| Home | Introduction | Newsletter | Contact Us |
The Salem Preservationist
Reporting historic preservation developments in the greater Salem area.
"Looking backward and forward to a Greater Salem"
 Bartol image of Witch House (left) courtesy of http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_IWHO.HTM; Old Town Hall image (right) courtesy of http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/916/50480579.JPG Future operations at Pioneer Village will likely involve cross-promotion with new downtown exhibits and activities at Salem’s Old Town Hall, and combination ticketing with Salem’s 17th century Witch House! SPI Lease on Village extended until new 2008 Gordon College Lease takes effect By John Goff Recognizing that its existing extended City lease authorizing Pioneer Village management would expire at the end of May in 2008 (see August 2007 Salem Preservationist), the SPI Board voted unanimously in March 2008 to endorse and support the proposal of Gordon College's new Institute for Public History (see below) to assume new Pioneer Village management following SPI's lease expiration. On April 2nd, the Gordon proposal was one of two submitted to the City of Salem responding to a City-issued formal Request For Proposals to assume Pioneer Village management and restoration under a new renewable 5 year lease. An alternative proposal was submitted by Lief Rochna. On April 26th, both teams were interviewed by the City of Salem just east of the Governor's House at Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village as part of the 2008-2013 lease application process. It was a cool and windy day, with breezes coming off the harbor, and chairs were set up against the west side of Scenery House # 3 to provide a warm and wind-blocked microclimate on the site. The Gordon-SPI team was represented by Cliff Hersey, Dean of Global Education of Gordon College, K. David Goss, Professor of Gordon’s History Department, and John Goff, restoration architect and President of Salem Preservation, Inc. The full Salem Park & Recreation Commission was present, supplemented by Elizabeth Seater Wood of the Salem Witch House, and Kirsten Kinzer of the Salem Planning Department, who were brought in to act as advisors to the Commission. A lively 1 hour discussion about proposed improvement projects, programs, rent payments, property re-investments, and oversight followed, concluding with discussion of the need to expand the village interpretation to cover Massachuseuk / Massachusett tribe Native American heritage. The new Gordon Institute for Public History vision is actually to educationally utilize both Salem's Pioneer Village and Salem's Old Town Hall in tandem. The two sites would be linked by a trolley or shuttle, so that new History Alive! performances and classes could be conducted at both Salem historic sites. A trolley or vehicle shuttle connecting the village with downtown will allow the village's "remoteness" problem to be solved. Expanded use to include educational courses will allow the village to be of service to greater numbers of people, while providing the extra income via tuitions needed to support a sustainable operation with appropriate village re-investments. Elizabeth Seater Wood requested new combination ticketing with the Witch House should the Gordon Team be selected. Combination ticketing, and free admission to Salem school groups on select days will likely become standard operating practice once the village is re-opened. At the Salem Park & Recreation Commission meeting on May 20th, 2008, John Goff, President of Salem Preservation Inc. was congratulated by the Commission for helping to submit and support Gordon’s new lease application. Goff was also informed that the Commission had voted to extend the existing SPI lease for managing the Village beyond May 30th by whatever time was needed by the Salem City Purchasing Agent to finalize the new five year lease with Gordon's Institute. SPI is thrilled to have been awarded its new short-term lease extension, and looks forward to working closely with the City and Gordon's new Institute to re-open the village as the North Shore's premier First Period history educational site. Many Thanks to all who have supported our Pioneer Village restoration and re-opening projects over the last five years! It has taken the proverbial village to restore this village. Between 2008 and 2013, we anticipate Gordon Collage's Institute will serve as a very capable village site manager, while SPI will continue to play a support role with area Boy Scouts, Gordon, and others repairing, restoring and reconstructing lost village structures, and bringing appropriate preservation education classes to the site.
