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March 23, 2026

Remembering the Ladies: Two Talks in Salem

A promotional post today: I’ve got to events coming up at the end of this week and the beginning of next on women’s history in Salem for the close of Women’s History Month. Both are free and all are welcome. The first is on Saturday at Old Town Hall, and very squarely focused on women’s organized philanthropy over the centuries, but particularly in the nineteenth. Because this year is the 400th anniversary of Salem’s European founding, I am going back into the seventeenth century but the nineteenth century is so busy I have labeled it the era of “benevolent activism”! This is certainly not a discovery on my part; anyone who glances at an archival list of Salem sources is going to see that Salem women were really busy in that particular century. So many organizations were founded, and with due diligence, quite a few have survived to the present. We really wanted to include a chapter on this topic in Salem’s Centuries, but it just didn’t happen, so I’m happy to focus in on it now even though it took a bit of work for sure. To tell you the truth, I think all of the women associated with all of the organizations you see on this flyer know the history of their institutions better than I do, so I’m just providing a bit of comparative context and a more sweeping view afforded by four centuries of perspective.

Salem Woman’s Friend Society Collection, Salem State University Archives and Special Collections.

My other event is a bit more about women’s political history in Salem, though I definitely developed an appreciation for how political philanthropic work can be, as well as even more respect for disenfranchised women, when working on the charity talk. Just think about one decade for Salem women, 1920-1920: they provided care during several major epidemics (smallpox, tuburculosis) and relief after the Great Salem Fire of 1914, lost a crucial state vote on suffrage in 1915, participated in several “preparedness” initiatives during World War I and ministered to the sick during the “Spanish” Flu, and then finally won the vote in 1920. Just incredible: I would have been pretty darn mad following that 1915 referendum and retreated to my bedroom or study.

“Remember the Ladies” is a tea at the Hawthorne Hotel on March 31st at 4 (again, free and all are invited) in which I will focus more directly on women’s political activities. As the flyer asserts, the “school suffrage” election of 1879, when women across Massachusetts were allowed to run for, and vote in, elections for school boards, will definitely be a highlight. Salem women really turned out and won four seats, the most in the Commonwealth, and they continued to hold seats right up until 1920 and beyond. But because this is the 400th anniversary, I’m going to go back and forth from 1879. This event is the initiative of my friend Jane, a former Salem city councillor, and she chose the date because it it the 250th anniversary of Abigail Adams’ “Remember the Ladies” letter to her husband in Philadelphia. So I’m definitely going to shine a spotlight on this epistolary moment and also compare Abigail to her near-exact contemporary in Salem, Mary Toppan Pickman. Different women of the same age and time in very similar situations for very different reasons! Both minding the farm and their families while their husbands were absent: John on patriotic business and Benjamin Pickman in London hanging out with other conspicuous Loyalists.

In closing to what I intend to be BRIEF remarks, I’ll move forward to the bicentennial year of 1976, in which the first two women elected to the Salem City Council, ward councillor Frances Grace and councillor-at-large Jean-Marie Rochna, took their seats. Just as those women elected to the School Board in 1879 probably expected the vote a bit sooner than 1920, I bet those women who voted in 1920 likely thought that their city would see a female councilor before 1976, but as we all know, change takes time, and effort. But continuity does too.

I’m not sure if this is the 1976 or 1977 Salem City Council, but it is from the Salem News Collection at Salem State University Archives and Special Collections.

More information for “Organizing Generosity,” March 28, Old Town Hall @ 10: https://www.womansfriendsociety.org/events-1/organizing-generosity-centuries-of-women-supporting-women-in-salem

More information for “Remember the Ladies,” March 31, Hawthorne Hotel @ 4: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/remember-the-ladies-tickets-1985348533909?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

Leave a comment | tags: Abigail Adams, American Revolution, Hawthorne Hotel, Local Events, Local History, Old Town Hall, Presentations, Salem's Centuries, Women's History, Women's History Month | posted in History, Salem

March 16, 2026

Camellia Days

By daseger

Nineteenth-century monied New Englanders loved camellias and living embodiments of their desire exist at the Lyman Estate greenhouses of Historic New England, which hosts “Camellia Days” in February and March when these old trees are in bloom. Somehow I miss this event every year, but not this year. I drove to Waltham on Wednesday and had a quick view of the Lyman Estate mansion followed by some alone time with the camellias. The Lyman greenhouses are old (1804), and as close as I can get to Salem’s greenhouse era, when there were at least eight (maybe more—my count is ever-evolving) right in the middle of the city. Camellia Days extends to the mansion, which was designed originally by Samuel McIntire, so there’s a more direct Salem connection there too. I was never really a fan of this rambling structure, but now I realize that is because of its robust Victorian additions rather than its original design. McIntire’s plans reveal a charming two-story house unblemished by those bays. I can certainly understand why Arthur Lyman wanted to expand the house in the 1880s, however: he had a large family who enjoyed this bucolic estate as an escape from busy Boston. And I do love the relocated staircase and vaulted ceiling of the added third storey.

