New Salem

“ BRADSTREET.
Thanks to the historic spirit and the painstaking, loving labors of her citizens, Old Salem is easily deciphered under the handsome, modern, progressive city of thirty-four thousand inhabitants with factories, electric plants and Queen Anne cottages. ”

“ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
The old town of Salem, in Massachusetts, was once a famous seaport, and ships sailed out of its harbor to the ends of the world. In the East Indies so many merchant vessels bore the word Salem on the stern that people there supposed that to be the name of some powerful country, and “Mass.,” which was sometimes added, to be the name of a village in Salem. As Boston and New York grew more important, they drew away trade from the smaller towns, and Salem became less busy. ”

“ The Tragedy was, no doubt, the central interest of society, families, and individuals throughout the Province for the life of one generation. Then, as silence had been kept in the homes as well as at church and market, the next generation entered upon life almost unconscious of the ghastly distinction which would attach in history to Massachusetts in general, and Salem in particular, as the scene of the Delusion and the Tragedy which showed the New World to be in essentials no wiser than the Old. ”

“ He told her how, when he had come into control of the great shipping interests of Salem's most distinguished family, he decided Boston was the coming port and that Salem had had her glorious day, so abandoned the old love for a new. ”

“ From this place we removed to New Salem, Ashtabula county, Ohio, sometimes called Conneaut, as it is situated on Conneaut Creek. Shortly after our removal to this place, his health sunk, and he was laid aside from active labors. In the town of New Salem there are numerous mounds and forts supposed by many to be the dilapidated dwellings and fortifications of a race now extinct. These ancient relics arrest the attention of the new settlers, and become objects of research for the curious. Numerous implements were found, and other articles evincing great skill in the arts. ”

“ Along one side of the street were the counting-houses of the merchant princes, around which hung the atmosphere and flavor of thrilling maritime romance. Practically the entire male population, young and old, was engaged directly or indirectly in the business of such as go down to the sea in ships. Ship-builders and sailors, craftsmen and navigators—Derby Street hummed with their activities. Before the ports of New York and Boston had acquired touch with Oriental trade, Salem had already dipped deep into the coffers of the East ”

“ Salem is chiefly a residential city adjoining Winston, the county-seat, the two municipalities forming practically one industrial community. (See Winston.) Under the revised charter of 1891, the government is vested in a mayor, elected biennially, and a unicameral council. Salem was founded by a body of Moravians in 1766 and was for many years distinctively a church community—the church having complete charge of secular as well as ecclesiastical affairs. Count Zinzendorf drew up the plans on which Salem was laid out. ”

“ Salem really dates from 1626, when Roger Conant and a little band of English farmers and fishermen, in discouraged mood, left the bleak shore of Cape Ann and came to this region, then called by the Indians Naumkeag, a large tract of land, heavily wooded to the westward, and at the east running in irregular, picturesque manner out into Massachusetts Bay. ”

“ BETTER THAN HOEING ON A HOT DAY
This was New Salem. The place had no tavern, but I was directed to one of the farm-houses which was in the habit of keeping “transients.” There was only a boy at home. His folks were away, and he had built a fire in the kitchen and was fussing around, keeping an eye on the window in expectation of the coming of the home team. It arrived soon after, and in came his mother and sister, who had been to one of the valley towns trading and visiting. The father was over at “the other farm,” but he came in a little later. Mrs. ”

“ Salem itself, and the new pulpit, which had a short time ago represented to poor Vincent that tribune from which he was to influence the world, that point of vantage which was all a true man needed for the making of his career, dwindled into a miserable scene of trade before his disenchanted eyes—a preaching shop, where his success was to be measured by the seat-letting, and his soul decanted out into periodical issue under the seal of Tozer & Co. ”

“ Another set of priceless{165}
{166}
associations is added to the old town which now must confess to factories and a foreign population like many another New England seaport. The resident of Salem lives in a modern, progressive, handsome city, made the more attractive by eccentric roofs, “Mackintire” doorways, carved wooden mantels and wainscoting, ever suggestive of the venerable and impressive past, a past that may well serve as a challenge to the children of Viking and Puritan, inviting them to a fine self-control and a broad public spirit. ”

“ The people of Salem, it will be remembered, persistently sought Williams as their spiritual pastor and master until the General Court at Boston unseated the Salem deputies for the acts of their constituents in retaining a man of whom they disapproved, and the magistrates sent a vessel to Salem to remove Mr. Williams to England. The minister eluded his persecutors by fleeing through the wintry snows into the wilderness, to become the founder of the State of Rhode Island. ”

“ They entered at a spot not far from the Delaware River, which they named Salem, on account of the peaceful aspect of the country and the surrounding Indians. There, with the peculiar gravity of the sect, Fenwick and his two daughters, thirteen men (most of them heads of families) and one woman, the wife of one of the emigrants, sat in silent worship, according to their custom, under the shadow of a great tree, with covered heads and quiet bodies, on the ensuing "First Day" after [Pg 141] their arrival. Then they built log cabins for shelter, and so began a new life in the wilds of New Jersey. ”

“ The connection of two such topics as a local history and a general survey of witchcraft in one work, was very appropriate and judicious in this case, because Salem Village, which embraced the present town of Danvers and parts of other towns adjacent, was the site of the most extensive and awful conflict which men ever waged in avowed and direct contest with the devil on this continent, if not in the world. ”