The Gordon College Institute for Public History by David Goss, Kristina Wacome Stevick, and John Goff Gordon College, headquartered in Wenham, MA, northeast of Salem, has long had a presence in Salem through its History Alive! theatre program which runs the 17th century themed Cry Innocent! programs at Old Town Hall. In addition, Gordon’s History Department routinely places interns with, and works cooperatively with First Period and other museums in the greater Salem area, including Pioneer Village and the Witch House in Salem. To administer its history and History Alive! programs more effectively, in 2007, Gordon College created a new Institute for Public History, allowing undergraduate teaching to draw from both the theatre and history departments. The Institute is dedicated to creating new opportunities to train college students in the related fields of museum studies, history education, and living history re-enactments and interpretations, while also supporting museums and cultural revitalization projects and efforts throughout Salem, Essex County, and Eastern Massachusetts. A recent copy of Gordon’s magazine Stillpoint explained: "The new Institute for Public History at Gordon College is a venture involving the History and Theatre Departments. It combines existing museum studies curricula, public history fellowships, and the interpretation of history through theatre. Assistant Professor of History David Goss '74 and Kristina Wacome Stevick '98, artistic director of History Alive!, will offer the courses Public History and Museum Studies; Museum Management; and the theatre course Historic Interpretation. Goss will offer a course on researching church cemetery records, using tombstones as resources and starting an archival collection at a church. Stevick will build on the tradition of History Alive!, the longstanding program that oversees performances of Cry Innocent in Salem, Massachusetts.The primary educators associated with Gordon College’s new Institute for Public History are K. David Goss and Kristina Wacome Stevick. Neither has been a stranger to Pioneer Village. Goss, with Peter LaChapelle, helped found the Pioneer Village Management Association in the late 1980s—and supervised the pre-1992 restoration of Pioneer Village. Stevick, with History Alive! between 2003 and 2008 directed Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and created and directed special Folkways and Spiritways programs for new Pioneer Village use. Goss has 25 years in museum administration while Stevick has climbed the ropes from student actor, to company director, director of education and finally artistic director of History Alive. Goss and Stevick will be joined by preservation architect John Goff. The three are delighted to be able to utilize Village resources more effectively as members of Gordon College’s new Institute for Public History. Salem Preservation Inc. is very pleased to welcome Gordon College’s new Institute for Public History to Salem. Institute management of the Pioneer Village property promises to keep the village primarily in educational (not commercial) use as envisioned by the City of Salem in 1931. In addition, the Institute, with collegiate backing, will be able to better re-invest in the property’s restoration, and more intensively run programs at the village to allow it to regularly open to the public more frequently than otherwise would have been possible with non-Institute vision, management and control. For more on Gordon College’s Institute for Public History, see the web site: http://www.gordon.edu/public-history  Many helped reconstruct the lost Middle Dugout House at Pioneer Village in 2007-8, including (from left to right) Tom Croteau, Bryan LaRochelle, Steven LaRochelle, Andrew Barden (front) and Skip Croteau , Jody Barden, Tim Wall, Mark LaRochelle, and Dave Wall (rear) Courtesy photo by Janet LaRochelle. 17th century Style Dugout Reconstructed by John Goff and Mark LaRochelle Nearly 80 years have passed since anything was seen like it in Salem. We're talking about reconstructing and rebuilding from the ground up a 1930 interpretation of an early 17th century "dugout" First Period Salem house. For many decades between about 1850 and 1930, the so-called "Log Cabin" Myth was perpetuated in America. It proposed that the earliest English colonists and settlers in New England built rude huts and houses of horizontal logs. However, after the 1876 Centennial, as the Colonial Revival was popularized, and more scholars began studying early documents and archaeological sites, scholars found out that no such log cabins were built in New England in the earliest years. Log cabins with horizontal logs were not built here because the English colonists brought with them mostly time-tested English methods of building - which tended to favor post and beam construction. Houses were built with hewn posts (vertical frame members) and hewn beams (horizontal members) and diagonal braces, making a rigid frame. Once the frame was constructed and joined, enclosure was made with wattle and daub, split clapboard, and other means. When Pioneer Village was opened in 1930, it was designed to show the variety of houses known to have been built in Salem and in Massachusetts by 1630. Most of the houses and cottages at the village are post-and-beam. Yet a few show other curious means of construction. “Dugouts” were built in Salem in 1930 with vertical logs and pitched logs making a plank-floored, earth-bermed hut or shelter tucked in the side of a hill. Not a conventional log cabin by any means, the dugouts are believed to have been a crude and quick type of frontier shelter that was built here in New England to help families "just off the boat" survive their first winter - when they had neither tools nor money to hire a housewright or build a more conventional timber framed house. Architect Norman Isham, who worked with the SPNEA in Boston with George Francis Dow, was one of the earliest scholars of the First Period dugout type house. By 