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| Pioneer Village. Photo by Erik Smith. |
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| Copyright 2007/2008/2009, Erik K. Smith, Salem, Massachusetts |
| The inspiration for this website is Tom Sito, who has been emailing me Daily Histories for over 10 years now |
The majority of the research done to create this website was possible thanks to
the Salem Public Library. If you would like to learn more about any of these
topics, please visit the Sources page where you can find links to books
available there.
the Salem Public Library. If you would like to learn more about any of these
topics, please visit the Sources page where you can find links to books
available there.
It happened on this day in
Salem, Massachusetts:
Salem, Massachusetts:
| Collins Cove. Photo by Erik Smith. |
| Video: Salem Hospital and Captain John Bertram Produced by Erik Smith for Salem Access Television. |
April 25, 1836 The first election for City Government was held.
1852 Jean Missud was born in Nice, France. For 63 years he was
the popular conductor of the Salem Cadet Band. The bandstand on
Salem Common was named in his honor in 1976.
1861 The barque “Glide”, 480 tons, was launched at Miller’s
Shipyard for Captain John Bertram. She would arrive in Zanzibar
on her first voyage August 20.
1877 Salem born African American Abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond
was married to Lazzarro Pinto in Italy where she practiced
medicine.
1906 The Winne-Egan hotel burned to the ground. It had been
built in 1888 on Baker’s Island.
1913 The War Department ruled that Tinker’s Island belongs to
Salem and not Marblehead.
April 26, 1898 Navy Seaman Francis Cahill, who had been wounded
in the explosion of the “U.S.S. Maine” in Havana Harbor, returned
home to Salem and a hero’s welcome.
1917 William Henry Bates was born in Salem. He served from 1950
to 1969 as Representative from the 6th Massachusetts District in
the U.S. Congress, where he died in office. Mr. Bates is buried
in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
1951 The Woman’s Friend Society at 12 Hawthorne held a
celebration and an open house to commemorate the institution’s
seventy-fifth anniversary.
1957 The first filmed version of Arthur Miller’s play The
Crucible was released in a French language version, in France,
called “Les Sorcieres de Salem”. Hollywood studios were afraid
of releasing a film written by a blacklisted writer who openly
criticized the McCarthy hearings.
April 27, 1775 The Provincial Congress decided to send word of
the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington to London to try and
score, in today’s parlance, a publicity coup. They chose Salem’s
John Derby of Salem to take word to Benjamin Franklin. They
passed the following resolution:
Resolved: that Captain Derby be directed and he hereby is
directed to make for Dublin, or any other good port in Ireland,
and from thence to cross Scotland or England, and hasten to
London. This direction is given so that he may escape all
enemies that may be in the chops of the Channel to stop the
communication of the Provincial Intelligence to the agent. He
will forthwith deliver his papers to the agent on reaching London.
J. Warren, Chairman
PS-You are to keep this order a profound secret from every person
on earth.
Captain John Derby would also be the bearer of news back in the
States of the signing of the Peace Treaty in France.
1835 According to Duncan Phillips’s book “Pepper and Pirates” the
225 ton barque “Derby” which had been attacked unsuccessfully at
Sumatra as she loaded Pepper, returned to Salem. Her owner was
Stephen C. Phillips, and her commander was Captain Jonathan P.
Felt, whose grandfather had been one of the patriots during the
Salem Powder Alarm of 1775. Captain Felt wrote in his log that
the journey had taken “16 months and 7 days”. (Pepper 106)
1858 The 106 ton fishing schooner “Prairie Flower” was launched
at Miller’s shipyard. On June 8, as she was heading to Boston to
finish fitting her out to fish, she was capsized, drowning seven
young Salem men, all under the age of 30.
April 28, 1994 City Council finally voted on the petition
submitted by Salem High School students to ban cigarette machines
throughout the city. The measure was approved and the ban went
immediately into effect.
1996 The Trustees of the Salem Public Library held a 200th
Birthday Party for Captain John Bertram in his mansion at 370
Essex Street. That home, where the Bertram family lived for many
happy years, now houses the Public Library. Ed Tufts played
Captain Bertram at the party.
2006 The City of Salem paid tribute to radio station WESX, which
began its history in 1939 at the Peabody Building on Washington
Street. The station had been sold and was moved.
April 29, 1797 The ship “Polly” of Salem was captured by the
French privateer “Zenador”. She was carrying a cargo of
provisions and lumber.
1813 The Salem built “U.S.S. Essex” captured the British whalers
“Montezuma”, “Georgiana”, and “Policy” off Chile.
