November 30, 2023

A Scottish Photo Feast for St. Andrew’s Day

By daseger

I’m just returned from a long trip to Scotland, during which I took hundreds of photographs, and today marks the feast of the Scottish patron Saint Andrew, so that’s the post! I promise more substantive essays in the future, but I have re-entered at the busiest time of the semester and my Salem’s Centuries manuscript is due in just over a month, so these photos will have to suffice for now. We spent most of our time in Edinburgh, but also covered a wide swath of south central Scotland, including Glasgow, Oban and Fort William in the west, and St. Andrews in the east. I spent my junior year abroad at that city’s university, and while I’ve been back several times since, it’s always great to go back. I really explored Edinburgh on this trip, both Old Town and New and some adjoining neighborhoods, so it was hard to pick my favorite photos of the capital, but I think I’ll favor the light. All the cities and towns we visited were aglow with Christmas trim, and every other day the sun bathed the land-and street-scapes for several intermittent hours: with moody mornings and darkness descending at 4pm, the light is very precious.

In Edinburgh:

Interior shots are of two National Trust properties: Gladstone’s Land in the Old Town and the Georgian House in the new. Of course the modern embellished building is the relatively new Scottish Parliament, about which I learned a lot. Christmas markets and fairs in every available green space!

 

Glasgow:

Glasgow Cathedral and Council Chambers are quite something, as are the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery at Glasgow University. Charles Rennie McIntosh immersion is possible.

 

Western Coast from Oban to Fort William and through the Highlands:

 

 

Fife villages on the East Coast, and St. Andrews:

So, lots more to write about, including whiskey, GIN, Jacobites, McIntosh, Princes Street, old and new architecture, the power of Outlander, closes, courts and corridors, and hedgehogs, but this postcard post will have to do for now: Happy Feast of St. Andrew day!

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Travel

November 15, 2023

Before, During and After the Revolution

By daseger

I have been thinking about Salem during the American Revolution quite a bit over the past few months. It’s yet another era in Salem’s history which is tragically under-represented, and we’re going to try to correct that with our forthcoming book. We have one whole chapter on the Revolution, and a shorter piece on privateers, but Salem really deserves an entire book on its revolutionary role. And why our city has a “real pirates” of Cape Cod museum and no exhibition on privateers when Salem supplied more sailors and ships than any other American port remains inexplicable to me. In any case, our chapter on the Revolution, written by Hans Schwartz, is really interesting: his thesis is that the Revolution was revolutionary for Salem, which sounds simplistic but is not. He examines the social changes in Salem during and after the Revolution, using houses and neighborhoods as one way to illustrate transitions. I didn’t agree with all of his analysis (which is presumptuous of me since he knows far more about this era than I do, but I guess editors need to be presumptuous), but it certainly got me thinking about houses built in Salem in the Revolutionary era. I decided to take a little tour of before, during and after. Federal Street seemed the best place to start.

The first three houses illustrate a pre-revolutionary style: two-story boxes, square or rectangular. They get additions and embellishments later on, but they are stalwart, well-built houses from the pre-Revolutionary era. They make me wonder: what were their builders thinking? Oh, this will all blow over? Obviously building a house is an expression of hope and confidence, or maybe I’m just projecting too much of a modern mindset. And when the war is not quite over, we start to see the Salem Federals built: larger three-story buildings that just exude confidence—we’re winning (lots of houses built in 1782, including the Peirce-Nichols House below) or we’ve won. 

Does style follow politics? I’m just not certain: I think fashion might, but architecture? Most of the characteristic Federals for which Salem is famous were built at the beginning of the nineteenth century, not the tail end of the eighteenth. And if you widen your search for Revolutionary-era houses to all of downtown Salem, an architectural conservatism is immediately apparent: the first house below, on Turner Street, was built in 1771, but it’s similiar to the two yellow houses off the Common and Derby Street built ten and twenty years later. And before the Revolution, before the laying out of Chestnut Street in 1805 really, there is no housing segregation, so we are left with an interesting mix of architectural styles: so very evident along Essex and Derby Streets.

Building in 1779-1780: now that’s confidence. Elias Hasket and Derby began construction on Salem’s Maritime’s Hawkes House in the latter year, as their family had outgrown the Derby House next door.

I’m off to Scotland on Friday so no posts for a few weeks: “see” you after Thanksgiving! In the meantime, if you’re interested in Salem architecture, tickets for Historic Salem’s Christmas in Salem tour on December 2-3, featuring houses in the Salem Common neighborhood, are available here.