2007, hardly anything was left of the 1930 "Middle Dugout" at Pioneer Village, except a pit in a hillside where a dugout once existed, and most of a stone fireplace that once heated that house. Bryan LaRochelle of Peabody, a Boy Scout Eagle Scout candidate, took on the challenge to accurately reconstruct Salem's Middle Dugout using newly felled logs weatherproofed with clay chinking. Between June 1, 2007 and June 1, 2008, LaRochelle and his troop and helpers managed to obtain upwards of 140 logs from a State Forester associated with the Harold Parker State Forest in North Andover, to obtain bushels of gray pond clay from the Sheffield Pottery Company in Sheffield, MA, and to cut and assemble a new Middle Dugout at Pioneer Village. The completed dugout will closely resemble the original dugouts built at the village in 1930 (and stand on the old site of the 1930 middle dugout, re-using its pit and stone fireplace from 1930). However, for longevity and universal accessibility, the new dugout has been designed to have a pressure treated sub-floor support, and a front door with a 2'-10" opening, compliant with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Salem Preservation Inc. is committed to maintaining Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village as an educational resource, restoring it accurately, and using it in the future in new ways to honor Salem's earliest multicultural origins. A deepest thank you to all Boy Scouts, families, product suppliers, and others who have helped us achieve the new Salem dugout in 2008. This new building is helping Pioneer Village to reclaim its strong presence from the 1930s, and will help broaden the interpretation of Salem's past. For more information on the Sheffield Pottery Company, see http://www.sheffield-pottery.com Front Fence Being Rebuilt at Pioneer Village by John Goff May is Preservation Month, and between May 23rd and May 25th, 2008 Pioneer Village got the start of a fantastic major front fence overhaul and upgrade, courtesy of a number of local banks and community sponsors - and Shane Martins’ Eagle Scout project. Shane is a Salem resident, and a member of Salem Boy Scout Troop 83, which last year made a significant contribution of five years worth of donated labor to tackle major improvement projects for SPI and Pioneer Village. Pioneer Village is approximately 3 acres in size, and surrounded by chain link fence to maintain security. On the west side, the chain link is faced with vertical board covering, so as to better separate the replica 17th century environment from the more modern world of little league baseball and basketball in the park. The west or front fence overhaul was acutely needed because existing chain link fence from circa 1960 had been covered with ca. 1980s vertical pine board fencing - which had mostly rotted after 25 years exposure to the elements. In addition, the layered fence had been tipped out of plumb by years of snowplows pushing snow piles and dirt against it. It had also become wildly overgrown with vines and poison ivy. Under Shane Martin's direction, the City of Salem led the charge in removing most of the poison ivy and branch overgrowth. Then, crews of Boy Scouts and friends worked clearing the inside 20 feet of lawn area against 200 linear feet of fencing north of the west gate, so as to be able to create a safe and level fence construction work space. 200 feet of double and triple strands of rusty barbed wire and barbed wire outriggers were removed from the top of the fence. 1600 square feet of prime cedar planking 8 feet high in dimensions of 1 x 4, 1 x 6, 1 x 8, 1 x 10 and 1 x 12 was trucked in from Liberty Cedar in Rhode Island. The new lumber was used to create a new water-resistant and superior vertical board fence supported by three horizontal rails per 10 foot section of fence. Pressure treated 2 x 4s for the rails, galvanized nails, and galvanized staples were also ordered and used to create a new sandwich of horizontal rails, and vertical boards attached to existing metal fence structure. Approximately 1600 square feet of rotted pine planks and non-pressure treated wood rails were removed from the old fence, and about 20 metal fence posts were carefully straightened, using coordinated teams of people, a pulling vehicle with a trailer hitch, and sturdy webbing strap attached to loops of 1 inch manilla rope tied with square knots around the top of each bent-over post. Once the bent posts were pulled back to the vertical positions, crews of rock-tampers poured crushed marble stone bits into the village side of the fence post holes, and tamped them down with large metal rebars to compact the soil near each post base, and keep the fence in proper vertical position. The 2008 perimeter fence reconstruction project was supported with approximately $7,500 worth of major financial contributions and support made by three local banks (Danvers Bank, Eastern Bank, and Salem Five) and other sponsors -- in alphabetical order -- Boy Scout Troop 83, the Friends of Forest River Park, History Alive!, Home Depot, Bonnie Hurd Smith, Liberty Cedar Company, Glenn Mairo, the Massachusetts Archaeology Society, Biff Michaud, and the Salem Witch Museum. Over two dozen others supported the Salem project on hot sunny days with donated labor - without which the construction project could never have succeeded. A very special thanks to the crew who physically labored on site-clearing, old fence stripping, and fence reconstruction. They included (in alphabetical order) Jim Dee, Jim Dee Jr., Robert Dee, Nancy Dorfman, Johnny Furey, Charlene Gagnon, John Goff, Joshua L’Abbe, Jonathan Lausier, Josh Lausier, Roger Lausier, David LeBlanc, Linda LeBlanc, Matt LeBlanc, Glenn Mairo, John Martin, Jean Martin, Shane Martin, Stuart McNeil, Joe Morency, Jeff Partaledis, Jared Robinson, John Robinson, Brad Scott, Craig Story, and Peter Story. Thank You!!  