Since we were already at the Dr Suess Museum, we decided it was worth using our ticket to see the Science Museum on premise as well. It was definitely geared for children. And children at heart. I wanted to see the dinosaurs because… dinosaurs. They had a life-size T-rex sculpture, a stegosaurus, and a few modest displays around them. It was… underwhelming but luckily other things in the museum sufficed to keep me entertained!
Most of them were in the basement where no one else seemed to be… But here in this VERY warm abode there were a bunch of cute critters! Native fish, some small reptiles, some non-native marine fish, and more turtles than I could have hoped for (one who was INTENSELY staring at me, not sure why.) My companion found entertainment in front of the snake enclosure because someone had just lobbed two very dead mice in there and the snake was contentedly nomming down on them.
Upstairs there was a TON of taxidermy – both African game and normal New England based critters. Most of the African creatures were superbly done – except for those vaguely wonky lions and the chimpanzee with a… human? ish…. face…. I don’t know what demons were inhabiting that poor chimp but something! Meanwhile the local critters were a real tossup between ‘great job’ and ‘WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO BE?!’ The winner of the latter category went to muskrat with a wildly contorted face.
There also was a modest Native American exhibit as well as an African peoples exhibit and some replicas of various human ancestor skulls which I found interesting. They also had a planetarium which we did not go to see a show at but we did loiter around their space exhibits for a bit. Pet a meteor, played with a robotic arm, looked curiously at a space suit, and weighed myself on the “How Fat are you on Other Planets?” scale. That one told me I lost a pound so I liked it.
ANYWAY… This was a lovely destination if you have kids, especially under 10 or so. Or if you are a big kid like me! It was a nice bonus to the Dr Suess Museum!
After going to The Titanic Museum we discovered that the Dr Suess Museum, which has been recommended by several people over the years, was just across town so we decided to go poke at it. I didn’t really know what to expect. Why were adults telling me, a childless person, to come here?
As it turns out the museum is sitting in a little village of museums. Ticket prices on this day were $25 which seemed excessive until we realized it for admission to all the museums in this pavillion and the one across the street. In all this included the Dr Suess Museum, a science museum, two art museums, and a museum dedicated to the history of Springfield Massachusetts. Well, OK then, let’s go check them out!
The people running the museums were delightfully cheerful and seemed happy to see a couple adults strolling in. This place was VERY child-friendly, obviously. The pavilion was filled with huge Dr Suess inspired sculptures of our most beloved Suess creatures. It was really cute!
Inside the museum we were greeted by a man who told us the first floor was a museum for all ages and upstairs were the more serious exhibits. Of course, we had to go through both! And being as we both have ADD pretty bad this entire place was setting off all our dopamine centers much to our pure joy. The colors were bright, the sculptures we darling, and all the displays down here had some sort of interactive element encouraging children and silly adults alike to press buttons, take selfies, and build whimsical structures. We had the most fun with a series of buttons that just made seemingly random silly noises. OKaaaay, I can see what the draw to this place was. Even though it’s CLEARLY for children it’s goddamn delightful! All ages indeed!
Upstairs we found a more typical museum with artifacts and explanatory plaques. There was a whole room dedicated to showing how the bronze statues out front were created, another that was a replica of Suess’ wonderfully whimsical living room, and even Dr Suess’ baby book and the most ADORABLE pair of tiny children’s boots he was apparently given to wear at some point in his life. My companion was intrigued by the weird blunder bust-like rifle which was owned by Suess’ father and apparently inspired some of his artwork. Thing was massive. Could have taken out an elephant or at least a shoulder with the blowback!
I however was most touched by the original drawings and bizarre but hilarious little letters he wrote. I found it oddly inspiring. Made me want to get back to my own ridiculous flights of fancy – be they writing, drawing, sculpting, or whatever else I’m into! This place was well worth the visit for any lovers of Suess’ work, people interested in the local history, or just anyone with a sense of childlike wonder. Stay tuned and I will be posting my adventures in some of the other museums in the coming few days.
