The Derby House 1762
by Elizabeth Dow
Title
The Derby House 1762
Artist
Elizabeth Dow
Medium
Photograph - Photographs
Description
While visiting Salem Massachusetts with my son's Boy Scout Troop, I was so excited to see so many historic buildings and even more pleased to see them in their original condition. This house is the Derby House build in 1762 as a wedding present from Elias Hasket to his wife Elizabeth Crowninshield Derby. They raised seven children in this home.
Footnote: I found this information on National Park Service website. If you are able, please visit Salem Massachusetts.
Hasket, Elizabeth, and their children lived here during most of the Revolutionary War. As part of the war effort, Hasket converted many of his family's cargo vessels to privateers. The wealth that the Derbys amassed from privateering was the foundation of the great East India trade that Hasket and others pioneered after the Revolution.
The Derbys sold the "little brick house" as Hasket called it, in 1796, to Capt. Henry Prince, who built the West India Goods Store next to the house around 1800. The Princes lived in the house until 1827. After that time, the house had numerous owners during the remainder of the 19th century. For a while, it was used as a tenement house, and multiple families lived in the building. Many of those families were members of the Polish community who came to work in the nearby mills.
In the early twentieth century, the Derby House was purchased by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England), and restored to its 18th century grandeur. In 1937, SPNEA transferred the house to the newly formed Salem Maritime National Historic Site.
Uploaded
April 19th, 2016
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