The English flag with the red St. George cross flew in Salem in 1630 - and at the replica 17th century Pioneer Village. This was the famed flag from which Endicott and others cut out the cross.SPI plans to restore an appropriate 1630 flag by the village’s main gate. Image courtesy http://www.socialistunity.com/ Shane Martin's first work undertaken at the Village in 2007 before the fence project began was a tedious and demanding clearing the old flagpole near the front gate from a jungle of vines and plant overgrowth. Consequently, plans are now being made to conclude Shane Martin's 2008 front fence reconstruction project with a full restoration of the St. George's Cross red and white 1630 style flag that used to fly on that pole. The St. George's English flag also sailed above the 1497 Cabot voyages to the New World, the Drake, Raleigh and Gilbert sea voyages, as well as on the Mayflower when it landed at Plymouth in 1620.  This book by George Francis Dow and John Robinson is one now being sold by Skyhorse Publishing and Bewitched in Salem to restore Dow’s Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village! New $16.30 Maritime Books Fundraiser Launched for Pioneer Village by John Goff Between June 2007 and May 2008, some interests in better understanding Salem's early history sparked a creative new fundraiser to benefit the restoration of Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village. It is a curious story. It began last summer, when I noticed a Maine bookstore was retailing a nice new reprint of George Francis Dow’s and John Robinson's 1922 maritime classic Sailing Ships of New England: 1607-1907. Both authors had strong Salem ties, and originally their 1920s book was printed by the Marine Research Society, based here in Salem. I bought a copy at the suggested retail price of $17.95, and knew I had found a true treasure. But then, odd things began to happen. As I flipped through the book, I noticed many of the superb sailing ships illustrated had old Salem connections. They were built in Salem, built for Salem ship-owners, and /or were anciently registered here in Salem. I decided to write a column in the Salem Gazette better discussing sailing ships in old Salem. A column called "Down the Ways: Ships Built for Salem" was printed February 15th. It made more people aware of Salem’s maritime history, Dow and Robinson and the new reprint of their book Sailing Ships of New England 1607-1907 produced in 2007 by Skyhorse Publishing of New York City. After the Gazette article was printed, I received an unexpected e-mail from a Mr. Tony Lyons, Publisher of Skyhorse Publishing. He was impressed with the Salem Gazette review of the book and wanted to know if we might wish to purchase additional copies at discounted price, to distribute to Salem readers. We counter-proposed that we structure a special discounted book sale to make the book better known here in Salem, while also raising needed funds for the restoration of George Francis Dow’s Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village. Lyons liked that idea and offered to improve it further, by agreeing to make seven different Skyhorse Publishing titles available here in Salem at the reduced price of $16.30 each to raise funds for restoring Dow’s major museum: Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village in 2008 - the Year of Pioneer Village. Wow! So here we are. Bill Lazdowski of Bewitched in Salem, at 180 Essex Street in Salem has agreed to have his shop become the sole Salem outlet for this special "1630" maritime history offer. Skyhorse Publishing, working with Bewitched in Salem, will offer seven classic maritime titles for readers in Salem - each at $16.30 to benefit the restoration of Dow's Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village - while supplies last. For every Skyhorse book purchased from Bewitched in Salem this way, $6.00 of the purchase price will be directed to Salem Preservation, Inc. to help fund a new restoration project at Pioneer Village. If 100 books are sold, we will raise $600. If 1,000 books are sold, we will raise $6,000. We are currently researching prices and optimal methods to restore the Governor's House leaded glass windows, as well as reconstruct the brickworks, saltworks, wigwams, dugouts, admissions building and Ruck House at Pioneer Village. Over time, new book sales could support any and all of the above valuable projects. Through these special "Salem 1630" sales, many people in and around Salem will be exposed to some of the best maritime books available on the North Shore - to read, to treasure, and to give as gifts. Here are the maritime titles which Skyhorse Publishing is now offering through Bewitched in Salem to help fund the restoration of Pioneer Village. All books can be purchased for the super discounted price of $16.30 each, at Bewitched in Salem at 180 Essex Street, in Museum Place Mall:
Salem's most successful merchants years ago kept commercial contacts in New York City, Sumatra, Whampoa, and other distant ports. To learn more about their maritime world while also getting great deals on books and supporting the restoration of Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village, please purchase your "16.30" books downtown while they last. Thank you, Bewitched in Salem, and thank you Skyhorse Publishing. This is a fine way to appreciate the legacy of George Francis Dow while marking and celebrating 2008 as "The Year of Pioneer Village."  Cleanup Crew SHARE and Dominion sponsor Earth Day Tree Cutting & Clean-Up at Village By John Goff Nearly 40 people showed up on Saturday April 19, 2008 to give their time, talents, and attention to a major village clean-up event organized by SHARE and SPI with the leading corporate sponsorship and support of Dominion Energy. Salem is clearly a community that cares deeply and intensely about preserving its Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village. "Got Electricity?" was a slogan seen on white hard hats worn during the work day project. Dominion provided the spark, power, voltage and energy to make new preservation miracles happen. Thank you! 