Lately we haven’t really gone anywhere different. There’s been a lot of antique stores, some hikes and cemeteries, but we were looking to shake things up a bit when we found the Titanic Historic Society and Museum in a book of local museums. Something about this peaked my companion’s interest and off we went!
Finding this place was difficult because we did not know that it wasn’t a standalone building, it was a museum within Henry’s jewelry store. And it was one of those things where you just are completely unsure of the whole premise. It looked pretty rough! With old clouded up windows housing a half-dead Christmas cactus and a bunch of seemingly random cheap looking things that seemed unrelated to jewelry. When we walked in, we expected to see jewelry cases and a big open-air area. No. This place seemed mostly filled with greeting cards and… clutter. Visions of Cookie’s danced in our heads, and we wondered if we were about to topple down some serial killer’s rabbit hole.
Quietly we walked to the back where an old woman sat at the counter and we requested a ticket, two rather, to see the Titanic Museum. She seemed absolutely thrilled someone had come by for this excitedly exclaiming, “I should turn on the lights for you then!”
And there in two very stuffed back rooms was the museum which we were very graciously led around and told about. She requested we don’t take any photos (but did allow us to take a few shots of the model Titanic in the jewelry store which was built over the course of a year by a model airplane builder before being tested on the water!) These two back rooms contained a lot of things from the Titanic’s “sister ships” as well as memorabilia from the movie Titanic. There were flags, passports, diagrams, a few photographs, photo albums of other museums and the making of the movie. It did have a few pieces of the Titanic but I guess over the years they’d been donated to other museums. What I found most interesting was the radar machine used to find the Titanic which was here.
She told us about locals on the boat, how her Titanic society had consulted on the film and how her relatives got to have a small scene as extras. She showed us photos of the survivors, including three dogs who were smuggled out of the kennels and kept in their owner’s rooms against policy. Not surprisingly they were all lap dogs owned by what I presume to be wealthy white women. I may be wrong. Call it a hunch. But they were all tiny. Another interesting thing I learned is that one of the reasons we have photos onboard the Titanic is because a priest whose hobby was photography took the liner from England to Ireland and was persuaded not to go back on it as it sailed off across the sea. This also explains why all the photos are of the same areas – none of steerage or the coal room for example.
So despite our initial ambivalence of this museum it was actually pretty interesting, quite affordable, and a very unique experience. However, I wouldn’t suggest it to everyone. It was definitely something I think would be more niche. If the Titanic is your special interest by all means find this place! If you’re not already highly interested in this subject matter it’s probably not for you. It’s definitely not set up for children if that’s what you’re looking for in a museum. Although it did inspire us to put down some of the other Titanic museums on our bucket list though they’re not in New England. The one in Branson Missouri for instance you have to enter through a giant fake iceberg! Because OF COURSE that’s the way they’d set that up. It’s Branson! The most mind-fucky town I ever had the pleasure of driving through – a family friendly gambling town where old movie sets go to become a super garish string of tourist traps. The Titanic fits right in! Still… they recreated the master staircase to the T. And that could be fun… perhaps on some future venture when we break out of New England again…
Before I start this I want to warn my readers it is a VERY information and photo heavy entry so if you’re here for the pretty gravestone photos feel free to scroll down to the gallery at the bottom of the text and if you’re here for a good chunk of New England history just read on as I take you down this deep deep rabbit hole with me!
It’s funny, I have been loitering around the Newport area for a few years now and although I had always wanted to check out the local cemetery it took me this long to actually get there. But let me tell you it was WELL WORTH the wait! This was one of the most interesting cemeteries I have ever had the joy of wandering through and part of that is because it’s actually seven separate cemeteries that have bled into each other to make one massive burial ground that dates back to our earliest settlements. The oldest parts of the cemetery were founded in 1640 and the newest are from the present day. All together there are thousands of memorials here.
During the colonial era Newport RI was also our largest port, even bigger than Boston at the time, and as such it was always a thriving multicultural area. The cemetery very much reflects this with various sections dedicated to different cultures, religions, and ethnicities. Here you’ll find the country’s oldest Jewish cemetery which dates back to the colonial era and contains mostly a thriving multi-nationl seafaring community as well as God’s Little Acre which is the the largest (and possibly only) cemetery dedicated to both enslaved and free blacks, also of the colonial era. It was these 250 or so slate stones I had especially wanted to see because they are soooo rare, and such a precious historical archive of an otherwise silenced community whose contributions have been largely looked over.