The mansion was built in 1793 and expanded and altered in 1882-83, but the Lyman family retained McIntire’s Federal ballroom (which they used as a library) and oval “bow parlor”. The relocated stairway with its Palladian window oversees the grounds and greenhouses.

I really liked the very Victorian library as well, but my heart stopped when I entered the adjacent china room with cabinets full to brimming with purple transferware! “My” Waterhouse wallpaper adorned one of the bedrooms upstairs so that was nice too. It’s a lovely summer estate with a preserved landscape in the midst of now-busy Waltham.

But I was there for the camellias and they did not disappoint! These are lush, heirloom varieties. I’m partial to less showy plants in the bright light of summer, but in the very dim light of late winter these bright blooms are just what you need. The Lyman greenhouses are accessible all year long actually (and there are great plant sales), but Camellia Days provide extra enticement.

8 Comments | tags: Architecture, Day Trips, great houses, Greenhouses, Historic Interiors, Historic New England, horticulture, Local Events, Samuel McIntire, Spring | posted in Culture, Historic Houses, New England

March 9, 2026

Trolley Goals

By daseger

I came across this book entitled The Trolley and the Lady (1908) and thought, wow, great, this is going to be a great exploration of turn-of-the-century “transportation liberation” from the perspective of a liberated woman! But I should have known, as it was written by a man (William J. Lampton), that this would not be the story. Indeed, it’s a tale of a man chasing a woman on a trolley from New York City to southern Maine. He seems to catch up with her in my home town, York Harbor. In a way I guess it is about liberation, as the woman in question, Clara, is exploring New England via trolley, but it’s definitely not written from her perspective. Still looking for that perspective, I encountered a lot of projection and instruction related to the topic of women and trolleys. After I read the Lampton book, I found a charming and practical little piece, still from a male perspective, in The Puritan magazine, a women’s monthly published in 1899-1900: illustrating the right and wrong way that a woman (equipped with the cumbersome skirts of the era) should flag, board, and disembark from a trolley.

Despite the paternalistic instruction and aside from the conductor, the woman is alone, and that’s the key point. Like bicycles and later cars, trolleys were a way for women to get out and get away, on their own. But trolleys are even better than those other vehicles: no physical exertion was required and very little money, and there were routes everywhere in the early twentieth century: 940 miles in New England alone according to one trolley company’s advertising.

As street railways expanded beyond urban cores in the later nineteenth century, images of trolleys emphasized exploration rather than commuting, and featuring women was a good way to reinforce that message. Charles Herbert Woodbury’s two wonderful lithographs for Boston’s suburban trolley network (1897 & 1895) really illustrate this messaging well.

Boston Public Library via Digital Commonwealth; the second poster is inspired by Oliver Wendell Holmes’ 1891 poem The Broomstick Train or the Return of the Witches.

This post is just a teaser; there’s something about trolleys and gender that is interesting and needs a bit more exploration. The sexes/masses are pushed together in close contact: there are new opportunities, new connections, new horizons, and the need for new rules. The Puritan story is a bit condescending for sure, but there are more misogynist commentaries on trolley-riding women from the same era, generally regarding the “immodesty” of their dress as they climbed on or off. There is the occasional critique of male passengers (see below, upper right) but many more postcards targeting women: this is the age of “vinegar valentines” after all. A spinster chasing down the last trolley on the “Matrimonial Line” is not nice! And then there’s that old chestnut about street cars and women. Too much protesting, I think.

8 Comments | tags: Art, ephemera, Graphic Design, Popular Culture, Tourism, Women's History Month | posted in Culture, Tourism

March 2, 2026

The Last Week in February

By daseger

Well, it’s been quite a winter here in eastern Massachusetts, and last week was quite a week, so I think I’m going to take a break from topical posting and just present the week that was. It started with a blizzard, and even though it is now March 1, as I am typing I see big fluffy snowflakes out there again. But not all was white: there was bright blue towards the end of the week as my husband and I proceeded north for a little break. In this topsy turvy winter, Rhode Island experienced 30+ inches of snow while midcoast Maine seems to have had just a dusting. By the time we got up there on Thursday, it seemed springlike to me! We saw my stepson, who works at an oyster farm near Damariscotta, engaged in a bit of house-hunting, and (lucky us) stayed at the storied Norumbega Inn in Camden. The latter was a long-time wish of mine, having driving by the fantasy castle on Route One many a time, and it did not disappoint. After two nights in Camden, we returned to Salem on Saturday for a really cool event at Hamilton Hall: Fashioning Freedom: Layers of Liberty. This was a theatrical performance fashioned as a “a celebratory, historical runway of Black creativity and activism” featuring prominent nineteenth-century African Americans, including the Remond family of the Hall, Frederick Douglass’s wife Anna, educator Charlotte Forten, and sculptor Edmonia Lewis. A collaboration between Salem’s revered historical theater company, History Alive, and the Hall, it was a can’t miss event for me: all Renaissance scholars adhere to the concept of “self-fashioning,” which is just what we saw, and of course after having written about John Remond in Salem’s Centuries it was a thrill to see “him” right in front of me. So it was a very interesting week and I am ready for March!

