Salem - Walking Tour and Peabody Essex Museum

It rained off and on during the night. The winds were really blowing - high teens and gusts in the twenties. The boat danced on its mooring all night. We were rudely awaken at 0600 when the tide, wind and waves conspired to cause Foreign Affair to slam against the mooring ball next to us. We suspect our mooring dragged during the night as we think there was ample clearance when we first arrived and the gap between us and another boat next to us seemed to have increased. We were able to bring in the mooring bridle a couple of feet which then allowed us to swing clear of the ball which was causing us problems. The winds eventually died down and we decided not to request a different mooring for the night.

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin

We took the water taxi in to Pickering Wharf and walked the few blocks to the Salem Maritime National Historic Site administered by the US National Park Service. We visited the Custom House first and learned more about the process of collecting custom taxes which provided 97% of the revenue for the US Government up to the time of the American Civil War. Nathaniel Hawthorne was employed by the US Custom Service for several years while he lived in Salem. It was his day job which supported him while he was writing his early works. We were also able to visit with some of the men working to restore the West Indian merchant ship, Friendship of Salem, which we saw on the Gloucester Marine Railway undergoing repairs to her hull.

Salem Custom House

We followed the painted red line on the sidewalks throughout Salem taking time to learn more about the city's history and admire many of the old buildings which still stand in the downtown/harbor district. We eventually ended our tour at the Old Burying Point Cemetery and Witch Trials Memorial. The memorial consists of a rectangular courtyard with the names, dates and manners of death for the twenty people of Salem who were killed by order of the Salem court because they were believed to be witches. The adjacent graveyard is filled with hundreds of gravestones, many of which date back to the earliest days of Salem. We walked a total of 5.2 miles through the streets of Salem.

We finished the day ashore at the Peabody Essex Museum where there was an extensive exhibit of works by the famous French sculptor/artist Auguste Rodin. Another highlight was the Yin Yu Tang House which is an early 19th Century house from Anhui Provence in China and moved to Salem for exhibit. This was particularly interesting to us since we will be traveling to China in October. The museum has an extensive collection of maritime art works, American furniture and American Impressionist paintings. We wished we had more time to spend exploring in more depth some of the galleries.