And it’s not only me who recognizes the need to preserve this historic landmark. Intense efforts to restore and preserve what is left here have been underway since the early 1990’s and continue to this day. There were even three stones which were returned to the cemetery after being found in various residences around RI and Pennsylvania. What they were doing in Pennsylvania is a bit of a mystery but one of these stones belonged to a famous woman at the time – Duchess Quamino. Duchess was a woman of remarkable standing. She came to Newport aboard a slave ship as a child, having been born somewhere in Africa. She was then bought by the Channing family who utilized her as a maid and cook. While enslaved she somehow managed to get in the good grace’s of the white church the Channings attended and was able to start her own bakery and catering business becoming the US’s first successful female black business owner.
During this time she married a slave from a different household and eventually had at least four children. Her husband was able to win a lottery and obtain his own freedom but it seems Duchess may have already been a free woman by then. No records exist to show how this happened – if she bought her freedom with the money she made baking or if she was simply granted her freedom. Either way she continued her business and eventually became so famous she earned the moniker “Pastry Queen of Rhode Island” and her delicious baked goods were served to a visiting George Washington at least twice.
Also worth noting was possibly the country’s first professional black artist – Pompe Stevens – who was a stone carver and possibly the one responsible for the distinct black features on the cherub’s heads carved into the stones in God’s Little Acre. He was enslaved by the biggest stone carving family in town and we probably wouldn’t even have known he existed except he carved a beautiful stone for his brother, which he identified as such before signing. He signed two stones in all but likely did a lot more – especially considering how intricate and well-practiced his carvings on those two stones seem to be.
It was a deeply humbling experience to wander God’s Little Acre and come face to face with the bleak reality of slavery in the colonies. The stones were hard to read – “Beloved and trusted by his master” was probably the most cringe worthy phrase I found. And the stories were heartbreaking – stories of black children whose parents were tricked into sending them to America “for and education” and “a better life” but instead ended up here. Buried in a slave cemetery. It’s an ugly mark on our history but we do each of these people a grave injustice by looking away and forgetting their great contributions.
We moved on from here and just wandered about until we found ourselves at a different entrance. And it was there we realized there was a sign up offering a free cell phone guided tour if you could scan the code on the sign. We went for it. But I was getting low on battery and it took a ridiculous amount of steps to set up. The next part of our day was spent fast walking through the stones trying to identify which ones were important according to the tour map which was…. grossly inaccurate. It started off being a few stones away from what they were talking about but by the end it was A LONG WAY AWAY. But we’ll get to that.
There are a lot of notable people buried out here. Among them are a ton of congressmen, mayors, and governors, over 70 Revolutionary war soldiers, a whole section dedicated to Civil War casualties, veterans from every US war, at least 4 famous architects, Charles Bird King (a portrait artist known for painting Native Americans) William Ellery who signed the Declaration of Independence, August Belmont Jr who developed the IRT subway in NYC and the Cape Cod Canal, most of the stone carvers who were responsible for the slate stones, and Ida Lewis “the bravest woman in America” who manned the Lime Rock Light Station for 46 years after the official lighthouse keeper (her father and then mother) died. During this time she rescued at least 36 people from drowning with her first rescue at the age of 12 and her last at 63! Keep in mind lighthouse keepers were NOT obligated to save drowning shipwreck victims for one very good reason – generally shipwrecks were caused by bad weather, bad weather that could easily capsize a tiny rowboat. It was better to guard the light than risk death. But Ida did not feel this way and was known to “row better than any man.” She lived on her own in this badass life until her death of a stroke. Really a remarkable heroine.
And it was Ida Lewis’ stone we couldn’t find at the end of the tour so I will give you some hints. It’s in the same row of stones that face the road near one of the exits. You cannot miss it as it has a HUGE anchor on it.
