Summers have been about old Salem photographs for the past several years. I go up to the Phillips Library to research something, order up a few old photograph albums to give myself a break, and then just dive in to another world, another Salem. Last year I really had to restrict myself as I was still wrting chapters for our forthcoming book Salem’s Centuries; this year the book is essentially done so I’m just looking for a few images to illustrate it, or so I tell myself. Really, I just like to look at old photographs. Last week I looked through the three albums of Miss Lilly S. Abbott, a librarian at the Salem Public Library, who began her tenure in 1925 and rose through the positions of assistant, children’s librarian, reference librarian, acting director and assistant director over her 47 years at the library. She was obviously a committed collector and curator of photographs, choosing very important images for her albums, and labeling them on the front or back. She supplied photographs to the Salem Evening News, and also to the Salem Cultural Council’s exhibition of “Salem Streets and People” in 1971. Some of her photos I had seen before, but many were new to me. I sharpened up a few photographs below, but most of her photos were very clear and had been processed from lantern slides very effectively. Unlike a lot of Salem photographers and photography collectors, she was obviously more focused on Salem streets and people than on structures: most of her album photos feature downtown, and she obviously loved the Willows too.
Here are some of my favorites: first, a group of photos of downtown Salem—some are dated, most are not, but I think they’re from about 1900-1920, beginning with this great photo of Ash Street in 1900. Urban Renewal wiped Ash Street out, and now it only has one house!
Ash Street, Crombie Street, Essex Street, Norman Street, North Street and Bridge, Washington Street.
Here’s a few of Derby Street, including the Philadelphia wharf—-I was very excited to see this as it was built by the man who lived in my house. Plus, David Little on his “Little Steamer,” Salem’s first automobile! (Miss Abbott seems to have been very interested in transportation).
On to the Willows: including interior and exterior shots of the famous Brown’s Flying Horses carousel, in situ in Salem until 1945.
Some odds and ends: the only photos of famed Chestnut Street in Miss Abbott’s albums are very different: a car driving west, which to us will look like the wrong way, as it is one-way the other way now, and the day after the fire that destroyed Samuel McIntire’s Second Church in 1903. I’ve never seen this. Then there’s the Tontine building on Warren Street, destroyed by the Great Salem Fire in 1914, and a great photo of the Gedney House on High Street before its acquisition and restoration by Historic New England. Finally, Old Home Week, always a BIG celebration in Salem, in 1909. I’m grateful to Miss Abbott for preserving these wonderful images of Salem streets and people.
Town House Square, 1909.
Lily S. Abbott Photographic Albums (PHA 113). Couresy of Miss Abbott and the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum, Rowley, Massachusetts. Miss Abbott donated the albums to the Essex Institute in Salem in 1981 in memory of her brother, William.
July 29th, 2024 at 10:44 am
What a wonderful amazing and beautiful collection. Thank you so much for discovering and sharing it with us.
July 29th, 2024 at 11:46 am
These are fascinating photos! They transport the viewer right back to earlier times.
July 29th, 2024 at 1:17 pm
They do indeed!
July 29th, 2024 at 7:30 pm
I’m as enamored of the old photos as you! I loved the one with the three young men hanging around the apothecary. But could spend all day examining all of them for fun. I noticed some brick streets, but in others looked like another surface.
July 29th, 2024 at 8:04 pm
I know you are! Lots of cobblestones.
August 2nd, 2024 at 2:32 pm
Thank You Very Much for sharing such a fantastic collection of Salem’s history in pictures. I love history and especially Salem. My ancestors came here back in the 1600s and many have stayed in Salem. While researching my ancestory I learned that
two of my uncles lived on Osgood Street (one in the house right behind mine and another right across the street from Collins Cove Beach. Others have lived on North Street, and Congress Street when it use to be a huge French section. Many of them are buried in five seperate cemeteries in Salem, some of which are small and in the back yards of residents.
Salem’s history has always intrigued me. Here’s a fun fact for you, a house I onced lived in on the corner of Derby and Webb Streets was built in 1682 and has gone unoticed to many historians. When you come down Derby Street and aproach number 36 Derby Street you’ll notice how twisted the structure is. Built on large rocks not held together with anything. There was once an iron pole out front on the sidewalk with a horse head and ring on the top of it once used to tie up horsd and buggies to. One day leaving for work I noticed it was cut and stolen from there. I use to park my car right there at night. A few years ago I found it at a home on Blarney St right before the parking lot to the Salem Ferry. I was furious knowing it was taken to add to a scrappers junk collection along with all of Salem’s other historical items. Anyways, getting back to my old house at 36 Derby. The ceilings are 7′ high, the cellar has a hole dug out undef the yard with a mound of dirt full of bones still there from the early 1700s of when people would bury the carcasses of goats, sheep, and pigs in their cellers and cover them with dirt from the basements floor. After 5 years of living there I was curious where the door under the stairs led to. I dug out about 4-5″ of dirt and managed to get the door open and it was a canning room and still had a roll of brown wax paper and dozens of empty jars on the shelves. The attic was full of old tools of all kinds including two handled saws used by those cutting down trees. I wanted to research it but a girl that is a Derby Wharf Park Ranger beat me to it. The house I’m living in now was built in 1852 and I have slowly been digging up artifacts in my yard all the time.
August 3rd, 2024 at 6:26 pm
Wow, thanks for all these stories, Ron!