1825 Jean Bertram died in Salem at the age of 53. He was the
father of merchant/philanthropist John Bertram.
1912 Theodore Roosevelt, running this time on the Bull Moose
Party ticket, made a campaign stop at Town House Square.
April 30, 1848 Mary Peabody Mann and her husband Horace, in
Washington D.C. as a representative to the U.S. Congress,
welcomed their third son, Benjamin Pickman Mann.
1915 Elm Street was renamed Hawthorne Boulevard.
1995 On Salem Common, woodcarver Ken Dudley unveiled a sculpture
of Samuel McIntire he created from a twelve foot oak tree stump.
May 1, 1788 Construction began on the Essex Bridge. It would be
completed September 23. It connected Salem and Beverly, where
Veteran’s Bridge is today. President Washington would traverse
it in 1789 when he visited the area.
1801 A schooner was wrecked on Baker’s Island.
1843 Mary Peabody and Horace Mann were wed at the Peabody house
on West Street in Boston. The couple met with Mr. Mann was in
town to lecture on public education at the Lyceum. Her sister
Sophia Peabody Hawthorne had been wed to Nathaniel in the same
house.
1862 The International Exhibition at London opened with Salem
born sculptor William Wetmore Story’s piece “Cleopatra” on
prominent display.
1870 Captain John Bertram’s barque “Glide” entered Salem from
Zanzibar, the last vessel to do so as well as the last to enter
from anywhere beyond the Cape of Good Hope. The cargo was copal,
an important ingredient in varnish.
1922 Robert S. Rantoul died in Beverly. He served as Mayor of
Salem in the 1890s and President of the Essex Institute. His
extensive writings on local history, most written in his home at
17 Winter Street, included stories on Wenham Lake, The Cod in
Massachusetts History, Cat Island, The Early Quarantine
Arrangements of Salem, and the Cruise of the “Quero.”
May 2, 1649 The part of Salem known as Marble Harbor was set off
as the town of Marblehead.
1775 This was the last day the first newspaper with the name
“Salem Gazette” was published.
1830 Dick and George Crowninshield were arrested for the murder
of Captain Joseph White in his home in what is now the Gardner-
Pingree House of the Peabody Essex Museum.
May 3, 1695 According to Sidney Perley’s “History of Salem” ten
cannons had arrived by ship at Wolcott’s Wharf near present day
Washington and Front Streets. A crowd of men had gathered to
“supervise” their unloading. One of the guns was fired, and it
split into pieces, killing an upholsterer, George Herrick.
May 4, 1776 William Henckling Prescott was born in Salem. In an
accident, he would lose the sight in one eye while attending
Harvard. Later, another accident robbed him of sight in the
other eye, but he went on to write histories anyway. His works
included “The Conquest of Mexico” and “The Conquest of Peru.” A
school, Prescott Primary, would be named for him on Howard Street.
1796 Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts. He married
Mary Peabody, whose sister Sophia married Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Mr. Mann was the first Secretary of the Board of Education in
Massachusetts, and he is the namesake of a school in Salem.
1802 Charles Wentworth Upham was born in St. John, New
Brunswick. The Harvard graduate was Mayor of Salem in 1852 as
well as serving In the U.S. House of Representatives and in the
Massachusetts General Court and Senate. He was the author of a
number of history books, including “History of Salem Witchcraft”
and “The Life of Timothy Pickering”.
1853 Salem born Sarah Parker Remond and two friends refused to
sit in the segregated balcony at a performance of the Gaetano
Donizetti opera “Don Pasquale”. Police were called to remove
them, and Ms. Remond sued the Boston Police and won $500.
1910 The John Ward House was moved from its original location on
St. Peter’s Street to the Essex Institute.
1957 Mayor Francis X. Collins declared this day Mary Curtis-Verna
Day in Salem. She was a world renowned opera singer who
graduated from Salem High and had worked at Salem Hospital.
2002 Armory Park was dedicated in Salem on the site of the Cadet
Armory that had been gutted by fire in 1982. It was acquired by
the Essex Institute, which later merged with the Peabody Museum.
In a controversial move the museum demolished the façade and sold
part of the building to the National Park System. The monument
to the founding of the National Guard, located next to the
flagpole in Salem Common, was also dedicated that day by the
Rotary Club of Salem.
May 5, 1860 From Bath, England, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote to his
friend Henry Bright:
You will not find any photograph nor (so far as I am aware)
any engraving of the Faun of Praxiteles. There are photographs,
stereoscopic and otherwise, of another Faun, which is almost
identical with the hero of my romance, though only an inferior
repetition of it. My Faun is in the Capitol; the other, in the
Vatican. The genuine statue has never been photographed, on
account, I suppose, of its standing in a bad light. The photo
graph of the Vatican Faun supplies its place very well, except as
to the face, which is very inferior.