Various volunteer groups undertook raking and dragging leaves, gardening, grounds clean-up, stream & pond improvements, tree-branch sawing, and branch-dragging and chipping materials into biodegradable wood chips. We’d like to thank all who showed up and helped. The village was a very busy place all day long. A partial list of volunteer Earth Day workers included Maureen Amenta, Don Callahan, Mariah Collins, Kevin Cornacchio, Harry & Brenda Currier, Maria Cristina Delvalle, Robert & Melanie DeRosier, Jasmin Dominguez, Lisa & Jeff Folger, John Goff, David Goss, Michael Jaras, Edwina LaBrecque, Glenn Mairo, Sue Maloney, Kate Maloney, Karynn Mason, James O'Hara, Nora O'Neill, Suzanne Rich, the Robinsons, Erik Smith, Peter & Grace Theriault, Dick Vardalakos, Richard Waters, Julia White and John Wilkinson. Coffee Time on Bridge Street in Salem also freely provided food and beverages, so that all could continue their work. THANK YOU all so very much!!
Utilizing a very generous and major financial donation from Salem’s electrical supplier, Dominion Energy, SHARE brought in two pieces of monstrous equipment to further the village restoration. One was a huge four wheeled mobile lift with an extendable boom that became a robotic long-necked tree-nibbling dinosaur. The other was a boxed tornado of an industrial chipper that chewed up felled tree limbs and branches and discharged small mountains of wood chips. In addition, Dominion lent SHARE and SPI the use of pickup-trucks and other vehicles and equipment. Mr. James O'Hara, President of SHARE, was entrusted to be the "tooth-man" of the long necked dinosaur. With Harry Currier at his side, as 
assistant, O'Hara put on his safety harness and wielded three impressive chain saws. The steel basket with steely men went aloft and nibbled the tops of many trees that threatened to drop heavy limbs on the historic buildings. Again and again and again they cut, while the chipper crew below hauled forests of dropped branches to the shredder to keep the ground clear.
As spotter and part of the ground crew for O'Hara, my job was to help clear a path for the mobile four wheeled monster, and to point out where next to cut. After five hours of cutting tree branches over the cottages, east gate, long house and blacksmith shop, we turned to the harbor side to deal with overgrowth north of the long house. O’Hara had just gingerly navigated the huge machine’s front wheels around a new replicated 17th century style fish drying rack, when I saw an energized boy on a bicycle zip down, jump off his bike, and scramble close to the perimeter fence outside the village to get a closer look. He explained he had helped build the new fish rack as part of Salem Boy Scout Troop 83’s effort last year - and he was concerned that the fish rack might be crushed by the big machine. I assured him his fine work would be preserved and valued as long as we were watching over the place, and I thanked him again for helping to reconstruct this Salem educational treasure. 
Due to all the preservation successes between 2003 and 2008, and all the hard work that now has been completed by over 70 volunteers, we can now say this: Earth Day was a Rebirth Day here in Salem. Pioneer Village is now ready for a public re-opening. It stands ready to begin a major new chapter in its life as Salem’s premier First Period history educational site. Thank you all for making this possible.
Photo: Erik Smith For additional photographs of Saturday’s Earth Day activities, see Erik Smith's fine photos posted here: http://picasaweb.google.com/eks1966/PioneerVillageCleanupDay . Pioneer Village to Resume Regular Openings in 2008 By David Goss, Kristina Wacome Stevick & John Goff Plans are being made to open Salem in 1630: Pioneer Village to school groups and others by appointment in the month of June, and to open the village regularly with History Alive! Folkways programs beginning in July 2008. Please watch for further announcements. |
| Home | Introduction | Newsletter | Contact Us |
© 2003-2007 Salem Preservation. All rights reserved.