From two wheels to four: another annual event tied in with Salem’s Heritage Days in August is the Phillips House‘s Antique Car Meet, held yesterday right here on Chestnut Street.  Though not as large a gathering of antique automobiles as that sponsored by its sister Historic New England property, the Codman House, earlier this summer, the Phillips Meet is a bit more intimate and engaging because the cars are parked on the street,where they belong, as opposed to out in a field.  The first floor of the house was open for tours, as was the carriage house out back, home to two rare and HUGE Pierce Arrows and a nice assortment of horse-drawn carriages.

The last car above is a powder pink Edsel!  Below, what looks like a surrey with a fringe on top in the Carriage House, and peaking through at one of the Pierce Arrows.

Just another old car parked on the street, yesterday, and one of similar vintage traveling down (or up) the street in its own time, below.  Chestnut Street is one-way in the other direction now, so this car looks odd to me:  I want to say, turn around, you’re going to crash into someone to the long-dead driver.  Finally, an amazing photograph courtesy of my friend Martha, a North Shore caterer extraordinaire (Lantern Hill ) with deep Chestnut Street roots who has been making some of her old family photographs available to the public.  Pictured is Mrs. Mary Northey Wheatland out for a drive on what looks like nearby Essex Street, in the winter of 1904.