Tag Archives: Local Events

August 3, 2026

Salem’s Quadricentennial Parade

By daseger

I have been looking forward to Salem’s 400th anniversary parade all summer so my expectations were high and definitely a bit unrealistic when it finally unfolded on this past Saturday. I’ve been so steeped in Salem’s history in general, and the spectacular Salem Tercentenary in particular, that I expected a lot of elaborate floats about big historical moments, which was definitely the case in 1926. There was a lot of comparison between past and present in that year as well (very well represented by these two ladies featured on the Salem Gas Light Co. float below) and I thought I’d have the opportunity to compare 2026 and 1926. The parade was themed “Salem through the Centuries,” so my expectations were not completely unfounded, but it was also labeled as the return of the traditional Heritage Days parade, which had not been held for over twenty years.

There were a couple of floats and I saw a couple of dates pass by, but mostly it was just a community parade: local politicians, businesses, institutions, organizations, people. Marching bands, fire trucks, and Shriners: just what you expect to see in a summer parade in a small American city. There were also a lot of boats, as the parade ended at the Salem Maritime National Historic Park, which held its annual maritime festival and cardboard boat regatta and so several entries marched in the parade. Here’s a few shots from my spot on Lafayette Street: there were larger crowds downtown but I walked way up towards the beginning of the parade route. A highlight for me came fairly early in the parade: History Alive, Inc., which has been presenting immersive historical productions for Salem residents and tourists since 1992, outfitted an army of historical Salem people in crafted costumes. It was really thrilling to see John Remond, Luis Emilio, and Samuel McIntire stride down Lafayette Street.

The History Alive contingent: these costumes were gorgeous!

So I settled in to watch more people (and the occasional animal) pass by: a delegation from the venerable student exchange program between Salem and Ota, Japan, representatives of the Salem Chamber of Commerce, Salem Main Streets, the Essex National Heritage Area, the League of Women Voters, the Salem Boys and Girls Club, the House of the Seven Gables, the North Shore Asian American and Pacific Islander Coalition, and the Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church. (this is not a complete list). Nathaniel Hawthorne represented the Salem Athenaeum. Marching Masons too!

Several notable businesses really showed up for the parade, including Rockefella’s Restaurant, which is located in the historical Daniel Low’s building which was also the original site of Salem’s First Church, the Hawthorne Hotel, Cinema Salem, and O’Donnell’s Funeral Home, which featured an antique horse-drawn hearse! There was an array of witches, of course, pink, green, and dancing, as well as the ever-present Halloween buskers, and the Salem Witch Museum featured a tree float representing the millions of descendants of Witch Trial victims. Two public departments, The Salem Parks, Recreation and City Services Department and the Salem Beautification Committee, went all out with their truck floats featuring the famous cement slide at Forest River Park and the Ladies of Salem figurehead installations.

And now for the vessels. Both the Peabody Essex Museum and the Salem Maritime National Historic Park featured ship floats and there was also the flotalla of cardboard creations destined for the regatta later in the day. I was so hot after the parade that I skipped that, but it has become a HUGE attraction over the past few years and I can see from various posts that it was bigger than ever this year. The parade was closed very appropriately and very well by the Salem High School Marching Band, but I didn’t get a good picture!

An Appendix: a group shot of all the History Alive parade stars! Kristina Stevick, artistic director of History Alive, is in front. The Company’s wardrobe manager is Carrie Midura. You can be sure that this photograph is going into the archives: I’m going to print it out and put it there!