“ Another fine example of the old brick mansion of the closing period of Colonial Salem is the Andrew-Safford house at 13 Washington Square. Erected in 1818, it was reputed to be the most costly private residence in New England. Thanks to successful commercial ventures in foreign trade, money was plentiful in Salem, and it was freely spent in the provision of comfortable and indeed luxurious homes for those who had earned it. ”

“ He also informs us that he made an offer to support five or six of the Salem sufferers for weeks at his own expense, if he could have them subjected to his special charge, so that he could treat them by methods of his own. Such facts surely indicate that an ardent and active man like him, ever burning to take part in most popular movements, was not in sympathy with originators of the violent and barbarous proceedings which were prosecuted at Salem. ”

“ I propose to illustrate this by a very particular enumeration of instances, and by details that will give [i.23] us an insight of the personal, domestic, and social elements that constituted the condition of life in the earliest age of New England, particularly in that part of the old township of Salem where the scene of our story is laid. I shall give an account of the persons and families who first settled the region included in, and immediately contiguous to, Salem Village, and whose children and grandchildren were actors or sufferers in, or witnesses of, the witchcraft delusion. ”

“ Wealth accumulated in Salem, but men did not decay. Few towns in New England can boast of such striking history and such valuable achievements on the part of their citizens, within a like period of time, as can Old Salem by the Sea. ”

“ It must not be forgotten that from the early part of the seventeenth century to the latter year of the eighteenth century when this seafaring genius reached its highest development, the men of Salem had been trained and bred to wrest a livelihood from salt water. During this period of one hundred and fifty years before the Revolution the sea was the highway of the Colonists whose settlements fringed the rugged coast line of New England. ”

“ Salem.—On the South side of Salem River stands on a peninsula the Towne of Salem, setled some yeares by a few people befor the Patent of the Massachusits was granted. It is very commodious for fishing, and many Vessells have been built there and (except Boston) it hath as much Trade as any place in New England both inland and abroad.
Marblehead or Foy.—Two miles below this Towne on the Southside of the Harbor by the sea side lyeth Marblehead or ffoy the greatest Towne for ffishing in New England. ”

“ It is to this much older race of American seamen and the stout ships they built and manned that we of to-day should be grateful for many of the finest pages in the history of our country’s progress. The most adventurous age [Pg 5] of our merchant mariners had reached its climax at the time of the War of 1812, and its glory was waning almost a hundred years ago. For the most part its records are buried in sea-stained log books and in the annals and traditions of certain ancient New England coastwise towns, [1] of which Salem was the most illustrious. ”

“ Much pondering was there, much exorcising, much studying of the twenty-eighth chapter of 1 Samuel, and diligent rummaging of chronicles, Jewish, Egyptian, French, and English, to find descriptions of the vice, and the punishments therefor. The sin of being old is, in a new country where young activities are alone valuable, always great. At quaint, gable-ended Salem it became a swinging crime. ”

“ The largest Salem specimen has a capacity of one quart only, and is beautifully chased around [Pg 233] the body and upon the cover in a rose-and-pineapple design. This chasing is much worn, not only by the passage of time, but also by the pitiless polishing of the methodical New England housekeeper. This is a straight-sided tankard, with a well-curved top, which necessitates a long and tapering thumb piece. The handle is large and well-tapered, extending well above the rim. All these specimens belong to the Revolutionary epoch. ”

“ Next to Plymouth it is the oldest town in New England, having been first settled in 1626. Not till three years after were Boston and Charlestown commenced by the arrival of eleven ships from England. It is a significant fact, as showing the hardships to which the early settlers were exposed, that of the fifteen hundred persons composing this Boston expedition, two hundred died during the first winter. Salem has also the honor of establishing the first New England church organization, in 1629, with the Reverend Francis Higginson as its pastor. ”

“ Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn were the agents of the devil in this foul attempt against the peace of the godly inhabitants of Salem village.
For it was a common belief even amongst the wisest and best of our Puritan fathers, that the devil had a special spite against the New England colonies. They looked at it in this way. He had [Pg 23] conquered in the fight against the Lord in the old world. He was the supreme and undoubted lord of the "heathen salvages" in the new. ”

“ It pleased God, in the year of our Lord 1692, to visit the people at a place called Salem Village, in New England, with a very sore and grievous affliction, in which they had reason to believe that the sovereign and holy God was pleased to permit Satan and his instruments to affright and afflict those poor mortals in such an astonishing and unusual manner. ”

“ N. of Salem, there are buried some 2460 Confederate soldiers, who died during the Civil War while prisoners of war at Fort Delaware, on an island in Delaware river nearly opposite the mouth of Salem Creek. Salem lies in a rich agricultural region. Among the city’s manufactures are canned fruits and vegetables, condiments, glass-ware, brass and iron-work, hosiery, linoleum and oil-cloth. ”

“ The Salem and Boston settlers came largely from the English counties of Suffolk and Essex, where witches and witch-hunters and witch-finders abounded, and Salem children and parents had seen in their English [242] homes or heard the tales of hundreds of similar obsessions and possessions.
New England children were instilled with a familiarity with death in still another way than through talking and reading of it. Their presence at funerals was universal. A funeral in those days had an entirely different status as a ceremony from to-day. ”

“ His many exertions for the prosperity of Salem, and his ardent attachment to it, should impress his name and worth upon the hearts of its inhabitants, so long as its existence continues."
Thus lived and thus died, one of the principal founders and firmest pillars of New England.
At his decease he left a widow and two sons. The elder son left no children;—the younger was a physician, and resided in Salem. He was twice married; and a family of five sons and five daughters survived him. His second wife was Elisabeth, daughter of Governor Winthrop, and widow of the Rev. ”