1919 The World War I Roll of Honor memorial was dedicated at the
corner of Highland Ave and Proctor Street. It was given in honor
of John J. Cunney.
Last week's history is archived here.
1852 Jean Missud was born in Nice, France. For 63 years he was
the popular conductor of the Salem Cadet Band. The bandstand on
Salem Common was named in his honor in 1976.
1861 The barque “Glide”, 480 tons, was launched at Miller’s
Shipyard for Captain John Bertram. She would arrive in Zanzibar
on her first voyage August 20.
1877 Salem born African American Abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond
was married to Lazzarro Pinto in Italy where she practiced
medicine.
1906 The Winne-Egan hotel burned to the ground. It had been
built in 1888 on Baker’s Island.
1913 The War Department ruled that Tinker’s Island belongs to
Salem and not Marblehead.
April 26, 1898 Navy Seaman Francis Cahill, who had been wounded
in the explosion of the “U.S.S. Maine” in Havana Harbor, returned
home to Salem and a hero’s welcome.
1917 William Henry Bates was born in Salem. He served from 1950
to 1969 as Representative from the 6th Massachusetts District in
the U.S. Congress, where he died in office. Mr. Bates is buried
in St. Mary’s Cemetery.
1951 The Woman’s Friend Society at 12 Hawthorne held a
celebration and an open house to commemorate the institution’s
seventy-fifth anniversary.
1957 The first filmed version of Arthur Miller’s play The
Crucible was released in a French language version, in France,
called “Les Sorcieres de Salem”. Hollywood studios were afraid
of releasing a film written by a blacklisted writer who openly
criticized the McCarthy hearings.
April 27, 1775 The Provincial Congress decided to send word of
the outbreak of hostilities at Lexington to London to try and
score, in today’s parlance, a publicity coup. They chose Salem’s
John Derby of Salem to take word to Benjamin Franklin. They
passed the following resolution:
Resolved: that Captain Derby be directed and he hereby is
directed to make for Dublin, or any other good port in Ireland,
and from thence to cross Scotland or England, and hasten to
London. This direction is given so that he may escape all
enemies that may be in the chops of the Channel to stop the
communication of the Provincial Intelligence to the agent. He
will forthwith deliver his papers to the agent on reaching London.
J. Warren, Chairman
PS-You are to keep this order a profound secret from every person
on earth.
Captain John Derby would also be the bearer of news back in the
States of the signing of the Peace Treaty in France.
1835 According to Duncan Phillips’s book “Pepper and Pirates” the
225 ton barque “Derby” which had been attacked unsuccessfully at
Sumatra as she loaded Pepper, returned to Salem. Her owner was
Stephen C. Phillips, and her commander was Captain Jonathan P.
Felt, whose grandfather had been one of the patriots during the
Salem Powder Alarm of 1775. Captain Felt wrote in his log that
the journey had taken “16 months and 7 days”. (Pepper 106)
1858 The 106 ton fishing schooner “Prairie Flower” was launched
at Miller’s shipyard. On June 8, as she was heading to Boston to
finish fitting her out to fish, she was capsized, drowning seven
young Salem men, all under the age of 30.
April 28, 1994 City Council finally voted on the petition
submitted by Salem High School students to ban cigarette machines
throughout the city. The measure was approved and the ban went
immediately into effect.
1996 The Trustees of the Salem Public Library held a 200th
Birthday Party for Captain John Bertram in his mansion at 370
Essex Street. That home, where the Bertram family lived for many
happy years, now houses the Public Library. Ed Tufts played
Captain Bertram at the party.
2006 The City of Salem paid tribute to radio station WESX, which
began its history in 1939 at the Peabody Building on Washington
Street. The station had been sold and was moved.
April 29, 1797 The ship “Polly” of Salem was captured by the
French privateer “Zenador”. She was carrying a cargo of
provisions and lumber.
1813 The Salem built “U.S.S. Essex” captured the British whalers
“Montezuma”, “Georgiana”, and “Policy” off Chile.
1825 Jean Bertram died in Salem at the age of 53. He was the
father of merchant/philanthropist John Bertram.
1912 Theodore Roosevelt, running this time on the Bull Moose
Party ticket, made a campaign stop at Town House Square.
April 30, 1848 Mary Peabody Mann and her husband Horace, in
Washington D.C. as a representative to the U.S. Congress,
welcomed their third son, Benjamin Pickman Mann.