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

April 13, 2026

I’d Rather Read Poetry

By daseger

Over the past few weeks Salem residents have learned that our city will become the site of yet another dark attraction, styled a museum of course, an establishment that seems even worse than the last arrival in terms of tackiness, kitschiness, darkness, and removal from anything to do with our past or present. I’m not going to name it as I don’t want to shower any publicity on the horrid thing, but you can read about it here. I got all revved up as I usually do, but then found that I could not act (write). All the work on the book, all the anxiety about the launch of the book, all the presentations I’ve been giving on the book, all of my immersion in Salem’s history for years just sort of emptied me, I think. And I truly felt despair. Usually rant writing revives me, but I had nothing to give, nothing to write, and I knew it wouldn’t matter anyway. So I was just kind of stuck. And then, for some inexplicable reason, I picked up an old poetry anthology and started reading it, and one poem led to another and then to another and so I experienced sort of a poetry immersion/conversion over the last week. I say conversion because I’ve had a notable lack of appreciation for poetry my entire life. I remember calling up my father, an English professor and a poet, when I was in college and complaining that I had to read Gerard Manley Hopkins and his work was awful and my father swearing at me in frustration, after which we both hung up and then he called back and calmly explained to me why Hopkins’ work was not awful, and I said ok, but basically I’ve been faking it since then. But the words that I have read over the past week–expressing sorrow over the loss of place, the trivilization of tragedy, and just general futility–really helped me. I discovered all sort of new poets and perspectives and I’m going back for more, but these are some of my favorite lines so far, set against the soon-to-be location of Salem’s newest “museum.”

I’ve always tried to find answers for what has happened and is happening to Salem in academic literature: there is now quite a robust discussion about “dark tourism” and the lure and exploitation of tragedy in general and the Salem scenario in particular. My colleagues Margo Shea and Drew Darien have contributed insightful chapters on tourism to Salem’s Centuries, both with personal and local perspectives (and Salem’s verty first Poet Laureate, J.D. Scrimgeour, closes our book). But it seems to me that Salem has gone way beyond just exploiting the Witch Trials of 1692: an entirely new layer of commodified horror seems to have been grafted onto the city’s identity, completely detached from its human history. I don’t have the tools or the patience to deal with this erasure, so I think I’ll stick to my poetry regimen.

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

March 30, 2026

Personal Declarations

By daseger

I would love to hear about Revolutionary exhibitions, programs and events sheduled for your area in this 250th anniversary year: 1776 is certainly alive and well in the Boston area! Since I’m on sabbatical, I’ve been able to attend quite a few happenings, and my favorite collaborative initiative is the Declarations Trail, on which four institutions, the Boston Athenaeum, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Boston Public Library and Harvard University’s Houghton Library, have put more than a dozen copies of the Declaration of Independence on view, “originally created in different printings for different audiences” along with lots of other contextual objects. I’ve been to the first two exhibitions at the Athenaeum and MHS, and am looking forward to the opening of the last two later this spring.

Looking at, and thinking about, these paper Declarations has got me thinking about their popular and personal reception. I am very mindful of the words of historian J.L. Bell on his great blog Boston 1775: for the first generations of Americans it was a set of words, not an object they ever saw but at the same time, I know that one of the primary functions of print is to make things more permanent, and with tangible permanance comes possession as well as remembrance. Following that trail in my mind brought me to textile Declarations in general and Declaration handkerchiefs in particular–because there seems to have been a market for these words that you could literally put in your pocket. That market did not really develop until the first era of remembrance for the American Revolution—the 1820s, approaching its 50th anniversary with participants dying—but then it really took off. A great book (Threads of History. Americana Recorded on Cloth 1775 to the Present by Smithsonian curator Herbert R. Collins), an archived exhibition at the Museum of the American Revolution, and numerous auction archives introduced me to the copperplate-printed handkerchiefs produced by William Gillespie & Sons in Scotland for the American market beginning in 1821. Produced in blue, black and red colorways, there’s a blue one coming up at auction next week at Eldred’s Auctions, and this spectacular red textile was the banner lot at an important Sotheby’s auction in 2023. A black (more sepia) handkerchief was sold by Swann Auction Galleries in 2023, and the Yale University Art Gallery has a similar one, as well as a centennial quilt from fifty years later sewn around the same: what a perfect object linking two eras of patriotic remembrance.

Textiles seem less ephemeral than paper, so I assume that the Declaration handkerchiefs of the 1820s were in demand as commemorative items, but it’s important to remember that this was also an era that the Declaration was being issued as separate broadside for the first time too–it was evolving from words into an object which could take several forms. The motifs that were featured on these textiles, including the “chain” of states, big Revolutionary moments, and the founding fathers, will reappear again and again. Fifty years later, the Centennial will inspire another wave of patriotic production, but those objects will be more familiar than introductory.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, History

March 23, 2026

Remembering the Ladies: Two Talks in Salem

By daseger

A promotional post today: I’ve got two 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

 

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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: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Historic Houses, New England

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.

