SALEM, a city of Massachusetts, U.S.A., on the coast, 15 m. N.E. of Boston; a port of entry, one of the county seats of Essex county, and a city of great historic interest. It is served by the Boston and Maine railroad. Pop. 42,697 in 1920 (26% foreign born white), was 43,353 in 193o by the Federal census. The city's area of 8.2 sq.m. comprises a peninsula projecting toward the north-east between Marblehead and Beverly, Winter island (con nected with the neck of the peninsula by a causeway), and some territory on the mainland. The commerce of its harbour (almost entirely receipts of coal) amounted in 1927 to 461,377 tons, valued at $2,840,318. Its manufactures (including cotton goods, boots and shoes, leather, and silverware) were valued in 1927 at $30, 165,824. Salem is the seat of a State normal school (1854) and an exceptional number (in proportion to its size) of charitable insti tutions and societies under religious and other private auspices. The assessed valuation of property for 1927 was $56,087,900.
Salem is one of the oldest cities in New England, and has pre served an unusual number of historic and literary landmarks. In the centre of the city is the Common (8 ac.). On a bluff projecting into South river is the old Burying point, set aside in 1637, with stones dating back to 1673 ; and in Broad street is another old burial ground, laid out in 1655. The famous India (or Crownin shield's) wharf is now a coal pocket. The custom house (de scribed by Hawthorne in the introduction to The Scarlet Letter) was built in 1818-19; the oldest of the three court-houses, which has great monolithic Corinthian columns, in 1839-41; the city hall, in 1837. There are many old dwellings built by ship-owners before the Revolution ; and still more dating from the early years of the 19th century, when large fortunes were made in privateer ing. Many are of the gambrel type, and they are rich in beautiful doorways, doorheads, and other fine architectural details. Among the houses of special interest are the birthplace of Nathaniel Haw thorne (built before 1692) ; the "house of seven gables," now in use as a social settlement ; the "witch house," where Jonathan Corwin is said to have held preliminary examinations in the witchcraft trials. The Essex institute (1848) and the Peabody museum (in the East Indian Marine hall, built in 1824) contain rich collections relating to colonial life.
Salem was founded in 1626 by Roger Conant (1593-1679) as a commercial venture, partly agricultural and partly to provide a wintering-place for the Banks fishermen. The name was probably chosen in allusion to Psalm lxxvi. 2. In 1628 a patent for the territory was granted by the New England council to the Dor chester Company, which promptly sent out a small colony under John Endecott as governor. This patent was superseded in 1629 by the charter for the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. Endecott continued as governor until the arrival (1630) of John Winthrop, who soon moved the seat of government to Charlestown and then to Boston. In 1629 the first Congregational Church in America was organized in Salem, and Roger Williams (q.v.) was one of its first pastors. In 1686 the people of Salem, guarding against the dan ger of being dispossessed by a new charter, secured a deed to their land from the Indians for f2o. Salem village (then part of Salem, but now in Danvers) was the centre of the witchcraft delusion of 1692. Beginning with accusations by ten young girls that Tituba, the West Indian slave of the Rev. Samuel Parris, and two old women had bewitched them, the hysteria spread rapidly, and within four months hundreds were arrested and tried, 19 hanged, and one pressed to death for refusing to plead. The reaction came quickly, and in May 1693 Governor Phelps ordered the release of all prisoners held on the charge of witchcraft. Salem was an important port after 1670, especially in the India trade, and Salem privateers were conspicuous in the Seven Years' War, during the Revolution (when 158 of them took 445 prizes), and in the War of 1812. The first provincial assembly of Massachusetts met in Salem in 1774. On Feb. 20, 1775, at the North bridge, the first armed resistance of the Revolution was offered by the men of the town to royal troops sent to search for hidden cannon. Marble head was set off from Salem in 1649, Beverly in 1668 and Danvers in 1752. Salem was chartered as a city in 1836. It was the birth place of Nathaniel Hawthorne, William H. Prescott, Nathaniel Bowditch, Jones Very and William Wetmore Story.