Quick History Stops: Salem, MA

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During my trip to Salem back in October, I made several quick history stops around the city. All of these stops are free to view from the sidewalk, and several are included in an audio tour. Stops included an alternative medicine clinic, the statue of the city’s founder, a collection of historic building, a 17th century cemetery, and witchcraft tourist traps.

Entrance to Peabody Essex Museum; outside on a red brick piazza looking up at a towering glass atrium connecting a gray stone Greek Revival building on the right and a red brick Federal style building on the left. Pickering House in Salem, MA; a double-gabled post-medieval house covered in thick gray paint. Gothic Revival fencing surrounds the house. An american flag hangs from a round window near the top of a gable facing the street.

When walking between the waterfront of Salem Maritime National Historical Park and the Gedney House, I passed Lydia Pinkham Memorial Building. I had first learned about Pinkham a few weeks earlier while at LynnArts | Lynn Museum & Historical Society, where I had seen packaging for Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compote, a medicine debuted in 1875 and acting like women’s multivitamin plus a painkiller due to the high level of alcohol. Pinkham’s equally entrepreneurial daughter, Aroline Chase Pinkham Gove, built the two-story red brick structure in an unusual maritime style back in 1922. The clinic continues to operate today.

Lydia Pinkham Memorial Building; a two story red brick building in a maritime New England design set on a busy street corner.

Among my favorite stops is a statue of Roger Conant who settled in Salem way back in 1626, when he was thirty-four years old. He moved to the area to escape the religious fanaticism of Massachusetts Bay Colony and violent actions of Miles Standish at Plymouth Colony. He happens to be a direct ancestor of mine through my mother’s mother’s mother. Conant died in 1679, fortunately missing the Salem Witch Trials by eleven years. The Conant Family Association commissioned famous English-American sculpture Henry Hudson Kitson to create a statue of their (my!) ancestor in 1913. Kitson also created the Lexington Minute Man statue on the Lexington Battle Green in Lexington, MA, while his equally talented wife, Theo Alice Ruggles Kitson, designed one version of The Hiker, a memorial statue series commemorating soldiers from the Spanish American War and found across the United States.

Statue of Roger Conant; looking up at a recently cleaned bronze statue of middle age white man wearing 17th century winter clothing, including a wide brimmed hat and a floor length coat. Sign for Roger Conant statue; a bronze sign in the shape of a shield stating the name, birth, and death of Roger Conant, including a length quote.

Built in 1841, the County Commissioners Building is being restored by Salem Redevelopment Authority. This mid 19th century courthouse was built in a neoclassical or Greek Revival style, with a pair of stone pillars in its two story entryway. It stands next door to the Salem Superior Court Building, a red brick structure built and expanded from 1861 through 1891. Both buildings are located on Federal Street, part of the walk from the MBTA parking garage to the Salem Armory Visitor Center. Built in 1838, City Hall in Downtown Salem is another Greek Revival building, with gray stones to match the early courthouse. The hall is still home to the city government, with its latest renovation in 2012 to 2013 at a cost of $2 million.

County Commissioners Building in Salem, MA; a mid 19th century courthouse in the Greek Revival style, with a pair of stone pillars in a two story entryway. The entire building is made of gray stone. The date 1841 is made of raised stone on the bottom edge of the pediment. City Hall in Salem, MA; an early to mid 19th century Greek Revival building with two stories made of gray stone. The name City Hall is inlaid with golden letters above the middle second story window. A golden eagle is set on the top of the building.

To explore the beautiful historic streets of Salem, I listed to PEM Walks, a free audio tour created by the Peabody Essex Museum for its building collection. John Ward House, one of many Salem buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, is a First Period (early colonial or post-medieval) home built in three stages by John Ward between his arrival in 1684 and his death in 1732 at eighty years old, meaning that parts of the house existed during the Salem Witch Trials. The First Quaker Meeting House of Salem was built around the same time, in 1688. Preserved by historian Sydney Perley with help from the Essex Institute, a precursor to PEM, back in the 1950s, the tiny, adorable one-room building is painted a rich red and sits in a secluded garden area away from the busyness of Salem streets.

John Ward House; a classic First Period two gabled house with brown painted clapboard siding. First Quaker Meeting House of Salem; a tiny, one room First Period building painted rich red and set in a garden. PEM Walks at First Quaker Meeting House sign; a blue sign with information about PEM Walks, including a URL and a QR code to listen to the walking tour.

