Salem......

6:29 am - Thursday - May 10th - Lynnfield, MA - 43º F, 99% humidity, wind 5 mph out of the north by northeast......heavy fog with a forecast high for today of 58º F.

Wednesday was our first full day in Lynnfield, MA and we decided to take the drive over to Salem to spend part of the day walking around this historic seaside town founded in 1626.  After finding a parking spot we made our way over to the Visitor Center, which used to be the Salem Armory.....

.....there are quite a few interesting exhibits....I found the ones involving shipping interesting.  Salem was a very important harbor from the 1600's through the early 1800's when its importance began to diminish due to its quite shallow harbor which limited the size of ships which could enter.  As the ships grew larger New York and Boston harbors with much deeper bottoms became more popular.....

......of course, one cannot talk about Salem without mention of the 'Salem witch trials'.  It was certainly a dark time in the history of Salem in which 20 persons, mostly women, were accused of being witches and hung.  This was not the focus of our day, however.  

We spent time walking around the historic downtown district taking pictures of old cobble, and interesting buildings, many of which date back to the 1600's when the town was founded.....

.....virtually all of these downtown historic buildings have been, or are being restored and how house shops and restaurants......

 The Customs House

......most of the income for the New England States in the early years of this fledgling nation was derived from duty payments due on cargo coming into the United States....these payments were made at the Custom House.

Of course, we can never pass up a good cemetery.........

......people did not live very long back in the 1600's and 1700's......many of the tombstones showed life spans under 30 years.

....eventually our wanderings took us to the harbor area, which was really the center of business in 1600's Salem.  We found these square rigger masts on saw horses....they have been repainted and re-rigged to be reinstalled at some future date......

 We decided to walk out to the Derby Wharf Light.....the fog was beginning to roll in, and as we made our way back it had virtually obscured this building near the entrance to the harbor.

  The Derby Wharf Light

......our last destination in Salem this day was the 'House of the Seven Gables', originally built in 1668, but made famous in the 1851 novel of the same name written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was also the author of 'The Scarlet Letter'.  By the late 1800's the home had fallen into disrepair, and if not for the publishing of Nathaniel Hawthorne's book would probably not exist today.  Nathaniel was friends with the daughter of Captain Ingersoll, who owned the home at the time, and he spent many hours in the house becoming fascinated with it.  In 1908 the home was purchased by Caroline Emmerton, a local philanthropist, who had read the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel, and wanted to preserve the thome......she had it restored, and began giving tours of the home. 

Built in 1668 by merchant and ship owner John Turner....became the subject of a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne ,"The House of the Seven Gables" written in 1851

 You can see 5 of the 7 gables in these two pictures

Model of 'The House of Seven Gables'....#1 is the original house; #2 - Turner added kitchen and dining room; #3 - as Turner propsered he added more bedrooms and had higher ceilings; #4 was the final addition by Turner with very high ceilings and more bedrooms

 State of the art kitchen for the 1600's

 Secret passage to upstairs which you get to climb.....very, very tight quarters

 Servants bedroom

 Bedroom in the newest addition

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

.....there is an admission fee charged to  tour the home, and you are given a guided tour of the house which lasts 45 minutes to an hour depending on the size of the group.....we had a quite large group, and our tour lasted about an hour.

By the time we finished the 7 gables tour it was going on 1:30 pm, and we were both getting a little peckish, so we headed off to Gloucester to Stones Pub and Eatery (Yelp gives them 4.5 stars on over 100 reviews......we agree) for a late lunch.  Gloucester is about 12 miles away from Salem, and located near Cape Ann......

.....we arrived at the pub around 2 pm, and quickly found stools at the bar where we ordered a couple of pints of Murphy's Stout.  I added 'Eric's Burger' for my entree, and TLE their Sausage Sandwich.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our entrees and brews....a perfect way to bring our Wednesday touring to a close!

Beer makes us happy!

On our way back to Lynnfield we stopped off at a local Trader Joe's to pick up some wine, and some groceries.  We were back home by 4 pm at which time I fell asleep in my recliner for almost 90 minutes......nothing like a lot of sea air and beer to make you sleepy.....😏

Thursday we are off to Boston for the day.....stay tuned and thanks for stopping by!

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