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Architecture, Salem

November 8, 2023

Salem’s Bêche-de-mer Boom

By daseger

Back in Salem until I take off for Scotland at the end of next week. I’ve got lots of teaching, writing, and organizing to do, but I ignored all of my obligations last weekend and read a fascinating book about early American trade in the South Pacific: Nancy Shoemaker’s Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles. I couldn’t put it down! It gave me all sorts of insights into a very particular and profitable trade dominated by Salem merchants and sea captains in the 1830s and 1840s: in bêche–de–mer or sea cucumbers, highly sought after in China for medicinal and culinary uses. Trepang (the primary eastern term) were and are sea cucumbers (often called sea slugs in the 19th century) which were processed in a special way, still in use today: boiled in sea water, placed in baskets and washed again, then dried in smokehouses. A Pacific example of the importance of dried seafood in world history, the bêche-de-mer trade was characterized by boom and bust phases over its long history due to overfishing in response to the sustained demand, but in the 1830s and 1840s Salem traders were very dominant. Shoemaker provides her readers with an appendix of Salem ships engaged in the trade, from ship Clay in 1827 to bark Dragon in 1857, with all sorts of familiar Salem names on board. William Driver, of Old Glory fame, then second mate on the Clay, claimed that he was the first “white man” (not westerner, or American, or Salemite) to execute the bêche-drying process sucessfully, thanks to the instruction of a band of pirates from Manilla. This trade has it all, believe me: daring captains working for equally-daring shipowners engaged in a risky trade that was potentially lucrative but also completely dependent on native “cooperation,” profit-seeking pirates and bureaucrats, a range of nineteenth-century ethnographic attitudes, tales of cannibalism and violence, big money.

Still very much in demand: bêche-de-mer at a Hong Kong market, photo by G. Clayden

My colleague Dane Morrison works in the field, and I can understand why he finds it so enticing: the stories and the sources are amazing, lending great narratives to important historical analyses of trade, imperialism, and cross-cultural influences and interaction. Using a micro-historical approach, Shoemaker explores American-Fijian encounters through the lives of three people: David Whippy, a Nantucket whaler who remained in Fiji and became an extremely important intermediary, Mary D. Wallis, the wife of Salem sea captain Bejamin Wallis who accompanied her husbanad to Fiji in the 1840s and later wrote about her experiences (as an anonymous “Lady”) there in Life in Feegee. Five Years Among the Cannibals (1851), and John B. Williams, son of a prominent Salem commercial family who tried to make his own fortune in the islands through a more bureaucratic route. So we have quite a Salem focus here: it’s another reminder that the historical Salem experience is played out in Salem and abroad. Williams in particular offers a very interesting perspective: born into money and raised on Chestnut Street (at #19) he was desperate to make his own fortune, beause “to go home poor its a curse in Salem.” These stories of Massachusetts men (and one woman) abroad illustrate how the entire bêche-de-mer trade was dependent on Fijian labor, coerced by native elites with whom the Salem traders negotiated and paid off. So many interesting anecdotes emerge from Shoemaker’s analysis of the exploitative yet intimate relationships tied to this trade: a powerful chieftain named Cokanauto whom Salem captain John Eagleston nicknamed Phillips after his employer Stephen C. Phillips back home (apparently it stuck), a young native woman named Phebe who became the servant (slave???) of Mrs. Wallis, a “Feegee dwarf, about four feet in height, —- said to have been a man of some distinction at home,” transported to Salem on the ship Eliza. (Shoemaker tells us that he made it back home). Captain Eagleston, who made four voyages to Fiji (on the Peru, Emerald, Mermaid, and Leonidas) from 1831-1841, called “his” bêche-de-mer operations “our little city.”

Cokanauto in Charles Wilkes’ United States Exploring Expedition (1845): 3:122.

The Zotoff (1922 lithograph) and  Emerald returning to Salem, (c. 1950 postcard issued by the Salem Chamber of Commerce).

Shoemaker’s focus is appropriately on Fiji, but it would be nice to explore the impact of this trade on Salem: the sources are numerous as many participants, Eagleston among them, memorialized their particpation in logs, journals, and reminiscences. I’m always looking for narratives to counter Salem’s storied post-1820 decline, as it seems to imply that merchants and seafarers just sat on their hands looking at empty wharves like Nathaniel Hawthorne. I’m not digging into the economics here, but Shoemaker does, and the fortunes that could be made from this trade were astounding! We can see the material legacy of the trade among the Oceanic collections at the Peabody Essex Museum here in Salem, as all of the bêche-le-mer traders were members of the East India Marine Society and thus brought stuff home, but I want to know more.

Bure Kalou (Spirit House), Fiji. Peabody Essex Museum. Gift of Joseph Winn Jr., 1835. 