Monday’s blizzard from my second-floor windows.

And then: bright blue sky and sea in Maine! Obviously there was snow up there too, but less of it and more room to spread it around. City snow can be exhausting: you just can’t find get it out of the way and it is increasingly gray (among other colors). Below are a few houses in Newcastle, Cushing and Friendship, and then we were off to Camden and the Norumbega.

The Norumbega, otherwise known as Norumbega Castle, was built as a private home for Maine native Joseph Barker Stearns in 1886-87 in a style that is generally described as “Queen Anne”. To me, it has always seemed more Romanesque, but its interior was a bit lighter than I imagined—smaller too. Not that it is small, it’s just that the scale is not baronial or overwhelming. We stayed in one of the turret rooms, named Sandringham. Stearns made his millions in the telegraph industry by patenting and licensing duplex telegraphy, by which two messages could be sent over the same wire simulteneously. Camden is a hilly coastal Maine town (with its own municipal ski slope, called the Snow Bowl) and the Norumbega is situated on an elevated site which once, and really still, has unobstructed views over Penobscot Bay. The house remained residential for a century, and then was converted into an inn. We really enjoyed our stay: our room was lovely, as were all the public rooms, and breakfast and bar bites in the small blue cocktail lounge were special touches. We actually saw a bit less of Camden than we expected to because we just wanted to hang out in the castle—you can do that in the winter and not feel guilty. But Saturday morning we knew we had a date with the Remonds so back to Salem we went.

The real Remonds at Hamilton Hall and a few shots from “Fashioning Freedom” before and after the performance. It was a very visual evening so check out Hamilton Hall for more professional photos in the next few days. Congratulations to all involved! The month ended with the news that Salem’s new consolidated elementary school will be named after Sarah Parker Remond–yet another triumph for an important Salem family! I do tend to view them in the collective as they were all so invested and engaged. As we enter women’s history month, here’s a clip of an 1855 petition calling for the resignation of Judge Edward Greeley Loring, the Massachusetts Justice most associated with the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, signed by ALL the Remond women, including matriarch Nancy, her daughters and daughters-in-law, and their friend Charlotte Forten. You can see more at the Massachusetts Archives Anti-Slavery Petititions Dataserve at Harvard University:

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/antislaverypetitionsma.

Leave a comment | tags: Black History Month, Day Trips, great houses, Hamilton Hall, Historic Hotels, Local Events, Maine, Remond Familty, Salem History, Sarah Parker Remond, Theater, travel, weather, Women's History Month | posted in Culture, History

February 23, 2026

A Major Revolutionary Engraver

By daseger

So many untold revolutionary stories in Salem’s history. SO MANY. I started thinking about Joseph Hiller, a soldier (Major, in fact), watchmaker, engraver, and Collector of the Port of Salem and Beverly, last week and put together a little visual sketch of his life, just to have everything in one place and illustrate how he both impacted and reflected his time. Hiller (1748-1814) was a Boston man, who came to Salem for reasons that are unclear to me, probably business. He is generally referred to as a watchmaker and sometimes a silversmith, though several sources refer to his more general “mechanical” abilities. In 1775, he became a Revolutionary player, in several ways. He is referenced as an officer in one of the Salem companies, and some sources indicate that he was at Lexington and Concord. I’m not sure about that, but his other early Revolutionary role is well-documented: he became an engraver and thus a disseminator of Patriot portraits. Just two weeks after the Battle of Bunker Hill, Hiller produced one of the earliest portrait prints of the Revolution: a mezzotint ot Major General Israel Putnam as portrayed in pastel by his fellow Salemite Benjamin Blythe. European publishers had been producing portrait prints for decades, and now Hiller was tapping into an emerging American market.

American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati. More about this print, Blythe, and Putnam here.

Hiller was in the right place at the right time to engage in patriotic publishing. He followed up the popular Putnam print with one of John Hancock, based on the John Singleton Copley portrait, and possibly (several of Hiller’s prints are “possibly by” or “attributed to” as we don’t always see the definitive signatures visible on the Putnam and Hancock prints above) with prints of the martyr of Bunker Hill, Major General Joseph Warren, and General George and “Lady” Martha Washington, based on portraits made by Charles Willson Peale for John Hancock in 1776. The smoking battlefield of Bunker Hill is in the background of George Washington’s portrait, placing him at Dorchester Heights in the foreground, ready to drive the British out of Boston in March 1776. There is no dramatic/poetic narrative to attach to him, but Hiller seems Revere-sque in his commercial pursuits.

