Your Guide to Buying a Home in Salem, MA

Buying a Home in Salem, Massachusetts

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Salem is located in Essex County

Population: 38,091

Many people associate the city with the Salem witch trials of 1692, which the city embraces both as a source of tourism and culture - police cars are adorned with witch logos, a local public school is known as the Witchcraft Heights Elementary School, the Salem High School football team is named The Witches, and Gallows Hill, a site of numerous public hangings, is currently used as a playing field for various sports.

However, Salem's real importance in American history lies at its status as an often used port for East Indies trade. The city played a leading role in the American China trade.

Salem Maritime National Historic Site. One of Salem's most notable sons was Nathaniel Bowditch, who published The New American Practical Navigator. This work began as Bowditch's corrections of John Hamilton Moore's navigation tables. He found over 8000 innacuracies while sailing from Salem to the East Indies. The book, still in use, is in its 78th printing.

The House of the Seven Gables. Salem is home to The House of the Seven Gables, made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was born in Salem in 1804. Hawthorne worked in the Customs House by Pickering Wharf, which would serve as insipiration for the opening scene in The Scarlet Letter. The city is also home to a large collection of Federal Style mansions. Many of these were the work of architect and woodcarver Samuel McIntire, for whom the city's largest Historic District is named.

Tourists know Salem as a mix of important historical sites, New Age "wiccan" boutiques, and kitschy Halloween-witch-themed attractions. Controversy arose in 2005 when TV Land—a cable television network featuring old sitcom re-runs—erected a bronze statue of Elizabeth Montgomery, who played the comic witch "Samantha" in the 1960s series Bewitched. A few special episodes of the series were actually filmed in Salem, and TV Land said that the statue commemorated the 35th anniversary of those episodes. Controversy arose; some felt the statue was good fun and appropriate to a city that promotes itself as "The Witch City" and contains a street named "Witch Way." Others objected to the use of public property for what was transparently commercial promotion. Some felt that the statue trivialized history by encouraging visitors to recall a sitcom rather than the tragic Salem witch trials. Local historian John Carr was quoted in Time Magazine as saying "it's like TV Land going to Auschwitz and proposing to erect a statue of Colonel Klink."