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem

November 1, 2023

Salem in the Press, 2023 Halloween Edition

By daseger

Since I’ve been living outside of Salem for the past month, only coming in for classes and shooting right back to Maine on my (not-so) secret routes, I followed the press coverage on seasonal tourism a bit more closely than in years past. I set up a google alert and got notifications nearly every day. There are always a lot of what I would call obligatory articles about Salem at this time of year focusing on crowds and traffic but it struck me that in this particularly year the coverage was a bit more negative, though as you know, I’m not a Haunted Happenings fan, so I could have been reading what I wanted to read. I will be the first to admit extreme bias in this realm, but I tried to read every article which came my way several times, and there was definitely an underlying tension in several, between the “success” of Salem’s tourism and its costs, whether they were traffic, trash, or exorbitant short-term rentals. For me, the tone seemed to be set in late August, when the Salem Witch Museum was identified by as the #2 tourist trap in the entire world by USA Today: this generated more stories in the regional press, concluding with the recent “visit” of the Boston Globe to the “Museum.” This article is not especially probing in its exploration of either a for or against position on the attraction’s rating, and gives a rather blase tourist the last word: “you have to expect it to be a tourist trap. It’s Salem in October. Isn’t that kind of the whole point?” Indeed.  The Globe featured a stronger, more focused article in mid-October on the skyrocketing prices of Salem airbnbs, which was no surprise to anyone who lives in Salem. They’re everywhere, even though municipal regulations attempted to limit their number a few years back. The article quoted Mayor Dominick Pangallo as asserting that there are “250 t0 300 airbnbs” in Salem, while the rental website listed considerably more units in October.

Of course the victims of 1692 were NOT witches, but Airbnb puts a special focus on “haunted” or themed Salem rentals in October, like this one featuring a “100% that witch” bedroom./Airbnb

This year’s offering from the Washington Post is longer than the Globe pieces, but nevertheless manages to say very little. I don’t understand its title, “Salem bet big on spooky season. Now witch girlies are everywhere,” nor do I discern anything close to a theme or thesis. It’s all over the place with lots of quotes from locals, including my colleague, the president of our preservation organization, and several Salem shopkeepers. But none of the quotes seem to have much context, including one which made me see red after (apparently) confining twentieth-century Salem to the simplistic characterization of a “horrible factory town.” This is the tourist industry’s party line: witchcraft tourism saved Salem. After a summer of reading and writing about the past century for our book, I just can’t stand to hear it anymore–it erases the hopes, dreams, activities and achievements of generations. It’s a falsehood, but also a quote out of context according those who offered this characterization. So now I’m wondering what it, and the entire article, means. I can tell that my colleague is presenting an argument here—about the balance of history and entertainment, the need to discern the authentic from the fake, and tourism’s toll on Salem’s residents, but his quotes are so strung out that I couldn’t quite grasp it–and I know him! And then there are the captions, like the one for the photo below: “people dress up in Salem in late October.”  Wow, really? I have news for you, Washington Post, people dress up in Salem in late July.

Washington Post

The Wall Street Journal’s Salem story, “Living in the Middle of Halloween Central is Not Wicked Fun,” is much tighter and much better. And as you can tell from its title, more negative with its focus on the experience of residents. It’s far more historical in its analysis of how Salem evolved from shame to exploitation in its attitude to the trials, with one Salem tour guide furnishing a very interesting anecdote about Southern slaveholders taunting Salem abolitionists for “burning their grandmothers” and yet another referencing Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher (the spectrum of Salem tour guides never ceases to amaze). And then there is the suggestion of a Florida (of course) tourist, who wants to see “a life-size wooden replica of the gallows where they hung the witches,” in order to “give a real sence of how intense it must have been.” A wary Salem social worker worries that “we’re commercializing a tragedy” and yes, her use of the word “we’re” is spot on: Salem’s exploitative and ever-encroaching tourism not only impacts but also reflects upon all of its residents. The WSJ article was my pick of the litter until a late-season entry appeared on my screen just two days ago: “Salem’s Unholy Bargain” by Lex Pryor, a writer for the sports and popular culture website The Ringer. A BRILLIANT writer: just read this one paragraph, and you’ll be hooked, like me:

It is awesome, financially beneficial, and out of control. In Salem, Halloween is a monthslong beast with an unquenchable appetite. It gobbles late-summer weekends and the first-of-winter snows. There are people who welcome it and people who flee it, but everyone feels it. And though by lineage this creation is at best rarely theirs, by geography and the inalterable stain of days gone by, they are full inheritors of its weight. Because of history—its burdens and allure—a community is held in a periodical and self-imposed state of bedlam. Look beyond the hoopla and you’ll see in Salem a storm, age-old as it is modern, that manages to unmask the knotty, innermost contents of the place and the folks who frequent it.