“The Hon. John Hancock Esquire” mezzotint after Copley, 1775, Christies; Major Joseph Warren mezzotint after Copley, possibly Joseph Hiller, Yale University Art Gallery; His Excellency George Washington and Lady Washington, McAlpin Collection, New York Public Library.

The uncertainty of several of Hiller’s attributions might be one reason we don’t hear more about him. Even though I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on printing, I think art historians are far more equipped to analyze the transformation of portraits into prints, and there has been quite a lot of discussion among them over the attribution of the portraits I am featuring in this post. Context and connections must be considered. For the Blyth(e) portraits, I’m looking forward to reading a recently-published book by Bettina Norton entitled Benjamin Blyth, Salem’s 18th-Century Limner at a Time of Radical Upheaval, (Tidepool Press, available here and here) as it was she who identified the Bunker Hill-Dorchester Heights George Washington connection noted above. But for Hiller, publishing is only part of the story. After the Revolution, he was appointed Naval Officer for the port of Salem by Governor John Hancock and Collector by President George Washington thereafter: from 1783 until 1802, a busy time for the port, Hiller was Salem’s chief Customs official. Don’t let Nathaniel Hawthorne’s disdain for this post a half century later color its importance: during Hiller’s time import duties represented the vast majority of Federal revenues. A portrait in the Custom House is a testimony to his tenure, and his name is on a lot of paper, generally with more famous names! By all accounts Hiller was a professional officeholder, but he was also a conspicuous Federalist, so subject to the Jeffersonian purge. After he left his post, he left Salem for various locales, eventually ending up in Lancaster, where he died in 1814.

Hiller’s portrait in the Custom House (1819) built after his tenure and death, Salem Maritime National Historic Park; Cover of 1789 letter from Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton to Hiller, Smithsonian/National Postal Musuem; Crop of 1794 Sea Letter for Two Friends signed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and countersigned by Hiller, Library of Congress. Hiller’s various obituaries reference Lexington and Concord, but I can’t place him there—I am always eager to find ANY Salem soldier present on that day so if you have more information, let me know! More interesting details of Hiller’s life: he was a prominent Mason and Swedenborgian convert.

2 Comments | tags: 1775, American Revolution, Art, Bunker Hill, ephemera, John Singleton Copley, Lexington and Concord, print culture, printing, Salem Maritime National Historic Park, Smithsonian Institution | posted in Culture, Salem

February 16, 2026

Was Andrew Jackson a Welcome Guest in Salem in 1833?

By daseger

Here I am with another Presidents’ Day post which I shall begin with my usual rant about Presidents’ Day: if you merge them all (or Washington and Lincoln) into one day of remembrance you’re going to forget some singular details. Not a fan of generic Presidents’ Day, although I realize we can’t have myriad Mondays off. That said, today I’m posting about one of everyone’s least favorite presidents, Andrew Jackson, who came to Salem at the beginning of his second term in the summer of 1833 as part of a New England tour (just like Washington decades before). Unlike Washington, the concensus is that Jackson was not popular in New England, but reading through some of the contemporary press accounts, I can’t quite tell if that’s the case. This post, probably like several this year, is an extension of research for Salem’s Centuries: I wrote a chapter on John Remond, who catered the big dinner for the President, and my research brought up several complaints about said dinner (not Remond’s cooking, but the guest of honor) and so I thought I’d “pull on this narrative thread” (to use my co-editor’s phrase) for a bit.

New England (and especially southern New England) did not support Jackson in either the 1828 or 1832 elections and so it might seem that the region was hostile territory, but it’s difficult to know whether it was the man or his policies which were unpopular. Jackson was a known enslaver but it was early days in Salem’s abolitionist movement, and while he was criticized for his policies towards Native Americans conspicuously by the genteel Elizabeth Elkins Sanders of Salem in her Conversations, Principally on the Aborigines of North America (1828), I’m not sure that was a general view at this time either. No one seems to have anything to say about the First Sumatran Expedition of just the year before. While Jackson’s response to South Carolina’s strident assertion of states’ rights during the more recent “Nullification Crisis” was popular in the North, John Quincy Adams and his friends and supporters in Massachusetts seemed to aim more personal criticism at him, generally at his lack of education and uncouth behavior. The former president went so far as to refer to the current one as a “barbarian” when he learned that Harvard University would be granting Jackson an honorary degree during his New England tour. The President of Harvard, Josiah Quincy, proceeded with the investiture nonetheless and found himself rather charmed by Jackson, admitting that “I was not prepared to be favorably impressed with a man who was simply intolerable to the Brahmin caste of my native state……”

Election maps from the Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library; Bernhardt Wall, Following Andrew Jackson 1767-1845 (1937).