And I must say that also geeked out hardcore knowing that a number of the stone carvers were buried here as well and a lot of the stones could be attributed to either various members of the Stevens family (which were the first gravestone carvers in Newport and maintained the business for six generations) one of their slaves Pompe Stevens, or John Bull who married a Stevens daughter and then led this INSANE drama filled life that started when his brother pissed away the family inheritance and he had to sell himself into indentured servitude. It gets worse. He was sold to his brother-in-law William Stevens. The two HATED each other because William did not buy his brother-in-law as an act of charity – he expected work from him! And for a while Bull did in fact work as an indentured servant at the stone carving business but this didn’t last terribly long before he got fed up with the situation and basically ran away taking a job at sea where he stayed on ship for years. When he returned William sued him saying he was in breach of contract and still was obligated to work for free for a few years. The courts favored with Bull and in retribution he started his own gravestone carving business right across the street in what seems to be a purely spite based decision. Bull was the most artistic and rebellious of the city’s stone carvers and his work seems glaringly obvious with their side facing facial portraits and he is responsible for a famous stone – that of Charles Bardin – which is known for its intensely blasphemous imagery – that of Moses (or God?) parting the Red Sea. VERY UNUSUAL FOR THE PERIOD. It’s one of a kind and why it was made is still very unclear.
Meanwhile the Stevens family (who began as masons) didn’t escape the colonial era unphased as one of the original brothers, Philip, was noted cryptically in one of the legers as being murdered. Nothing further is stated. A second brother James died at sea.
By this point I was super sunburnt, overheating pretty bad, and tired from the jog so I regret to admit I did not cross the street to check out the colonial Jewish cemetery but I will likely return at some point. Until then I hope this has been an enjoyable read! Happy travels all!
This week we took our adventures to Maine where I had previously promised to share a few old favorites. One of these was another visit to Fort Knox but I neglected to mention this also would include a bonus ticket to go up to the observatory at the top of the bridge overlooking Fort Knox. It’s only a few dollars more to the purchase of a Fort Knox ticket and it never disappoints. But first I had to drive by the entrance and find myself parked at a roadside overlook of the bridge. I hadn’t taken the time to check this part of it out and it was really quite interesting! It had plaques with the history of the bridge and its predecessor as well as a few photos and a segment of bridge complete with wires which if you could walk up to from the observatory’s parking lot below. Also accessible from this point is a little access road which you can walk on to get under the bridge for an even more unique view.
Apparently, the original bridge replaced a ferry in the 1920’s and was a toll bridge. It was replaced with the current bridge in 2006 which now houses the tallest bridge observatory in the world and the only one in the US. Even better is that most of the journey upwards to see this fantastic view is by elevator. There’s a handful of stairs to get to the last level but that’s it. No gasping for air or clinging to the walls from vertigo as some of my other adventures have been! I was however surprised there was quite a line that day. It was a mix of locals and tourists, adults and children. I was happy to re-do this adventure with an actual professional camera this time and not the tiny cheap-o pre-cell phone digital camera I had at the time. There was even a boat heading up the river leaving quite a wake behind. This proved to be “a happy bonus” for the both of us. Looking directly down at the Prius parked below though… that was probably not the brightest idea but I was able to maneuver my cell phone in a way to catch the moment. Now I have photos of the Prius from every side except its underbelly!
If libraries full of books weren’t enough for us we decided that a library of dead things might round out the day. That’s basically what the Edna Nature Lab is. It’s a large collection of bones and specimens that are there for easy study by the students at the Rhode Island School of Design. And if you follow this blog you might remember not too long ago I was at the RISD poking at their puppet museum. Clearly this is a school for… strange people. And that’s what so amazing about it!
Now when we arrived the door was locked. This was clearly some sort of college building used for different things so we were kind of out of luck until a gaggle of students walked in and we… just followed them. Sorry security! We promise not to do anything bad!
The lab was great. It was a giant room full of bones, taxidermy, insect specimens, you name it. There was even a few cages and tanks with live baby sea horses and a veeeery old and depressed looking degu. Maybe it survived the rest of the colony, I don’t know. My companion had never seen one before and thought he was cute. I… once had one of them escape my breeding colony that I had a teenager and unbeknownst to me it ended up living feral in my lawn until my pit bull was found throwing its carcass violently into the air like a toy. It was a bit of a startling sight to see a Chilean rodent being dug up by your dog in your very American lawn… Such is my life.