And one more: a brilliant quip involving bratwursts: the morbid nature of Salem’s appeal isn’t that uncommon among travel destinations. Millions visit the Colosseum every year. Same with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I have never been to Auschwitz, but I am wholly certain that someone is selling something like bratwursts somewhere nearby. Salem is Salem because, unlike those sites, in Salem a plurality of people come for the bratwursts. They arrive in spite of the history, and they have no shame in this.

THEY COME FOR THE BRATWURSTS! And we can’t get away.

Well I could keep quoting this brilliant piece, but you can read it for yourself: you should read it for yourself if you’re interested in what Salem has become. I was going to conclude with the New York Times’ Salem article for this year but it is quite literally so small by comparison with Mr. Pryor’s piece in its focus on the plague of nip bottles on the streets of Salem that I think I’ll just leave you with the link.

NOVEMBER 1!!!

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem

October 24, 2023

Meeting Houses of Rockingham County

By daseger

(Sorry—I have been reading and writing about meeeting houses for the past few months but still do not know if their identifier is one word or two). On this past Sunday, a rather dreary day, the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance sponsored a driving tour of meeting houses in southern Rockingham County, encompassing structures in Hampstead, Danville, Fremont, and Sandown. I drove over from York Harbor, fighting and defeating an inclination to just stay cozy at home. There was an orientation at Hampstead, the only colonial meeting house of the four that features a steeple addition (I envisioned Salem’s third meeting house, built in 1718), and then we were off to Danville, Fremont and Sandown. I have to tell you, I was in awe all day long: these structures are so well-preserved (cherished, really), simple yet elegant, crafted and composed. I remember thinking to myself when I was first set foot in the Danville meeting house: “I’d rather be here than in Europe’s grandest cathedral” (I think because I had just talked to my brother, on his way to Rome).  There’s just something about these places, and the people who care for them. Just to give you a summary of  the orientation that I received: they were built in the eighteenth century as both sacred and secular buildings, as close to the center of their settlements as possible and by very professional craftsmen. In the early nineteenth century, their religious and polical functions were seperated, so they became either churches or town halls or were abandoned altogether as other denominations built their own places of worship. It seems to me that they survived because of the preservation inclinations of their surrounding communities, and we were introduced to each meeting house by contemporary stewards who were clearly following in a long line of succession. Nice to encounter historical stewards rather than salesmen.

Hampstead:

The second floor of the meeting house, with its stage and original window frames propped up against the wall and all manner of remnants of civic celebrations, was really charming.

Danville: (which used to be called Hawke, so that’s the name of the meeting house. Hawke, New Hampshire–how cool a name is that!)

Incredible building—I had to catch my breath! I think it has the highest pulpit of these meeting houses, and there was just something about the contrast of that feature and the simplicity (though super-crafted) of the rest of the interior that was striking.

Fremont (which used to be called Poplin):

This meeting house is the only one remaining in NH with “twin porches” on each side, plus a hearse house (see more here–I have long been obsessed and have been to Fremont before but never inside the meeting house or the hearse house) with a horse-drawn hearse inside plus an extant town pound! Very simple inside, but note the sloping second-floor floors in picture #4 above. Took me a while to get used to those.

Sandown:

The most high-style of this set of meeting houses, particularly impressive from the back, I thought. Very light inside, even on this miserable day. Another high pulpit, and more marbleized pillars. Short steps to the second floor–I’m a size 7!

My photos are a bit grainy–not sure what my settings were, I was shifting them around to get more light, and too awestruck by the architecture to really focus, so in compensation I want to refer to you the wonderful work of photographer Paul Wainwright, who has photographed all of these meeting houses and more. Simply stunning!

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Architecture, New England

October 19, 2023

Blocked Path

By daseger

The house which represents refuge from Salem October is the house I grew up in, a shingle “cottage” in York Harbor which is on the main street but also adjacent to a lane which used to offer access to the Cliff Walk, a constructed path along the water which used to proceed from York Harbor Beach all the way to Cow Beach near Long Sands Beach. When I was younger I would just walk down the lane to the Cliff Walk, turn right to go to Cow Beach, which is rocky but where I saw my first (and now that I think about, only) beached whale, or left to go to York Harbor Beach for swimming and tanning. At that time, York Harbor was dominated by summer houses: we were among the minority of full-time residents. And so even though our way to the Cliff Walk had houses on either side with adjacent lawns, nobody was ever there: one was a cool 1920s house and another a big old gray Victorian. Now the cool 1920s house has been turned into something less aesthetic, and the Victorian replaced by another generic coastal house, and yet another generic coastal house has been added to the conjoined lots, and none of the owners of these houses recognize any pre-existing access to or from the Cliff Walk: the path is blocked and gated. The Cliff Walk itself has also been blocked on the way to Cow Beach by a landowner who has planted a big imposing hedge, and while still beautiful, is a stub of its former self. Let’s take a walk from the Harbor Beach to the hedge, passing by my former entrance to the walk—and the sea.