After his Harvard reception, the President rode up to Salem through Lynn and Marblehead on June 26 in a cavalcade and was met at the town line by a reception of dignitaries; he did not stop to chat, but rather traveled directly to Nathaniel West’s Mansion House on Essex Street where he would spend the night. He was not well, and would not make it to Remond’s dinner. Since the idea for this post started with the dinner, I think I should say a bit more about it. Compared to other events catered by Remond, the menu was not as elaborate or the preparations made as far in advance. According to the Remond family papers at the Phillips Library, Remond made the contract only on June 20, less than a week before the President’s arrival. He promised a “handsome good dinner including mock turtle soup for 150 people” and the host party requested a few additions, including cherries, strawberries, sherry, champagne and cigars. Everything else was left to Remond’s discretion. (This just seems a little casual compared to Remond’s other extravaganzas—were they dissing Jackson?) The dinner did go on even in the President’s absence, with an afterparty on Chestnut Street. There are hints that Jackson’s frequent illnesses were convenient or of his own making (which are wrong—Jackson was ill). In his Memoirs (IX, 5), John Quincy Adams asserts that Jackson’s illness was “politic……he is so ravenous of notoriety that he craves the sympathy for sickness as a portion of his glory….fourth-fifths of his sickness is trickery, and the other fifth mere fatique.” The next day he was up for a little trip around town in a barouche, however, for which people really turned out according to the Salem Gazette (June 28, 1833): “the crowd of Spectators was greater than has been witnessed in this place since the visit of Lafayette.”

Salem Directory, 1857 (two years before the Mansion House burned down).

You can’t gauge public opinion from mere numbers, so I’m not sure I can answer the question in my title. The Salem crowd was well-behaved by all acounts, but not exuberant. The most revealing detail of the Salem Gazette account was the lack of apparent intoxication among the spectators: we believe no serious accident occurred to mar the festivities of the day. And although we had frequent opportunities to examine the crowd of many thousands, we did not discover a single instance of intoxication, or disorderly conduct of any kind. And that was it, after the parade was over, President Jackson set off for Lowell and no more was said about him. In the following year, however, there was a notable incident that might reveal some sentiment towards Jackson in greater Massachusetts: the venerable USS Constitution was fitted out with a new figurehead depicting Jackson and while anchored in Boston harbor a local sea captain rowed out and cut off its head! In the print below, demons are doing the dirty work. Much later, of course, Jackson’s reputation deteriorated more dramatically, in Massachusetts and elsewhere. Even though Salem City Hall was built with surplus funds distributed to local governments during his administration, Mayor (now Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor) Kimberley Driscoll moved to remove Andrew Jackson’s portrait from the City Council Chambers in 2019, and it was eventually replaced by a striking portrait of the seventeenth-century Naumkeag/Pawtucket leaders Squaw Sachem and Nanepashemet by Indigenous artist Chris Pappan.

Crop of “The Decapitation of a Great Blockhead by the Mysterious Agency of the Claret Coloured Coat,” (Boston?, 1834), Swann Auction Galleries.

1 Comment | tags: Boston Public Library, ephemera, holidays, Local History, Newspapers, Presidents, Presidents' Day, public opinion, Salem History | posted in New England, Salem

February 9, 2026

Knox Sunday

By daseger

I know, there was a big football game yesterday, and I watched half of it at an actual party at night but the day was reserved for Col. Henry Knox. I’ve been watching online as commemorations of Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery moved across large swaths of New York and Massachusetts on its way to relieve the besieged citizens of Boston but had not made it to one live event—and Evacuation Day (better known as St. Patrick’s Day to those of you not in Massachusetts) is only a little over a month away. So I decided to drive out to Framingham to see some cannons and Patriots before the other Patriots took the field. The event was a bit more talk than action, as I listened to organizers and politicians and community leaders express their joy at being part of the festivities. Quite a few speeches, but earnest expressions all and it was nice to see such a large community gathering.

Scenes of the day; Revolution 250 Chair Professor Robert Allison and the official Trail.

Knox Trail 250 is an initiative of Revolution 250, which bears the motto: Your Town, Your History, Our Nation so the commemorative events of the past few years have always been community-based in terms of organization and participation. This particular event was a Middlesex County affair, with representatives from all the towns surrounding Framingham (Marlborough, Southborough, Wayland ) present. Besides community (then and now), there was also a notable emphasis on the two most heralded African American soldiers of the Revolution from Massachusetts: Salem Poor and Peter Salem. The former was representated by a reenactor (below) who sounded more like an actor as he recounted his life and service, while we saw Peter Salem’s name on a 1775 roster of Framingham Minutemen. (Why the two Salem names? The answer seems somewhat shrouded still, but the general concensus seems to be that Poor’s name, which occasionally appeared as “Salam” might have an Islamic connection or represent a form of salaam, the word for peace in Arabic, while Peter’s name designated the town of one of his enslavers.) I spent a long time looking at the roster.