But back to the lab! It reminded me of something a Victorian “naturist” would have set up. I was very keen on the bones and bug specimens but there was also a lot of really spectacular taxidermy… and one baby dik dik that looked fucked up. I guess you need one piece of bad taxidermy to make the rest look all the better, I don’t know. Anyway, it was a short visit but none the less super interesting and we left before being removed by security. So that’s always good.
As we left I also noticed they seemed to have a bunch of marine tanks in the basement I could see through a window. Some with little cuttlefish in them and that just made my heart soar a bit. So cute. Remember when we all though marine biologist was like the go to job in the adult world? Those were the days…
Slater Mills was one of those places that I keep hearing whispers about and had on my list but we didn’t end up there until we realized it was a national park and one we could stamp on our National Park passport…
Turns out the park is very new. Hasn’t even been open for a full year yet and we were around the 4,000th visitors there. It’s a sweet little outdoor park with historical markers and in the information center you can sign up for a tour that happens twice a day. We were lucky because we had no idea about this but ended up there 15 minutes before the tour started! So we gathered with what appeared to be one large family full of well behaved children and one older couple who was eying my orange hair in the suspicious way older white men tend to.
The staff were super friendly and the tour was short but information packed. We got to actually go inside the factory which was the first industrial cotton factory in New England! In fact it was the only industrial mill in the United States and the backstory to it was more than a little bonkers.
Basically the man who founded the mill was already a wealthy merchant who had made a fortune in the slave trade. However he seemed to have had an existential crisis and decided slavery was wrong and he shouldn’t be involved with it so he looked for new endeavors. England was going full steam ahead with the Industrial Revolution but the men who made, operated, and maintained their machines were forbidden to leave the British isles with their knowledge. This didn’t stop one fo them from disguising himself as a farmer and sailing across the pond anyway. And when this engineer met the wealthy merchant it was all over.
The mill opened in the late 1700’s and had twelve workers – who were not slaves. They were however children aged 6-14 who worked 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. I guess enlightenment is a gradual process with some. In any event the mill was very successful and operated well into the 1800’s. it was powered by the local river but now their one machine is powered by a motor. I took a short video.
*credit for the featured image goes to Wikipedia – I took 20 or so photos but for some reason they’re not showing up on the card so I had to improvise! Good thing I took the below video with my cell phone!
Went to New England's first cotton mill today. It was founded by a wealthy slave merchant who had an existential crisis and decided slavery was wrong…. right before hiring a dozen 6-12 year olds to operate his machinery for 12 hours 6 days a week. 🙄 pic.twitter.com/8Wj7NtPYAc
Last week my one full day in Rhode Island turned out to be a rainy one so we decided that we should find something to do that was indoors. I didn’t really have any ideas but my travel companion suggested we poke around Providence for the day. We looked up what to do in Providence and found the RISD [Rhode Island School of Design] Museum. The photos of it made it seem very random and if there’s anything we both love it’s really random things.
The cost was steeper than most of my entries here at $17 per adult so it had to have something interesting, right? Well, we were off to find out! I was just hoping there was parking nearby, preferably a garage but alas there was only parallel parking along a busy street. Joy. There’s three things I haven’t learned how to do in life: tie my shoes like normal person, tell my left from my right, and parallel park. Luckily some ways up the road there was a park and I found three empty spots in a row. My travel companion says when this happens it’s not parallel parking, it’s just parking, but I’m not going to let his cynicism cloud what is clearly a win for me.
A hare! GET IT!!