Looking up at the Cliff Walk from York Harbor Beach; the Reading Room is the first building. There used to be four cottages, but they were removed for Hartley Mason Park/Reservation.

Must be fully warned! As you will see, some parts of the path are in better shape than others.

But the path in front of the Reading Room looks great!

Ok, I get it!

For me, the Cliff Walk was all about private lookouts and houses—it was and is the best way to see some of these cliff-hugging cottages. We always stuck to the path, even when we were mischevious kids.

Not too great over this stretch.

My old entrance and exit.

Nicely-maintained after that but there’s not far to go; that big white house is the home of the hedge-maker and the end of the line.

I’m late to this party as I have not been living here. There have been substantive efforts to defend the public’s prescriptive (historical) right to access the entire path, rounding the corner you see above to Cow Beach. The Town of York has a Cliff Walk Committee, and there is a Friends of the Cliff Walk Facebook group. But the Hedge Guy is standing his ground. It’s complicated, and I need to learn more. I certainly understand the privacy and insurance considerations of those who own homes adjacent, but I miss “my” walk—I guess it’s just a memory lane for now.

Golden Hour, indeed!

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Historic Trails

October 11, 2023

Sanctuary from Salem 2023

By daseger

The last time I wrote that title—with another date, 1693—it was nine years ago and I was referring to Salem Witch Trials refugee Sarah Towne Clayes, who found sanctuary in Framingham, Massachusetts, the hometown of both of my parents. Her house was a decayed relic at that time, with little prospects of rehabilitation, but now it has been completely restored! You can see and read about it here: and kudos to the Framingham History Center and the dedicated preservationists who saved this important house. This time, the refugee is me: I have found sanctuary from Salem in my childhood home in York Harbor, Maine. The comparison references the title only of course: my situation hardly rivals Sarah’s, having lost her two sisters to the mob, running for her life. I feel a bit uncomfortable using the same title, but I also feel fortunate to have a place to live outside of Salem and I wanted to convey that feeling. I had to get out of town: away from the sonorous tour guide right outside my door, the haunted halloween party hall right next door, and all that trash and traffic and all those people in little black felt witch hats and Hocus Pocus t-shirts. I’m still working in Salem, so ironically I have developed just a touch more empathy for Salem tourists as I try to make my way back into town. Just a touch. On the other hand, I feel tremendous empathy for my fellow Salem residents who commute by car outside of town! I’m still working on my contributions to our Salem book (as well as a talk I’m giving at the First Church in Salem next week) so it’s still Salem most of the time, but during my down time I can walk or drive around York and see some beautiful scenery. So that’s pretty much this post: some of my favorite places in York.

Our house, a summer “cottage,” one of many built in the summer colony of York Harbor; the buildings of the Old York Historical Society  in York Village, and the First Parish Church.

The McIntire Garrison on Route 91, and one of many walking trails in York just down the road. Then it’s back to York Harbor, following the river.

A view in Cape Neddick, and more favorite houses–more coming!

York is HUGE, encompassing over 54 square miles according to the US Census Bureau. Even though I grew up here, I don’t know it that well, because it is so huge and because it has grown over the decades: when I was driving around last weekend I discovered lots of new developments and even a new road I knew nothing about. I always thought there were four distinct villages within York—-York Harbor, York Village, York Beach, and Cape Neddick—but apparently there is another, Bald Head. York was settled even before Salem and was the first incorporated city in America. I’ve got a lot of territory to explore and a lot to learn, so stay tuned over the next few weeks as I dig a bit deeper.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Tourism

October 4, 2023

It Happened in Town House Square

By daseger

I didn’t expect to be posting on Salem for a while as I’m on my way to Maine to escape the Halloween Hordes (haven’t quite broken away yet!) but I’m in the midst of writing the last chapter for Salem’s Centuries and I thought posting would help. It’s why I started this blog in the first place, so long ago, to indulge my curiosity about Salem’s lost history and free up my writing from its academic constraints! This last chapter is on the long history of Salem’s center, Town House Square, and I’m just kind of enraptured with everything that happened there, but also haven’t figured out the meaning of it all. I’m trying to use the chapter to summarize the book Salem’s Centuries and also Salem’s centuries by using the Square as kind of a “stage” (at least that’s the word I’m using now). So this will be kind of a sketchy post as it is a work in progress and I welcome all comments and corrections.