I’ve been fascinated by Henry Knox’s story for a long time. It seems so sweeping and dramatic, like many Revolutionary personal narratives. Young Boston bookseller becomes inflamed with the cause, marries the daughter of prominent Loyalists who promptly disown her, sets out to liberate Boston by transporting 59 cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in the dead of winter, mounts said cannons on Dorchester Heights and drives the British away after the long siege, becomes Washington’s chief of artillery and later the first Secretary of War, retrieves his wife’s family’s confiscated land holdings and settles down in the midst of the Maine county that would be named for him (and then of course there’s Fort Knox too). Having physical places tied to your memory, in Knox’s case an actual trail, invites exploration.

Revolution 250 Executive Director Jonathan Lane and “Colonel Henry Knox”; a commemorative quilt sown by volunteers at the Framingham History Center; miniature of Henry Knox, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

There’s one more big Knox event if you are in the area: “To Win the Siege: the Noble Train Arrives” at the Hartwell Tavern within the Minute Man National Historic Park on February 21st.

12 Comments | tags: American Revolution, Anniversary History, Commemoration, Henry Knox, Local Events, Massachusetts, public history, Reenactors, Revolution 250 | posted in Historic Trails, History

February 2, 2026

The Problem with Sugar

By daseger

I have either written, edited, or read all of the essays that make up Salem’s Centuries many times over these past three years as they have taken shape but now that they’re all together in a published book I read them again last week, as I wanted to see how the book held up, cover to cover, beginning to end. You don’t have to read the book that way, as it is a collection of topical essays in chronological order, but I wanted to see if there were some hidden themes that perhaps we should have made more apparent (I think I was also looking for typos). Overall I was really pleased—-I think the book holds together well, and I only found one rather insignificant typo, in one of my own essays! I was also pleased to come away from this material with questions, because for me that’s the mark of a good history book, or any book for that matter. So I thought I would re-engage with some Salem history from time to time here, prompted by these new questions about old topics. Today I want to write about the supply of sugar in Salem, prompted by a piece by my co-editor, Brad Austin, about Salem’s entrepreneurial candymaker, Mary Spencer, widely known as the “Gibralter Woman.” This is a well-worn narrative: an Englishwoman is shipwrecked in Salem in 1806 and gifted a pound of sugar by Salem residents which she transforms into “Gibralters,” hard candies which she first sells from the steps of the First Church and which are eventually carried all over the world on Salem ships.

Peabody Historical Society.

Brad’s piece, “Mary Spencer: Shipwrecks, Sugar and Salem” is a wonderful example of what he calls “pulling” on a (familiar) narrative thread to reveal more context—and more questions. He picks up the story with Mary’s son Thomas Spencer, who arrived in Salem in the 1820s and carried on the family business while at the same time asserting a very public Abolitionist stance as one of of the founders of the Salem Anti-Slavery Society. And here’s the problem and the question: as sugar was the commodity most associated with slave labor, how can an Abolitionist candy maker run his business in good faith? Brad tells us that “in 1805, the year that Mary Spencer arrived in Salem, the Salem Gazette had more than 2500 mentions of sugar and molasses in advertisements along, on top of the hundreds of news stories and price guides it published discussing these commodities.” Mary Spencer’s first bag of gifted sugar almost certainly came from the West Indies, where it was cultivated, harvested, and processed by enslaved labor. Was this still the case twenty years later when her son joined the business? I think so, but there were a few other possibilities that appeared as I went through a sampling of advertisements myself. (Just a sampling; this is a blog post. A more comprehensive review would take hours and hours and hours, so what follows is an impression.)

What I saw was a lot of West Indian sugar coming into Salem, often called Havanna and or Martinique sugar, and then increasing amounts of domestic New Orleans sugar, also a product of enslaved labor. It’s hard to see how a Salem candy manufacturer or indeed any Salem person could do without sugar produced by enslaved labor unless they did without sugar altogether. Then a little glimmer of hope: the arrival of East Indian sugar, called Calcutta and Java sugar, after 1815. As you can see above, Michael Shepard is sourcing sugar from both east and west, but was the former the way forward? This certainly makes sense with Salem’s eastern-oriented trade, and could have been an American variant of the “East India Sugar not made by Slaves” campaign in Britain.

Sugar bowl, blue glass, inscribed in gilt with the words ‘East India Sugar / not made by / Slaves’, about 1820-30, probably made in Bristol, England. Museum no. C.14-2023. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Sugar from the East Indies did come into Salem in increasing volume but West Indian and New Orleans sugar imports were greater over the next few decades from my sampling. Kind of depressing, certainly not a consumption revolution. But then I came across a striking statement which let me down another road: sugar beet cultivation!