 

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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: , , , , , , , , | posted in Historic Trails, History

January 12, 2026

Minority Report

By daseger

Provocative title, yes? It’s not mine. A very different presentation for me today: a very short post, with no pictures and very little analysis on my part. Basically I just want to offer you a link, to the Minority Report of the two historians appointed to the City Seal Task Force, whose contributions to the Official Report were so butchered and detached from documentation that they felt compelled to compose their own report and submit it to the Salem City Council for its review and consideration of an alteration to Salem’s official city seal since 1839. I’m not sure what’s going to happen here, but we all (including myself—five posts here!) got very swept up in this process. In general, the City Council seems to have a preference for very bland history, which offends no one and affirms some contemporary value, or very commodified history (all witches all the time everywhere), which many people find offensive but is rationalized according to its perceived monetary value, and nothing in between. Very little nuance is permitted, and of course history is all nuance and the City Seal discussion really had a lot of nuance, all of which is presented so well in this Minority Report. And that’s one reason I want to amplify it.

Download Report

The other reason why I wanted to share this report is that it is excellent in general as well as in nuance! It’s a detailed summary of a major sector of Salem’s maritime history during its so-called “golden age,” drawn from both traditional and new studies, with some great insights into cultural history and public history. It features an array of perspectives, from both the past and the present. Even if you’re not into the seal debate (which is understandable–I don’t know how it creeped up on me either) it’s well worth your time.

Now usually I would analyze and annotate this myself, but I said to myself (for once): I have said (written) enough! I certainly would be interested in your comments here, however (particularly because I haven’t had anyone to discuss this with), and I’ll be back with something new next week. I’m not sure when the City Council is going to take this issue up, but I’ll report back when they do.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Culture, Current Events, Salem

December 8, 2025

Christmas in Salem 2025: Close to Home

By daseger

Christmas in Salem, a holiday house tour held hosted every year by Historic Salem, Inc. as its largest fundraiser, has always been one of my favorite events. It represents every thing I love about Salem: architecture, creativity, community, preservation, walkability, pride of place. It’s the light at the end of the long dark Halloween tunnel. I never miss it, and this year I couldn’t miss it, as our house was on the tour, so it came to me! Actually, on Saturday morning, I was so tired of cleaning and decorating and just thinking about it, I got in the car and drove away as soon as my house captain and guides arrived and took charge: I wanted out of sight and mind and out of Salem. But I came home to festive guides and family and knew I had missed out, so yesterday my husband and I set out on the tour ourselves and as usual, it did not disappoint. I don’t mean to convey that the experience of opening your house is in any way oppressive: Historic Salem and the Christmas in Salem team are thoroughly professional and supportive and of course it’s an honor and a privilege to be included among an always-stellar collection of Salem homes. I think I was just tired (it’s the end of the semester) and done on Saturday but I rallied on Sunday, and so I have lots of photos. I missed quite a few houses (there were long lines everywhere and we somehow had to have a drink in the midst of everything) but here are my highlights, grouped by impressions.

New perspectives:

This tour consisted of homes in my immediate neighborhood but I could see very familiar places, including my own house, in new ways. Window, courtyard, and porch views from houses that you don’t live in make things look a little different. Standing on my Cambridge Street neighbors’ porch waiting to enter their very charming house, I realized that their daily view of Hamilton Hall was very different from my own on the other side. While I was waiting to go into a house on Broad Street, I suddenly got a great view of a little Georgian house on Cambridge with its side to the street which I have always slighted. And I copied a great shot a friend of mine took through my front door wreath of the wonderful house across the street, which I get to gaze at everyday.

 

Boughs and Blooms:

That was the theme this year, so I thought I would show you some boughs and blooms, including some of my favorite Christmas trees on the tour. We had two, a stately one in the front parlor and a short and fat one in back, and I love them both but I don’t think either can compare to this first amazing tree at One Chestnut, located in the perfect dining room alcove. But all Christmas trees are special of course.

You can see that the Salem Garden Club, which decorated the cute Federal cottage with the mansard roof over on Cambridge Street pictured in the three photos above, took the boughs and bloom brief seriously! Really beautiful botanical displays throughout the house. The last time I was on this tour, 20 years ago (!!!), they decorated my house and I’m not sure it was a good idea for me to have taken on that task myself this year. But anyway, here are my two trees, front and back, tall and short.