I’m happy with my opening paragraph:

A crowd filled Town House Square on a sunny day in June of 2005, cheering and jeering the unveiling of a bronze statue of the actress Elizabeth Montgomery in character as Samantha Stevens of the television series Bewitched. The rationale for the statue was the filming of a few episodes of the series in Salem in 1970, commencing a successful intensification of witchcraft-focused tourism in the view of those who cheered, while less-enthusiastic attendees noted the impropriety of installing a fictitious witch within view of the sites where the victims of 1692 were accused and tried. The Reverend Jeffrey Barz-Snell, 31st pastor of the First Church of Salem, which stood across the street for centuries, was among those who had urged the Salem Redevelopment Authority to reject the statue weeks before“in due deference to our history”and its location: “we must object to this statue being sponsored by the city of Salem, less than twenty yards away from site where we committed, arguably, one of the worst…..crimes in the history of this city.” This argument was countered by the majority opinion, expressed succinctly by Salem City Councilor Thomas Furey: “Salem is the Witch City. I think we all need to lighten up, take a breath, and let Salem have fun.” This moment in time and place is representative of the continuous significance of a small parcel of land, more of an intersection than a square, over Salem’s centuries. The crowd, the expression of civic identity, representations of church, state and commerce: all have had their role to play in Town House Square.

Then I go back to the seventeenth century and start with the English settlement of Salem from 1626, including a brief discussion of how the topography shaped the town and its center at the intersections of its two main thoroughfares, later called Essex and Washington Streets. This became known as Town House Square in the 18th century, and that’s still its place-name, although I wonder how many Salem residents (much less tourists) know it as such today. Then it’s all about meeting houses—-four on the same site: it really took a lot of time to figure out all that building history. First there was a small meeting house built in 1634 which was long thought to be the small building you can see in the rear of Plummer Hall on the Peabody Essex Museum’s campus, a larger though still quite simple structure built around 1670, the first “churchly” meeting house with a belfry, built in 1718, and finally the present building (1826) which long served as the Daniel Low & Co. store after the First Church departed to its present building further along Essex Street. Salem’s meeting houses are confusing, both before and after the First Church splits up into successor congregations: East, North, South and Tabernacle. Thank goodness I don’t have to go into the theological and factional disputes: I’m sticking to Town House Square.

So, once I set the stage, action will begin: here’s what happened in Town House Square, with an emphasis on the public. Obviously lots of other things happened in this vicinity over 400 years but why do some leave a mark or record and others not? And do the happenings in the Square reveal its public nature and role? Just questions I’m asking myself as I am writing.

  1. Lots of Quaker resistance: holding their own meetings right next to the First Church/Meeting House, wearing their hats into the latter, and then in 1662, Quaker Deborah Buffum Wilson, accompanied by her mother and half-sister, walked “naked for a sign” down Washington Street in imitation of an Old Testament episode (Isaiah 20.2-3) and in denunciation of the spiritual “nudity” of those who condemned them. Yes, a NAKED QUAKER walked down Washington Street. This resistance was met with an equal (or larger) measure of persecution, especially by the William Hathorne, who lived right on the Square.
  2. Anti-Royalist protests: by the same William Hathorne, who as Major of the Salem Militia, assembled his armed soldiers in Town House Square for his impassioned speech against the Royal Commissioners present in Massachusetts in 1664, after which he himself was summoned to England on the charge of refusing to submit to royal authority.
  3. The Salem Witch Trials: also happened in Town House Square once the judicial proceedings moved from Salem Village to Salem Town. Close quarters! Judge John Hathorne, son of William, lived right there, as did the Reverend Nicholas Noyes, and victim Bridget Bishop. The combined courthouse/schoolhouse at the northern end of the Square, made of the framing of the 1634 meeting house, separated the properties of Noyes and Bishop, and High Sheriff George Corwin resided at the southern end of the Square.
  4. Salem’s first July 4th: came before the Revolution! There was a huge party at the Town House (sometimes called the provincial Court House, sometimes even the State House—think of the old State House in Boston) to celebrate Sir William Pepperrell, the hero of the Siege of Louisbourg, in 1746. The cannons surounding the Town House were fired after every toast, and there were many.
  5. Big Town Meeting Protests: against British taxation, commencing with the Stamp Act (1765), at the Town House. (But less than 20 years earlier they were celebrating the hero of a war they were not willing to pay for–just a British historian’s perspective.)
  6. Salem’s “Tea Party”: a crate of tea from Boston is seized and burned in Town House Square on October 4, 1774, “in the presence of several hundred spectators.”
  7. Last meeting of the Massachusetts Provincial Assembly: against the orders of Governor Thomas Gage, electing delegates to the new Provincial Congress which met in Concord on October 7, 1774.
  8. Colonel Alexander Leslie and his regiment passed through Town House Square on their way to the North River to recover rumored cannon, and back again on their retreat, February 1775.
  9. Presidential Parades: George Washinton in 1789, and Theodore Roosevelt in 1912.
  10. Salem’s “big digs”: the first railroad tunnel built in 1839, and rebuilt in the later 1950s.
  11. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romanticized view of colonial history set against Town House Square in two stories: A Rill from the Town Pump and Endicott and the Red Cross.
  12. Town House Square Transportation Hub: trains, trolleys, and later, buses.
  13. Daniel Low & Co. established in the former fourth meeting house of the First Church, 1867. A mail order innovator, the store also issued a catalog which projected both Salem and Town House Square to the entire country.
  14. War Bond Rallies: the Square was the center of  “community chest” and war bond events during both World War I and World War II, including one which featured  fake Germans attacking during the former!
  15. Restaurant action: I think this can take me from the second half of the twentieth century into the twenty-first, from the long-running Gerber’s “Little Town Hall” restaurant through various fast-food experiments to today.
  16. And then came Samantha……back where I started. I don’t really believe in historical objectivity, but I know that I can’t even try to write about that awful statue in a balanced way, so I better close with a reprise of Reverend Barz-Snell’s and Councillor Furey’s statements.

