THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED TO
ONE THROUGH WHOSE CONSTANT ENCOURAGEMENT
AND WISE ADVICE I OWE MY SUCCESS
IN THE FIELD OF LITERATURE
PREFACE
The wonderfully good collection of antiques for which Salem is noted was of great interest to me, being owned by personal friends who kindly consented to allow me for the first time to go through their homes and pick out the cream of their inheritance. If the readers are half as interested in these objects as I have become,—growing enthusiastic in the work through the valuable pieces found,—they will enjoy the pictures of colonial furnishings, many of which cannot be duplicated in any other collection of antiques. Family bits, wonderful old Lowestoft, and other treasures are included, all brought over in the holds of cumbersome ships, at the time when the commerce of Salem was at high tide.
To Mr. Charles R. Waters, Mrs. Nathan C. Osgood, Mrs. Henry P. Benson, Mrs. William C. West, Mrs. Nathaniel B. Mansfield, Miss A. Grace Atkinson, Mrs. Walter C. Harris, Dr. Hardy Phippen, Mrs. McDonald White, and Mr. Horatio P. Peirson, as well as many others in my native city, I owe acknowledgment for their kindness in opening their houses and letting me in, as well as to Mrs. George Rogers of Danvers, Mrs. D. P. Page, Dr. Ernest H. Noyes, and Mrs. Charles H. Perry of Newburyport, Mrs. Walter J. Mitchell of Manchester, Mrs. Prescott Bigelow and Mrs. William O. Kimball of Boston, Mrs. A. A. Lord of Newton, Mrs. Charles M. Stark of Dunbarton, N.H., and the late Mr. Daniel Low.