The Salem Club
THE SALEM CLUB
Closely resembling in its architectural features the Baldwin-Lyman porch at 92 Washington Square, East, and the Dodge-Shreve porch at 29 Chestnut Street, the porch of the Salem Club at 29 Washington Square presents a fine example of the Corinthian style which came into vogue in Salem about 1816. A wrought-iron balustrade on the porch roof adds an unusual touch.
Like so many old family residences in Salem, which in time became converted to public use through their acquisition by societies, homes, and lodges, the building now housing the Salem Club was once a private dwelling. It was built in 1818 for John Forrester. After this fine mansion passed out of the Forrester family, it was owned by Colonel George Peabody, whose daughter married the Honorable William C. Endicott, Secretary of War in Cleveland’s Cabinet.
Colonel Peabody owned many art treasures, one of which, housed in this dwelling, was Murillo’s ‘Immaculate Conception,’ valued by connoisseurs at the sum of $100,000.
The story is told of one Salem citizen, named Simon Forrester, father of the original owner of the house in question, that he projected a plan for the decoration of his own residence, including the representation upon the walls of drawing-rooms and hallways, not of the favorite scenes so often found on the costly wall-papers of the time, such as Cupid and Psyche, Roman ruins, Venetian lagoons, the English hunting-fields, the adventures of Don Quixote, etc., but rather a series of episodes from his own life, ‘showing his rise from poverty to grandeur; the place of his birth, a humble cottage in Ireland; his various places of business, with the wharves of Salem, and the vessels which had brought his merchandise to them.’