It’s been a long time since I spent an October weekend in Salem, but there I was on this past Saturday, walking through the crowded streets on my way to the Peabody Essex Museum to take their new “Brick by Brick” architectural walking tour (this is the exact same name as Historic Salem’s Christmas in Salem Tour this year; I sense collusion). I got behind some baby strollers which cleared my path like a snowplow, and dodged and darted amidst the sea of felt witch hat wearers. I knew they would put me in a nasty mood, so as soon as I spotted one “1692/They Missed One” t-shirt, I put on invisible blinders. This was the only day that I could take this tour, and I was desperate to get into one of the Peabody Essex Museum’s long-shuttered period houses: I wasn’t sure which one we were entering but it turned out to be Gardner-Pingree, the most beautiful house in the world! The tour encompassed all of the PEM’s houses save for the Assembly House, and we navigated the path between them relatively quietly armed with audio devices and earbuds, hardly new inventions but still apparently unknown to many Salem tour guides.
random scenes on my way and back; don’t drive to Salem!
I always feel sorry for the Gardner Pingree House this time of year: it’s so beautiful and the tourists don’t seem to notice it; they lean on its amazing fence looking away and down at their phones. But being inside while the crowd was outside was very calming; I could barely hear a thing! It’s a fortress against vulgarity. We got to go into the McIntire summerhouse out back and then heard brief histories outside the exteriors of all the other PEM buildings, again while tourists turned their back on them, their doors rendered to mere frames for selfies.
Gardner-Pingree, Crowninshield-Bentley, Derby-Beebe summerhouse, John Ward, and Andrew Safford houses of the Peabody Essex Museum.
The main guide (Isabel? I believe, in the striped shirt) was very good at weaving in general Salem history with the history of the houses, so I think this would be a very good tour for new visitors to Salem who are not looking for well-worn witch trial narratives and ghost stories. It also has the benefit of getting new visitors out of the congested downtown into the McIntire Historic District, where the Peirce-Nichols house and Ropes Mansion are located. Salem’s “Heritage Trail” (yellow line) just doesn’t go there. The Ropes is the only PEM House that is open on weekends, and it is a Hocus Pocus house with a beautiful late-season garden, so it’s always a draw, but Peirce-Nichols hasn’t been open for decades. I don’t follow the party line in Salem that “tourists come for the witch stuff, but come again for the history” but my summer at the Phillips House has convinced me that a certain percentage of our tourists are actually coming for the history, so I’m glad that there are institutions which can provide it.
Peirce-Nichols house and Ropes Mansion garden–now in full bloom.
back to work: one good thing about October is I can’t find excuses not to walk to work, along Lafayette Street where there is a range of “decorations”. I like these little skeletons.
October 7th, 2024 at 7:03 am
Possibly you meant “Historic Salem Inc.” Christmas House tour?
October 7th, 2024 at 7:20 am
Oh did I screw that up? Thanks, will fix!
October 7th, 2024 at 7:13 am
Back innthe 1950s, when I was in High School,one of my best friends lived in the Pierce Nichols House.(Her parents were the caretakers.) I often had the great pleasure of sleep-overs there! Elegant–and so special!
October 7th, 2024 at 7:21 am
Oh that is special! I envy you.
October 7th, 2024 at 7:42 am
Excellent photos, Donna. A bright, beautiful Salem weekend. The crowd at the Gables was immense: I’ve learned the minimum age of interest in Hawthorne is about 4 years.
October 7th, 2024 at 9:26 am
I grew up in Salem. Am now 77, and have lived in several states. Anytime I tell someone that I grew up in Salem, MA, they immediately respond with something like, “I love Salem! It’s so much fun!” I can’t believe how many people have been there! But for them it’s “all about the witches.” When I tell them that when I was growing up there, the extent of the “witchery” was “The Witch House,” “Witch City Motors,” and the Salem High sports teams, they’re incredulous. (I can still hear the cheerleaders, ” We are the Witches, The mighty mighty Witches, etc.”) Yet folks now seem not to have even noticed the beautiful architecture. And only a few mention the Peabody Essex Museum, which is now such a gem!
I’ll never forget being 9 or 10, and my mom, when she had errands to do, dropping me off at my Dad’s jewelry store that was a few doors down from the Peabody Essex Museum. He’d give me a the 50 cents admission fee for children, and I’d wander around the Museum by myself, fascinated by the artifacts from the East India Trade. Then, decades later, I would go to the Museum with my sketching friends, where we’d spend a few hours sketching things in the permanent and special exhibits. When babysitting for my granddaughter in her earliest years, I would push her around the Museum in her stroller. She’s 9 now and loves to draw and paint, and I can’t help but think that her early exposure to the art and artifacts of the Museum had some influence on her.
October 7th, 2024 at 7:16 pm
Thank you for commenting! I have heard from so many of your generation that their their parents dropped them off at the Peabody Museum! I imagine you all running around together.
October 11th, 2024 at 2:38 am
Salem architecture is grand and exquisite
October 7th, 2024 at 9:06 pm
what a heritage we’ve been given and you captured it so
beautifully. my mother visited all of them often and brought
my kids and their friends along with her.