary of the trials.
2001	Construction on Friendship, a full-size replica of the 1797 East India Merchant Ship, is completed.

Secrets of Salem

The first Dixon graphite pencil was made in Salem.

Salem is the birthplace of the National Guard. The American volunteer militia held its first muster on Salem Common in 1636.

Salem native Elizabeth Peabody opened the nation’s first kindergarten on Boston’s Beacon Hill.

In 1662 a Quaker teenager ran naked through the streets to protest the bareness of Puritan religion. She is believed to be America’s first streaker. The Judge in town at the time sentenced her, her mother and sister to be stripped to the waist and taken by horse-drawn cart along the same route she ran earlier. It’s rumored in town that he did this since he missed seeing her earlier run!

Salem ships were the first to trade with Arabia, Australia, Burma, India, Russia, Sumatra and Zanzibar.

Polish Brigadier General Casimir Polaski arrived in the United States to assist Washington in the Revolutionary War via Salem Harbor on July 13, 1777.

E.W. Hobbes at Salem Willows was the first in New England to sell ice cream cones.

Playwright Arthur Miller researched his play The Crucible in Salem.

A portion of the Howard Street Cemetery, which was founded in 1801, was dedicated to Salem’s African American population.

Brigham Young’s daughter Vilate attended school in Salem during the 1840s.

American Impressionist painter Frank Benson (1862-1951) was born in Salem.

The Pickering House at 18 Broad Street was occupied by the same family longer than any other house in America.

Salem is home to the first Protestant Church organized in American.

Photos Around Salem



Custom House Other Derby Wharf Tour Photos	The Derby House, home of Elias Hasket Derby (1739-1799), Salem's most prominent merchant and America's first millionaire.
Above photos taken at Derby Wharf, Salem Maritime National Historic Site. Ship is the Friendship.
*Friendship of Salem* Friendship is a reconstruction of a 1797 three-masted Salem "East Indiaman," a type of merchant ship that made Salem a leader in opening trade with the Far East in the years after the American Revolution. The original Friendship was built by shipbuilder Enos Briggs, known for the frigate Essex, at his shipyard across the South River from today's Salem Maritime National Historic Site. The three-masted, square-rigged, 342-ton vessel was registered to merchants Jerathmiel Peirce and Aaron Waite of Salem. Friendship made 15 voyages around the world, trading for pepper, exotic spices, sugar, coffee, and other goods. Among her destinations were China, Java, Sumatra, Madras, the West Indies, Venezuela, London, Hamburg, St. Petersburg, Cadiz, and Livorno. While returning from Archangel, Russia, during the War of 1812, she was captured by the British and was condemned and sold. The new Friendship hull was constructed in Albany, New York. It is being completed and outfitted by National Park Service staff and volunteer shipwrights as well as Dion's Yacht yard at Central Wharf, one of three historic wharves at Salem Maritime National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park System. The public will be able to see the continuing work in progress. The reconstruction is based on a model of the original Friendship at the Peabody Essex Museum, as well as three paintings and numerous documents, including the logs of the ship's voyages. In addition to the Federal funding provided by Congress, the funds for construction have been raised by The Salem Partnership, Inc., from local, county, state, and private sources. Fund-raising is on-going. Contributions are welcome at The Salem partnership, 6 Central Street, Salem, MA 01970; (978) 741-8100. Friendship will be managed as a partnership between the National Park Service and the Friends of Friendship, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation organized by The Salem Partnership. When completed, the ship will be open for tours at historic Derby Wharf as part of the programs of Salem Maritime National Historic Site and will sail as an ambassador ship for the Essex National Heritage Area. The Friends of Friendship will coordinate its sailing program.
	Peabody Museum (admission to museum also includes a tour of some of the early homes in the downtown Salem area owned by the museum). Below is a write-up on Captain William Driver (a distant relative on my mother's side) whose portrait is on display in the Museum.
WILLIAM DRIVER (1803 – 1886) “The greatest kindness and humanity becoming a man and a Christian.” Bounty Descendents Unhappy with his apprenticeship to a blacksmith, William Driver of Salem went to sea at the age of 14. On his sixth voyage, he developed a method of curing beche de mer, a type of sea slug and a valuable commodity in the China and East Indies trades. He spent four years in the Fiji Islands, expanding the trade in this product and in tortoise shell. In 1831, Driver was promoted to the rank of Master for the sailing vessel Charles Doggett. Among his adventures aboard this vessel was a battle with New Zealand cannibals and the transportation of 65 descendents of the Bounty mutineers from Tahiti back to Pitcairn Island. After retiring from the sea in 1837, Driver moved to Nashville, Tennessee, remaining loyal to the Union cause during the Civil War. He personally raised the American Flag which he named “Old Glory” over the Capitol building when the Union forces took Nashville in 1862.
Portrait of Captain William Driver	Peabody Museum Exhibits

	Trolley entering Chestnut Street Doorways of Salem


Salem Witch Museum Entrance to the Witches of Salem	Old Town Hall

Please click below to see a list of those who died during the Salem Witch Trials. Witch Trials Tercentenary Memorial Each stone has the name of one of the accused, how and when they died.



House of the Seven Gables made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne.	Oldest Candy Factory in the U.S. Early in the 19th century an English family, Spencer by name, sailed for this country. On the passage they lost all their worldly goods in a shipwreck and the family arrived in Salem in a rather destitute condition. They took up a residence in North Salem, on Buffum Street and such were their privations that their neighbors determined to offer assistance. It became known that Mrs. Spencer was a candy maker, so a barrel of sugar was donated. It was this barrel of sugar which laid the foundations of the new well-known "Salem Gibralter" business. In the early 1800s Salem sea captains would set out to sea with the hulls of their ships packed with goods to trade overseas. One of Salem's most popular products was the hard candy made by Madame Spencer. The fantastic barley candy and rock candy, Gibralters and Blackjacks earned Madam Spencer the title, "Queen of Gibralters" and Salem became known as the "Candy Capital" of the world! While Salem's ships carried the sweets around the globe, Madame Spencer stayed at home in Salem and sold her candies door to door from the back of a horse-drawn wagon.