Was this another first for Salem? Likely not—the first sugar beet operation is usually identified as David Lee Child’s “factory” in Northampton at around this same time but there were earlier experiments. Beet sugar seems to have had the potential to be the most promising slavery-free alternative to cane sugar for abolitionists in New England and elsewhere but a real industry didn’t take off until much later. Pickering Dodge Jr. does not appear to have continued his experiments in North Salem (but I’ll keep digging). It seems that both Childs’ and Dodge’s efforts were hampered by processing: the prevalent methods produced a sugar that people just didn’t like. And that was a problem.

4 Comments | tags: abolitionism, Agriculture, Black History Month, Candy, Salem History, Salem Trade, Salem's Centuries, Slavery, Sugar | posted in History, Salem

January 26, 2026

Frosty Salem

By daseger

So I was going to bring you some photographs of Salem during yesterday’s snowstorm today, but that would have necessitated actually going out and walking around, and just a few steps from my backyard out onto Chestnut Street at midday were enough to convince me that I didn’t want to do that. So I have images of snowstorms past, mostly new discoveries, and most from the Peabody Essex Museum’s Phillips Library, which possesses the largest collection of famed photographers Frank Cousins and Samuel Chamberlain, as well as images by amateur photographers in family papers. True to their promises of several years ago, the Phillips librarians have been steadily digitizing their local collections and everytime I go their digital collections page I see new-to-me things. If you’re new to Salem photo-sleuthing, you can just start with their very accessible “Salem Streets” collection, culled from a variety of sources. And of course all the glass plate negatives of Frank Cousins were digitized quite a while ago, and can also be found at Digital Commonwealth. My title is from Cousins, who assembled several of his favorite images for an 1891 collage, which I imagine was hung in the window of his Bee-Hive shop that very winter. Then I’m going to double back and proceed in chronological order.

So let’s go back a decade into the 1880s, when we really start to see a lot of photographs of Salem streets and buildings, both commercially published and popping up in family papers. I’ll never forget opening up the volumes of the Francis Lee papers a few summers ago at the Phillips Library in Rowley and seeing all of these gorgeous photographs from the mid-1880s. The photos below are from the same time period—1884-86—and this first amazing one is taken from the vantage point of Lee’s house, 14 Chestnut Street. No filter! Isn’t this a striking image? This photo and those that follow are attributed to John Robinson, a Salem author and horticulturalist and trustee of pretty much every single civic institution in the city at the time. I wasn’t aware that he was a photographer as well; I don’t know if had commissioned these images for some future publication? The last one of this group is from the vantage point of his house on Summer Street, and so we have two striking views of Samuel McIntire’s South Church, which burned to the ground in 1903.

Chestnut Street winters, Salem Streets collection, Phillips Library, Peabody Essex Museum.

The 1890s: was Frank Cousins’ most productive decade as a photographer. He loved to photograph Chestnut Street too, but he branched out, all over the city, as his “Frosty Salem” poster illustrates. I love his winter shots because many of them include people, while his more formal architectural photographs decidedly do not.

Essex Street, the Common, Dearborn and Lafayette Streets,1890s, Frank Cousins Glass Plate Negative Collection, Phillips Library via Digital Commonwealth.

Also from the 1890s are several photographs by amateur photographers of an uprooted (Elm?) tree on Chestnut Street, with every possible angle captured! I have looked in vain for more views of dealing with the snow, but this is as close as I could get. Closing out this decade are several beautiful photographs of the Pickering and Bartlett houses on Broad Street which are somehow connected to (taken by?) a certain Katherine A. Pond. I need to know more about her.

Chestnut and Broad Streets, 1890s, Phillips Library Digital Collections.

The 1920s: when I was looking for photos of Salem’s 1926 Tercentenary in various family albums at the Phillips, I came across the photos of the winter of 1924-25 in Francis Tuckerman Parker’s album. Again, these are not professional, and they are not digitized—I just took photos of the snapshots myself—so they not that great quality, but they are so interesting for what they show. The first image shows the intersection of Chestnut, Summer, and Norman Streets and on the extreme right is what I think is the last photograph of Samuel McIntire’s house before its demolition. The second, looking up Chestunt in the other direction, shows the church that replaced McIntire’s South Church, which was later demolished. Then we have a snow trolley on Essex, and a very messy intersection at the Essex and Summer.

Salem in the winter of 1924-25, Parker Family Photograph Album, Phillips Library.

