Salem Common

Salem Common. Salem. , Salem Common was originally a nine-acre parcel of swampy land used for grazing livestock and training the local militia. In 1637, the first regiment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony militia to muster (train) was the East REgiment. This volunteer unit gathered on Salem Common that spring, initiating a tradition that evolved into today's National Guard. In 2013, Salem received federal designation as the Birthplace of the U.S. National Guard., In 1801, Elias Hasket Derby Jr. led a campaign to upgrade the Common's land, lay out walkways, and erect a wooden fence with ornamental gates. One gate featured a carved wooden medallion of George Washington by carver Samuel McIntire. A smaller replica of this gate, the Washington Arch, was installed on the southwest corner of the Common in 1976 during America's bicentennial and moved to its present location in 2016. The wooden fence was replaced in 1850 by a new cast iron fence. In 1926, Phillip Horton Smith's Neo-classical bandstand was built as part of the Salem Tercentenary Celebration. It was dedicated to Salem's famous band leader, Jean Missud. In 1802, the streets surrounding the Common were renamed Washington Square North, South, East, and West., Wealthy merchant families constructed the mansions that overlook the Common, displacing older shops, tanneries, and rope-walks. The Webb-Briggs-Whipple House (by 1770) may be the oldest house on the Common. The Captain Francis Boardman House (ca. 1785) was briefly occupied by Baordman's son-in-law Nathaniel Bowditch. Boardman was captured during the Revolutionary War and escaped from a British ship. The Clifford-Crowninshield House (806) is one of the few documented houses in Salem designed by architect Samuel McIntire., On Winter Street is the 1811 Federalperiod home of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story who founded the Harvard Law School. Story's ruling in favor of a group of slaves who committed mutiny onboard the ship Amistad earned this house a place on the National Park Service's Underground Railroad Network to Freedom in 2012. President James Monroe visited this home in 1817, and the Marquis de Lafayette stopped by in 1824., When the Colonial Revival style Hawthorne Hotel was constructed in 1925, it displaced the headquarters of the Salem MArine Society, a charitable organization that looked after the widows and children of seamen. To compensate, the hotel constructed a special meeting room for the Society on the top floor, which is a replica of a ship captain's headquarters.