John Smibert’s portrait of Sir William Pepperrell, Peabody Essex Museum; the “Salem Tea Party” of October 4, 1774; there are great historic placques in Town House Square but I don’t think the tourists are really interested. Where can I Get a Car?, 1894; The Story of a Store, 1926. Boy, what a devolution of opponents: from King George to Burger King. Town House Square today, or yesterday: it’s Samantha’s neighborhood.

11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, History, Salem

September 26, 2023

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

By daseger

Love that song, although I never realized its lyrics were so risque (“horizontally speaking”)! The title is how I feel living in Salem most of the time now, especially bewildered. I don’t understand why our local government is trying to impose out-of-scale and ugly buildings on this beautiful city, relentlessly. I don’t understand why the city’s roads and sidewalks are maintained so poorly. I don’t understand anything about our tourism industry: its management, messaging and particularly the economic impact it has on our city, which seems shrouded in mystery. I don’t understand why everything in this city is named “witch” when the victims of 1692 were not witches. I don’t understand why two tattoo shops are located right next to each other on Essex Street and two pirate “museums” are located right across from each other on Derby Street. I could go on and on and on. I came here for the architecture decades ago, and I’m really out of it when it comes to all the rest: the bones, the black, the business of selling all things spooky. I’m so alienated that I have become increasingly detached from Salem, to the extent that my husband and I and the cats are moving up to Maine for the month of October. I’m not going for good, however (at least not yet) and I also have an academic-esque interest in figuring out what’s going on: unlike me, it’s clear that many, many people love to come to Salem in the fall and increasingly throughout the year. What are they looking for? Last week was interesting because I took a deep dive into social media to answer that question, intentionally and non-intentionally! The non-intentional dive when I posted a picture of the back of my house on a really nice facebook group called Our Old House. It was a beautful day, and we painted the back of the house this summer so it was looking good! I’ve been following this group for a while because the people on it are so appreciative and lovely: everyone loves their own old house and everyone else’s old houses! No facebook rudeness at all. You can learn a lot too: people share their restoration experiences and knowledge. Our house is such a mish-mash in back that I thought everyone would enjoy seeing the different additions: and they certainly did! Nearly 7000 likes and comments, with a serious thread of people expressing their praise of both my house and Salem: I love Salem, You’re so lucky to live in Salem, We go to Salem every Halloween, I really want to go to Salem (it was funny to read these comments as I was literally packing my bags for our departure next week).

How and when my Salem house was built.

So that was interesting, and even more informative was my dive into one of the many Salem tourist groups on facebook: I picked Things to do in Salem, but there are many others. A couple of weeks ago, USA Today named the Salem Witch Museum the second biggest tourist trap in the world, and I was interested in reading some reactions to that. I found a solid defense of this attraction, based mostly on nostalgia: apparently its interpretation and presentation is so dated that it has become “historical” itself. There’s this relatively new defense of Salem attractions, that they are not and should not be Disney-esque, which is offered up with complete unawareness that it was the Salem Witch Museum that started us down that path. Most people also seemed to believe that the Salem Witch “Museum” presented a straightforward and accurate account of the Trials in a historical and global context and did not want to hear otherwise. I disagree, but this was no place to have a discussion: there is no place in Salem to have such a discussion. The type of information that people are seeking in these groups is perhaps 90% non-historical: how to get to Salem, how long to stay here, where to park, where to eat, the best attractions for kids, all about Hocus Pocus, and whether or not certain attractions are “worth it”? When “history” is referenced, I’m not sure what the meaning is, actually—just a kind of general historical environment or atmosphere? Other forums may yield different results, but I don’t discern a great deal of historical curiosity, and even less interest in architecture (though just like my fellow old house owners, everyone is very excited and enthusiastic). So it seems like the biggest thing I don’t get about Salem is the attraction! Ah well, to each his own, best to retreat to Maine and my academic pursuits. I did take a nice long walk around Salem last weekend so I’ll leave you with some pictures (and annotations) of not-quite calm before the storm. There’s quite a bit of ironwork below as that was my orginal pursuit, but it kind of got crowded out.