1915 Elm Street was renamed Hawthorne Boulevard.
1995 On Salem Common, woodcarver Ken Dudley unveiled a sculpture
of Samuel McIntire he created from a twelve foot oak tree stump.
May 1, 1788 Construction began on the Essex Bridge. It would be
completed September 23. It connected Salem and Beverly, where
Veteran’s Bridge is today. President Washington would traverse
it in 1789 when he visited the area.
1801 A schooner was wrecked on Baker’s Island.
1843 Mary Peabody and Horace Mann were wed at the Peabody house
on West Street in Boston. The couple met with Mr. Mann was in
town to lecture on public education at the Lyceum. Her sister
Sophia Peabody Hawthorne had been wed to Nathaniel in the same
house.
1862 The International Exhibition at London opened with Salem
born sculptor William Wetmore Story’s piece “Cleopatra” on
prominent display.
1870 Captain John Bertram’s barque “Glide” entered Salem from
Zanzibar, the last vessel to do so as well as the last to enter
from anywhere beyond the Cape of Good Hope. The cargo was copal,
an important ingredient in varnish.
1922 Robert S. Rantoul died in Beverly. He served as Mayor of
Salem in the 1890s and President of the Essex Institute. His
extensive writings on local history, most written in his home at
17 Winter Street, included stories on Wenham Lake, The Cod in
Massachusetts History, Cat Island, The Early Quarantine
Arrangements of Salem, and the Cruise of the “Quero.”
May 2, 1649 The part of Salem known as Marble Harbor was set off
as the town of Marblehead.
1775 This was the last day the first newspaper with the name
“Salem Gazette” was published.
1830 Dick and George Crowninshield were arrested for the murder
of Captain Joseph White in his home in what is now the Gardner-
Pingree House of the Peabody Essex Museum.
May 3, 1695 According to Sidney Perley’s “History of Salem” ten
cannons had arrived by ship at Wolcott’s Wharf near present day
Washington and Front Streets. A crowd of men had gathered to
“supervise” their unloading. One of the guns was fired, and it
split into pieces, killing an upholsterer, George Herrick.
May 4, 1776 William Henckling Prescott was born in Salem. In an
accident, he would lose the sight in one eye while attending
Harvard. Later, another accident robbed him of sight in the
other eye, but he went on to write histories anyway. His works
included “The Conquest of Mexico” and “The Conquest of Peru.” A
school, Prescott Primary, would be named for him on Howard Street.
1796 Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts. He married
Mary Peabody, whose sister Sophia married Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Mr. Mann was the first Secretary of the Board of Education in
Massachusetts, and he is the namesake of a school in Salem.
1802 Charles Wentworth Upham was born in St. John, New
Brunswick. The Harvard graduate was Mayor of Salem in 1852 as
well as serving In the U.S. House of Representatives and in the
Massachusetts General Court and Senate. He was the author of a
number of history books, including “History of Salem Witchcraft”
and “The Life of Timothy Pickering”.
1853 Salem born Sarah Parker Remond and two friends refused to
sit in the segregated balcony at a performance of the Gaetano
Donizetti opera “Don Pasquale”. Police were called to remove
them, and Ms. Remond sued the Boston Police and won $500.
1910 The John Ward House was moved from its original location on
St. Peter’s Street to the Essex Institute.
1957 Mayor Francis X. Collins declared this day Mary Curtis-Verna
Day in Salem. She was a world renowned opera singer who
graduated from Salem High and had worked at Salem Hospital.
2002 Armory Park was dedicated in Salem on the site of the Cadet
Armory that had been gutted by fire in 1982. It was acquired by
the Essex Institute, which later merged with the Peabody Museum.
In a controversial move the museum demolished the façade and sold
part of the building to the National Park System. The monument
to the founding of the National Guard, located next to the
flagpole in Salem Common, was also dedicated that day by the
Rotary Club of Salem.
May 5, 1860 From Bath, England, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote to his
friend Henry Bright:
You will not find any photograph nor (so far as I am aware)
any engraving of the Faun of Praxiteles. There are photographs,
stereoscopic and otherwise, of another Faun, which is almost
identical with the hero of my romance, though only an inferior
repetition of it. My Faun is in the Capitol; the other, in the
Vatican. The genuine statue has never been photographed, on
account, I suppose, of its standing in a bad light. The photo
graph of the Vatican Faun supplies its place very well, except as
to the face, which is very inferior.
1919 The World War I Roll of Honor memorial was dedicated at the
corner of Highland Ave and Proctor Street. It was given in honor
of John J. Cunney.
Last week's history is archived here.
| The Salem Public Library. Photo by Erik Smith. |