Moving forward in history to 1804, Essex County’s favorite Federal style architect, Samuel McIntire, built the stunning Gardner-Pingree House for wealthy merchant John Gardner. The pair made an ideal architectural match, as both were highly connected to the upper echelons of Boston society. McIntire also created Lyman Estate of Waltham, MA; Orchard Hill Estate in South Danvers, MA, part of which became Phillips House in Salem; Hawkes House in Salem; and a carved golden eagle for Lynn Academy in Lynn, MA (now on view at the Lynn Museum). Gardner was the nephew of famous merchant Elias Hasket Derby. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Place with a triplicate surname on the documentation, Gardner-White-Pingree House, but the middle surname is crossed, likely because of the tragedy that befell that owner. In 1830, the home came the scene of a murder, as Richard Crowninshield bludgeoned the homeowner, eighty-year-old Captain Joseph White. Naturally, PEM keeps the club used for the crime in its collection. Around the same time, in 1825, the East India Marine Society commissioned local architect Thomas Waldron Sumner to build similarly named East India Marine Hall to use as a rental space and a museum, which later merged into PEM.

East India Marine Hall; a two story Greek Revival building made of tan stone. The first story windows are rectangular, while the second story windows have a semicircular top. A round window intersects the center of the pediment. Just below the pediment are the words EAST INDIA MARINE HALL in a serif, all caps font. A large ship anchor stands in front of the building. East India Marine Hall Sign; the top half of the sign is an illustration of the inside of the hall from when it was first built in the early 19th century. Below is text describing the history of the hall. Gardner-Pingree House; a three story red brick Federal style home with black shutters and surrounded by an ornate cast iron fence.

While the Pickering House is open for tours, I did not have not have the chance to tour a landmark that claims to be Salem’s Oldest House and even America’s Oldest House, with a construction date of 1660. The house does have the double gabled style of John Ward House built around 1684 but is covered in a thick layer of gray Gothic Revival paint. The website has no evidence of dendrochronology to back up this claim, and also includes a claim that one resident, John Pickering VI, “spoke twenty languages”. (His Find a Grave page instead says “familiar with 22 languages” owing to his profession as a linguist. I’m still skeptical.) Across the street is the Burial Ground or Broad Street Cemetery, initially used to inter English colonists beginning around 1655. The graveyard is well-kept, and headstone bear the family skull and angel wings. I took a note from the Victorians and had a quiet picnic under a tree in the cemetery.

Pickering House Sign; a rectangular informational sign with a Neoclassical pediment despite belonging to a First Period House. Broken gravestone at Broad Street Cemetery in Salem, MA; the right section of the gravestone is missing. The header displays a skull with angel wings. Sign for Broad Street Cemetery; the plain white sign with black text reads Burial Ground c. 1655 and lists notable internees.

The Witch House or Judge Jonathan Corwin House was traditionally believed to have been built in 1642, predating Pickering House by 18 years. However, the Massachusetts Historical Commission currently lists the house as constructed in 1675, the same year Judge Corwin bought the property. The survey comes from July of 1995, predating me by a few months, and no dendrochronological evidence supports that date. Regardless of the true age of the building, its name comes from Judge Corwin’s position ruling over the Salem Witch Trials, and the oral history that some preliminary hearings may have occurred at the site. Equally interesting is a statue representing the main character from the television show Bewitched. The character of Samantha, played by the actress Elizabeth Montgomery, rides a broomstick through a crescent moon. The statue is a cute tourist attraction and a great photo opportunity even if you, like me, have not seen the show.

Witch House or Judge Jonathan Corwin House; a three gable First Period House with black painted clapboard siding. A long line of festive people stretches around the side of the house and down the sidewalk. Statue of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha from Bewitched; bronze statue of a young White woman with shoulder length hair wearing a dress and rinding a broomstick through a crescent moon.

Finishing off the quick history stops is signage connecting Salem to a city of a similar size located in Japan. Since 1985, Ota in the Tokyo metropolitan area has corresponded with Salem, beginning with a connection between PEM and the Ota Ward Folk Museum. The cities have been sisters since 1991, with the thirtieth anniversary celebrated in 2021.

Kiosk displaying things to do in Salem, MA; photographs of houses, boats, and a lighthouse with a map and informational text. Sign for the Salem and Ota Sister City 30th Anniversary; the sign displays the American and Japanese flags, a map of Japan and Tokyo, and informational text in both English and Japanese, along with a QR code for additional information.
Location: Salem, MA, USA