First up in my neighborhood, I wanted to showcase these two houses whose owners have invested in a lot of work! Kudos to them! Both are on Chestnut. As you can see, the first house has a way to go, but its very impressive entrance was just re-attached. It’s such a great house, with an amazing garden. Nathaniel Hawthorne lived briefly in the blue house. A rare Salem front garden on Essex—and this house has been thoroughly renovated as well. Besides the Witch House and the House of the Seven Gables, the only historic house that Salem tourists seem interested in these days is the Ropes House, because it was featured in Hocus Pocus of course. The Ropes Garden is consequently very crowded in the fall, but I caught it during a relatively calm time: more ropes in the Ropes Garden than ever before. This gate on Federal Court started off my iron hunt–I’m obsessed with it.

 

Downtown is quite a vibrant shopping scene with more than occasional bones and bats, and porta-potties, of course. There are some very well curated shops amidst the general kitsch, particularly Diehl Marcus & Co. (great ironwork and a Bulfinch building to boot) and Emporium 32 (in the old Custom House) on Central Street, and I’m so impressed that the owner of the new Silly Bunny and enduring Wicked Good Books (on different blocks of Essex Street) has declined to carry Bill O’ Reilly’s Killing Witches that I’m going to go in and buy a big bundle of books before I leave for Maine. The Peabody Essex Museum has opened a pop-up shop called the Bat Box to highlight its current bats exhibition: it’s a cute shop featuring the works of some local makers, but (once again) I don’t understand the attraction of coasters featuring a famous murder any more than I do witch souvenirs in the location of a series of famous judicial murders of accused witches.

 

Ghosts might trump witches this year eveywhere but Salem, of course. The ironwork at the Peabody Essex’s Gardner-Pingree House (which is never open) is simply astounding! A very busy Common, as the annual Food Truck Festival was underway, but once you get into the realm of Salem Maritime along Derby Street, not so busy. I still haven’t been in the Derby House even though it has been open this summer. The last photo just above is to remind me that I want to plant that particular variety of clematis next year!

 

I finished up my walk on Charter Street, where the Witch Trial Memorial and Burying Ground is located. As soon as I entered the latter, I was confronted by these strange mannequins, propped up right against the Cemetery’s gate and stones! So Salem: the juxtaposition of the sacred and the tacky, remembrance and exploitation, enduring and ephemeral.

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem, Tourism

September 19, 2023

Late Summer at Greenwood Farm

By daseger

I’ve been taking walks at Trustees of Reservations properties all summer long, so it seems appropriate to end the season with a post on one: Greenwood Farm in Ipswich, Massachusetts. I had never been to this saltmarsh farm before this spring, and I returned every other week. Last week was definitely my favorite time: there’s just something poignant about golden late summer, just before the appearance of any red. It’s not a huge reservation, but it is a well-situated one, overlooking the marshes and islands of Ipswich Bay. A perfect first-period house, the Paine House, sits right there along the its main path, with no driveway or modern conveniences in sight. There are venerable oak trees, and some recent additions: “Remembrance of Climate Futures” markers, indicating how and when the landscape will change. They were the only source of anxiety on my walks around Greenwood Farm.

Once again we must be grateful for the efforts of an old and wealthy New England family, the Dodges, who purchased the property in the early 20th century, were responsible stewards during their summer residence, and eventually donated the farm to the Trustees of Reservations in the 1970s. A larger, newer farmhouse built on the property by Thomas Greenwood in the early 19th century served as their principal summer house, and they used the 1694 Paine House as a well-appointed guest house. I’d love to go inside, but it’s never been open—in fact I have never seen a single person on this whole property on my walks this summer! Of course there is a Salem connection: Robert Paine, the first of six generations of farmers to live in the house was a jury foreman during the Salem Witch Trials. As you can see, the house is a touchstone for me as I walk around the farm, but I’ve also developed more appreciation for trees this summer, and solid land when I come across these jarring “remembrance” markers.

Appendix: I searched for an image of the Paine house among the works of  Ipswich artist extraordinaire Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922), who mastered all genres—oils, woodblock prints, cyanotypes—and seemed dedicated to depicting every square inch of his native town (as well as being a very influential art educator), but  found nothing. Many of his landscapes look like the farm, because saltmarsh farms ARE Ipswich. This little collaboration of Dow and the poet Everett Stanley Hubbard, which you can access here, is particularly evocative.

5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Houses, Nature

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