1930s: the Phillips Library also possesses the huge negative collection of Samuel Chamberlain, a very important mid-century photographer of New England architecture and scenery, which is accessible at Digital Commonwealth. Chamberlain published Historic Salem in Four Seasons in 1938, so I assume these photos are from that time, but the collection encompasses his entire career. Pioneer Village, Salem’s outdoor living-history museum, was in its first decade, and Chamberlain photographed its buildings and landscape lavishly.

Pioneer Village by Samuel Chamberlain, Digital Commonwealth.

And finally, a street view of Broad Street in 1956 and an aerial view of Chestnut in 1972, both after the storms. The latter is included in a feature in Life magazine in that year, prompted by President Nixon’s visit to China. Eastern-oriented Salem seemed like a good place to examine American perspectives on Asia at that time; I don’t think that would be the first Salem association now.

Salem in 1956 and 1972: William F. Abbott collection at the Phillips Library and Life magazine, 1972.

7 Comments | tags: Architecture, Chestnut Street, Frank Cousins, Phillips Library, Photography, Pickering House, Pioneer Village, Samuel Chamberlain, Season, weather, Winter | posted in Culture, Salem

January 19, 2026

Salem Ladies 1876

By daseger

I think I’ve previewed the “anniversary year” for quite a few years on this blog in Januarys past, but this particular year is going to be so dominated by the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution (nationally) and Salem’s 400th anniversary (locally) that I decided not to. However, I don’t want to lose sight of the trees through the forest! I’ve always thought that the 1870s was an interesting decade for Salem women, and in 1876 in particular there were two women’s organizations which emerged that I think really represent the collective impact of women both within and outside their community at this time, and after. One organization, the Ladies Centennial Committee of Salem, had a very specific focus and is no longer with us, while the other, the Woman’s Friend Society, most certainly is: it is celebrating its 150th anniversary this very year. I thought I’d shine a spotlight on both. I had an opportunity to research the Ladies Centennial Committee’s efforts for my chapter on Salem and the Colonial Revival in Salem’s Centuries, and my general awareness turned to appreciation for both its organization and creative curation: its December 1875 Salem exhibition of “relics” from the past was broadcast across the nation. These objects were sent to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia along with many other Salem exhibits from the present, and because so few other Massachusetts towns and cities followed suit Salem really dominated the entire effort from the Bay State. The Ladies of Salem followed up with a Centennial Ball at Mechanics Hall, which added to Salem’s Centennial Fund coffers and enhanced its reputation as as steward of the Colonial past.

Centennial Commemoration in Salem: Exhibition and Ball, Mechanic Hall on Essex Street Salem and the Massachusetts Building in Philadelphia. Salem is the “Old City of Peace” and not yet Witch City.

The exhibition of antique articles was quite diverse, encompassing furniture, clothing, silver, portraits and paper from the past, but I think these women were more than casual antiquarians relying on their family and social connections for “relics” of Salem’s and America’s past. Mrs. Hagar, the committee chair, wasn’t even old-money North Shore: she was Mary Bradford McKim Hagar from New York State, the wife of Daniel Hagar, the principal of Salem Normal School. They received so much publicity, and often their Centennial efforts were paired with other pieces of “news” related to Salem women (see the first image above) which I think is really interesting. The membership of the committee included women—most prominently educator Kate Tannant Woods—who were as much or more interested in social reform as cultural curation. While she was serving on the Centennial Committee, Woods was instrumental in establishing the Moral Education Society of Salem, which eventually changed its named to the Woman’s Friend Society, after similarly-named societies in the area.

Right from its foundation, the Salem Woman’s Friend Society developed a mission that expanded far beyond the first “Needle Woman’s Friend Society” founded in Boston in 1847 “for the purpose of giving employment in needlework to poor women.” The Salem mission included a girl’s reading room, an employment bureau, and housing, after Salem’s most generous philanthropist, Captain John Bertram, offered them half of a stately Federal house on Elm Street for shelter purposes. In 1884, his daughter Jennie Emmerton, always referred to as “Salem’s richest woman” and long Salem’s largest individual taxpayer, deeded the house to the Society, which acquired the other half of the Joseph Fenno house in 1887 through private donations. There was also a focus on vocational education, but I’ll let the Society explain its expanding mission in its own words, with this great fundraising brochure from its deposited records at the Salem State Archives and Special Collections. (*note: these records are amazing! I had one student write a great paper about the employment bureau several years ago, but more studies could be sourced)

So many initiatives! Including the District (later Visiting) Nurse program, which would later be adminstered out of the House of the Seven Gables, founded by Jennie Emmerton’s daughter, Caroline Emmerton. All of this outreach was extraordinarily important in the historical context, when Salem’s immigrant population was increasing steadily and social and medical services were not yet in place. And now, more than a century later, such systems are well-established but the Woman’s Friend Society continues its important work in the housing sphere, where insufficiency prevails. This is also a Salem organization that knows and shares its history, and will be commemorating its 150th anniversary with several special events in the coming months, so watch this space.