 

So many Mantels:

And I have finally managed to spell mantel correctly, a word I’ve mispelled for years. After the tree, I’m always looking for well-dressed mantels at holiday time, and there were lots to see on this tour. If you’ve followed the blog over the years, you know that I have the decorating sensibility of a four-year-old and choose a different animal theme every year, and this year it was snow leopards (though I really couldn’t find enough leopards of the snow variety so I broadened my theme a bit). They were pretty prominently featured on both parlor mantels and on the dining room table. Most mantels on the tour were a bit more traditional, and as is always the case with the Christmas in Salem tour, there was diversity in terms of scale and materials.

 

Stairways:

Stairs are also a good focal point for holiday decorations and actually the main reason we agreed to go on the tour this year was our front stairway: we wanted to get rid of an old faded and motheaten runner and refinish the treads to match the mahogany banister. It’s good to have a project for these things, and nothing is more motivating than the challenge (threat) of 2000 people walking through your house. We got it done, or should I say the best floor guy in the world, Dan Labreque, got it done: he’s been doing the ballroom at Hamilton Hall for his entire life, following in the craft of his father. We painted our back staircase too, although that was much less of a project. I must also admit that I had a bow brigade to tie these bows as even after watching many tutorials, I just can’t do that. I loved the antique toile wallpaper in the front hall over at the corner of Broad and Cambridge, and the very grand hallway at #1 Chestnut as well.

 

Tables!

I had my leopards, and everybody else had their best china and/or silver out! Dining rooms or tables are really an encapsulation of all the little details you have to put together, I think.

 

Very random details: I spent one afternoon making this bower (???) for one of my leopards in my pantry so of course I have to feature it; what a light fixture at 1 Chestnut, my Cambridge Street neighbors spent over a year reconfiguring an addition at the back of their house and the results are stunning–here are some of the artifacts they found during the process and a great bundt pan display, swag from Historic Salem, which gave every homeowner on the tour one of these lovely paintings by Simeen Brown, just a nice simple wreath to close the post.

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

August 11, 2025

Cardboard & Chrome

By daseger

Last week was a little challenging here in Salem, with news of two local businesses closing: one decades old, the other an extremely popular retail shop which caters to residents rather than tourists. Such businesses seem fewer and fewer present along the streets of Salem, and it’s a bit disheartening. The slide towards all-year-long Halloween seems relentless, at least to me, and you can see little black witch hats everywhere you walk even on the hottest days of summer. So it was nice to have two more traditional events this past weekend: the Maritime Festival at the newly-designated Salem Maritime National Historic Park (as opposed to Site, its prior designation) and the Phillips House Car Meet. These events have been going on for decades—the Maritime Festival took a break but was revived several years ago with a new marquis event, a cardboard regatta which is really fun to watch and the Car Meet just gets bigger and better every year. I saw lots of old friends on both days and met quite a few new among the old cars as I was greeting guests at the Phillips House. And I saw only ONE stupid little witch hat on both days! I took lots of pictures, so here they are:

Maritime Festival & Cardboard Regatta at Salem Maritime National Historic PARK on Saturday: the boats were largely family or organization constructions with lots of young sailors aboard and some were very seaworthy while other sank pretty quickly. But everyone paddled as best they could! Lots of entries this year, and the awards were very creative.

They’re still working on her as you can see, but it’s been nice to have the Friendship back at Derby Wharf this summer too. And it was lovely to be able to go into both the Custom House and the adjoining Derby House—I hadn’t been in the latter for at least a decade; I can’t really remember when I was last in there, actually. It looks great.

Love the scale of these rooms!!!

The 23rd Annual Phillips House Car Meet on Sunday: as you can see from my photos, what I like is the juxtaposition of old houses and old cars. This event started out with maybe 15 cars, and now there are cars lining both sides of Chestnut Street so almost every house has its own car! The lower end of the street, where I live, is excluded, as it is narrower and traffic has to flow somewhere so my house does not get its own car. In years past when I was not working this event, I would find out all about the cars but I didn’t have time to do that this year as I just took some snaps during a break. 

And then they were gone….leaving no tracks.

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