The museum was surprisingly ordinary for being dedicated to design… Just a big plain brick building. Though the lobby by itself was as big as most of the museums I have visited here in New England. It even had a coat room with lockers and a bucket for wet umbrellas. Impressive. This was going to be good…
We entered the museum which… seemed to be a huge mostly empty gallery. There were a few creative dresses on display in one corner, some sort of holographic water fountain in another, and a neat selection of tiles made to look like hands were coming out of the walls. Besides that there was just a ton of white empty walls. The only full display we saw was another student exhibit talking about life in the US as a person of color. It was interesting… but still clearly the early work of students. It was something we were both happy to support buuuut…. we thought maybe there was something more to this? If not we both felt as if $17 was a bit steep. After this we entered another empty gallery that was huge and only contained a set of hand drums. They were curious things and I wanted to read the plaque on the wall but there was a security guard standing next to them with an intense energy that made me way too uncomfortable to want to stay in the room long enough for that so we both wandered off.
From here we finally stumbled into a gallery with something in it. It was mostly full of seemingly random things – a really dangerous looking toaster from the early days of electricity, a bunch of weird chairs, a flapper dress, a TV set from the 1960’s that looked like an astronaut’s helmet. And on the walls a small Jackson Pollock was mixed in. for seemingly no reason.
“I don’t get it.”
“I don’t either.”
“I could barf that up in ten minutes. Maybe he was really good at networking. And selling useless shit to rich people.”
Not too far away there was also a small Georgia O’Keefe painting. At least it looked like something. But didn’t really elicit any emotion from me. Which is probably a good thing. I’d been nearly brought to tears while visiting the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam… which distressed everyone around me.
Demons, Tlazoteotl ‘Eater of Filth’ Martine Gutierrez
I thought this room was the end of the museum but it was actually just the end of this section. Beyond it was where things finally got interesting. We suddenly found ourselves wandering into what looked like a proper art museum. An enormous hall with giant portrait paintings surrounded by two rooms of medieval things. My travel companion finally felt like this was worth the trip. The paintings all seemed to have weird things going on in the background. I fell in love with the bored expression of this one boy and was alarmed by a swarm of Cherubs ripping a hare apart in the corner of another. Well… they do say children and animals don’t mix… and I always have been super creeped out by Cherubs. Maybe even more so than dolls and that’s saying something.
From here there was just a totally random mix of pretty much one or two items from every art movement jumbled with a lot of dishes. I enjoyed the Grecco Roman artifacts (including an ornately carved sarcophagus) and my travel companion seemed to be more keen on the Egyptian mummy complete with canopic jars. Both of us were impressed by the one sweet little Van Gogh they had in the same room as a Picasso. By now even the building was taking on character – most of it emanating from a massive glass bubble chandelier that was a spectacle all on it’s own even without the tentacles that slithered out of it.
When we came back down we realized we missed a room where this photographic portrait of the Aztec “filth-eater” god was. It was the perfect bizarre way to end our visit. By now we both agreed it was totally worth the $17 even if we were a bit skeptical at first…
After leaving the House of Seven Gables we were on our way to one attraction I never made it to during any of my previous visits – the Pirate Museum! And it was everything I expected and could have ever hoped for… the outside of the building was adorned with murals of pirates climbing ropes to the roof, the entrance was a little gift shop with a literal wooden barrel full of plastic pirate hooks at grabbing level for small children. And to makes it all the more beautiful the tours were guided… by teenagers dressed as pirates… which I can only assume joined the work force after their mom was like, “You LOVE pirates! And the costumes are so cute! Look your friends are already here, it’s the perfect job for you! Go on! Get in there!” Someday twenty years from now they’ll look back at their first job and laugh. Or join therapy.
ANYWAY. Pirates are not something I know a lot about… it seems with all my knowledge of New England I have always been lacking when it comes to coastal history which includes everything from sea monsters, to whaling expeditions, and of course privateers and pirates. What’s the difference? Privateers are given free license to loot enemy ships by the government during times of war. Pirates on the other hand are usually the same people before and after the war being hunted down like dogs by the same government which was turning a blind eye before. I find the distinction… petty. But it must mean something to someone because it’s the first thing we learn about pirates every time.
The pirate museum allows flash photography – none of which I took because it was super dark and that would have not given the right idea of what it was actually like. In the shadows were wax figurines leering at the people walking by. Each dressed as a different pirate in a different situation. We were told about each in a long monotone speech given by our guide who spoke so rapidly I am not sure he remembered to breathe. But that’s OK. I can understand given the circumstance.
