THE HOUSE OF MRS. GEORGE WHEATLAND
374 Essex Street
At these Assemblies the students from Harvard College, as it then was, were very popular, and found many a fair partner among the Salem beauties, of whom there was no lack. No less a personage than President Washington himself commented, at the time of his reception at Assembly Hall in 1789, upon the large number, upwards of a hundred, of handsome ladies present.
Mention of the Chestnut Street festivities would hardly be complete without reference to the Salem Cadets, an exclusive military organization resembling the famous Seventh Regiment of New York. They had an armory at 136 Essex Street, formerly the residence of Colonel Francis Peabody, to which a drill-shed was added. In the ‘Banqueting Hall’ of the Peabody mansion Prince Arthur of England, in the country for the purpose of attending the funeral of George Peabody, the London banker, in 1870, was entertained at dinner. This handsome room was finished in carved oak in the Elizabethan Gothic style. The figure of Queen Victoria appears over the fireplace, supported by mailed figures.
This woodwork has been removed to the Masonic Temple on Washington Street, where it adorns one of the smaller rooms. The Peabody house was demolished in 1908.
Wearing their famous scarlet uniforms, and swinging down Chestnut Street, their favorite parade-ground, with handkerchiefs waving from the classic porches on either side, the Salem Cadets lend a touch of color and life which is most attractive against the Colonial background.
Famous Names in Salem
The house is nothing without its inhabitant; and thus Salem architecture, however beautiful, would lack in significance if dissociated from the persons, men and women, who have passed in and out of these hospitable doors, or spent years of life beneath the sheltering roofs.
As one scans the roster, he is led to wonder that so many famous names are found upon it—both inhabitants and guests—considering the size of the place: ‘infinite riches in a little room.’ For among those who were born in Salem, or lived here long enough to call it home, are Nathaniel Hawthorne; Nathaniel Bowditch, the famous mathematician; the Honorable Jacob Crowninshield and his brother Benjamin, Secretary of the Navy under two Presidents; Colonel Timothy Pickering, of Revolutionary fame; General Henry K. Oliver, the well-known musician; President E. C. Bolles, of Tufts College; Colonel George Peabody, art-lover and merchant prince; William Bentley and William H. Prescott, the historians; General Israel Putnam; Count Rumford; Henry FitzGilbert Waters, the genealogist; Charles T. Brooks, essayist and poet; the Honorable Rufus Choate; John Singleton Copley, the artist, whose son became Lord Chancellor of England; the Honorable George B. Loring, Congressman and Minister to Portugal in Harrison’s administration; Benjamin Peirce, eminent among the scientists of his day; the Honorable Nathaniel Read, Congressman and inventor of the cut nail; John Rogers, the sculptor; Jones Very, the poet; Joseph E. Worcester, of dictionary fame; General Frederick T. Ward, organizer of the Chinese troops which in the Tai-Ping Rebellion were called the ‘unbeatable army’—and many others.
Among the noted visitors who were at various times guests of the town appear the names of the Marquis de Lafayette, President Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, President Monroe, General W. T. Sherman, the Right Honorable Joseph Chamberlain, War Governor John A. Andrew, President Chester A. Arthur, King Edward VII of England (then Prince of Wales), President Andrew Jackson, Louis Kossuth the Hungarian patriot, General George B. McClellan.
Wealth accumulated in Salem, but men did not decay. Few towns in New England can boast of such striking history and such valuable achievements on the part of their citizens, within a like period of time, as can Old Salem by the Sea.