I was surprised to learn that the last pirate executed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was a woman. Who knew?! And I can’t say I wasn’t at least a little disturbed when our tour guide uttered, “And this guy over here was a total psychopath. He liked to tie his enemies hands together and light them on fire. He liked watching the skin melt off their bones.” EWE. That was a little more torture that I was really ready for…. especially from a place that looked like it might burst out into a Happy Birthday song at any minute.
The rest of the rooms showed scenes of pirates on ships, in caves, drinking rum and staging mutinies, all surrounded by many many pirate flags. Apparently there were hundreds. And what can we expect from such a rebellious group? WE’LL DESIGN OUR OWN FLAG THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
I had a lot of fun here. Way more than I thought I would. If you come to Salem for the witches you totally have to also give some love to the pirates…
It was two in the morning the night before when we both were lamenting that we hadn’t planned anything for the next day – our weekly excursion. I said we could always wing something before my companion said he really wanted to go to Salem to see the House of Seven Gables. I have been to Salem many times, usually during the Halloween season, and I absolutely love walking around the touristy section and enjoying the general vibe. This was a place for misfits of all sorts and I was more than happy to go.
We slept for a few hours, got up and started our fairly miserable journey through Boston and onto Salem. I’ve been to the House of Seven Gables before but I was just knee high to a grasshopper at the time and my travel companion had a very similar experience. We both wanted to see if it’d be any better as an adult.
When I went as a kid the whole tour was based on Nathaniel Hawthorne – who never actually lived there but who had used the house as inspiration for what was at the time a globally popular book. I was a voracious reader as a kid but I never much liked Nathaniel Hawthorne… he struck as someone with an overinflated opinion of his own writing, which let’s face it – was the soap opera of the day. I could have probably forgiven this if it weren’t for a few other annoying personality traits – a penchant for whining and misogyny among them. All I remembered from this tour was the weird super tight staircase which I’ll get to in a moment.
I must say the young woman who led the tour on this day did a fantastic job telling us about everything – the house’s actual owners through the years, the wait staff which were at times slaves and indentured servants, and we even learned about the architecture and design. But perhaps the thing I was most struck by was this new feminine vibe. We got to learn all about a series of women involved with the house who were absolutely brilliant in eschewing the gender rules of the time including a Ms. Caroline Emmerton who refused marriage so she could inherit her family’s fortune which she then used to restore the House of Seven Gables so she could wield it’s fame to benefit her philanthropic adventures. To this day the house is still host to both citizenship classes and initiation ceremonies. Maybe this is why the word slave on all the historical markers has been changed to ‘enslaved individuals.’
The main part of the house was built in 1668 and it’s the oldest post and beam home still on it’s original foundation in the US today. To my great joy we got to see the ‘bones’ of the house in the attic – which included 2 foot wide timber planks, some sort of long forgotten mortar/insulation, and good old fashioned horse hair plaster. We were told there were wooden planks even wider at the time but anything over two feet was deemed the king’s wood and shipped back to England. Bit mind blowing when you think about it.
Of course the rest of the house showed off the wealth of various eras and how they got to be that way. I was amused by the profound abundance of Chinese and Asian decorating styles – everything from the dishes to the wallpaper! Apparently this was a way to show how worldly and well connected the merchants who lived here were. I had to wonder if genuinely Chinese people were decorating their own houses so garishly at this time or was this a ploy to sell to white people. Secretly, I hope for the latter.
The house was a fun walk through time as each addition shows how life improved from the dingy tiny oven-free kitchen of the 1600’s to the exceptional wealth of the next two hundred years or so. And yes, there was a weird hidden staircase, super thin and windy, put there as a bit of a tip of the hat to Hawthorne’s story which included such a mystery entrance to let a killer get away. It was SUPER tight going up those stairs and just as fun as it was when I was a wee one.
We had a lot of fun and picked up a couple books at the gift store that looked like they might have ideas for additional travels… And so ended our tour and began the rest of our visit to the beautiful seaside village of Salem where we continued our adventures at The Pirate Museum.
