Welcome to the Salem Tunnel Report. Every Monday we will post new and old tunnel finds along with those who built them. In our posts you will learn how Salem has shaped American history from the profits of the smuggling that happened in these tunnels; sometimes for the good, but more often not.
The Man Behind the Curtain…
Stephen White was head of the Massachusetts Whig Party who ran John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster for failed Presidential campaigns. Adams spoke at the opening at the East India Marine Hall that White had built. White was one of the major shareholders of the 666 shares of what is now East Boston he had developed. He also was an advisor to the Governor and on the Penitentiary Board. White headed the Committee Against Thieves and Robbers. He was business partners with Thomas H. Perkins who founded the Forbes empire. He became the head of the Second Corp of Cadets after Elias Hasket Derby Jr. left town. Him and his brother-in-law Joseph Story added new curbs and brick sidewalks to Salem. He was also the father of Daniel Webster’s son’s wife and Webster’s brother-in-law’s wife. White was Webster’s banker who pulled his strings. Webster was the Great Expander on the Constitution and Joseph Story interpreted the Constitution to its current understanding. These are the tunnels under his home off the Common.
What is nefarious?
Stephen White was behind the election of William Harrison along with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Clay and Webster were two of the most powerful senators in the country during their life leading up to the Civil War. The three of them planned Harrison’s assassination by typhoid poisoning when Harrison proved to be unreliable even after the unexpected death of his son before his inauguration.
The East India Marine Hall has 4 sub basements which hides parts of the PEM’s collection and other secret private collections. The hall is also attached to the tunnels in town. The most famous home attached to the tunnels is the Hodges House which was owned by the founders of the museum.
Why would anyone offer 666 shares in anything?
White was head of the Penitentiary Board and head of the Committee Against Thieves and Robbers and he was smuggling goods through town without paying duties and planned the murder of a president. His business partner Thomas Perkins was the only slave trader besides his uncle. They both were opium dealers, but White made a lot of money by clubbing baby seals. Perkins controlled the largest opium empire in the world, controlled part of the Bank of England through Baring Brothers Bank which his nephews owned. Both of them took bribes from Barings to create The Second Bank of the united States to hand our treasury to the British. They both became directors in the bank. White was at odds with President Jackson who visited his house who didn’t renew the charter of the bank early. Soon after leaving White’s house, Jackson would soon survive an assassin’s bullet and future president James Knox Polk, who supported Jackson as Speaker of the House, survived the first Typhoid poisoning. Polk would die from Typhoid later, 3 months after leaving the White House.
White became the head of the Second Corp of Cadets. The Cadets actually were responsible under Elias Hasket Derby Jr. for expanding the tunnels in town. White took them over after Derby moved to Londonderry NH. White and Superior Court Justice Joseph Story added brick sidewalks throughout town to hide the purchase of bricks needed to further extend the tunnels in town.
White controlled Daniel Webster and Joseph Story to protect The Second Bank of the United States which he was a major investor in and the other two were directors of. Webster and Story protected the bank against all in the Supreme Court. Daniel Webster, White hired to hang innocent men in the murder of his uncle he had paid for under his dying uncle’s wishes to get revenge on some business partners’ sons. This murder will be the basis for the Parker Brothers game Clue. The Parker Brothers had a relation who was suppose to be the judge in the murder, who dies the night before he can preside on the case.
Stephen White dies probably a few month after Harrison due to complications from poisoning; why, Daniel Webster had a bigger bank pulling his purse strings. Baring Brothers was paying more than White could ever. Webster and Clay would go on and assassinate Polk 3 months after he leaves office and the only other Whig President, Zachary Taylor, 16 months into office without White.
For more read Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City and its sequel Sub Rosa by Chris Dowgin published by Salem House Press. Available at Barnes & Noble, Remember Salem, The Witch House, Jolie Tea, and Amazon.com.
In Wicked Truths:Book 3 of the Wicked Cries series has the characters taking the tour and talking about info from the book. Janet Evanovich and Phoef Sutton used the book to research for their Wicked Charms book. AlsoThe Librarians TV Show and Carol Perry in her Witch City Mysteries used the book to research the tunnels in Boston and Salem. Have you read the book these people really dig yet? Check out The Wicked Truth Series….
Also Carol Perry in her newest book in the “Witch City Mystery” series have created a cast of characters using my families surname. In her previous work she used Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City as research to understand the tunnel routes inside the town. I wonder if Carol or Janet was the first to use my book to study tunnels in Salem for their books.
It is cool to see who is reading Salem Secret Underground and how mystery writers are building tales of the tunnels I helped to bring to light.
Thomas Perkins the founder of Mass. General Hospital, Perkins School for the Blind, the Perkins Library had a guilty conscious. He was a drug dealing slave trader. When Opium was outlawed in China he thought it was a good move. He felt the competition would shrink under fear of the law allowing him to almost create a monopoly on its sale. One of the other tricks Perkins did to keep his reputation untarnished, was to allow his nephews to run the company in name only. Some of these nephews Thomas Cushing and John Murray Forbes. The link between drugs, big business, and politics with Yale alumnus start from this pair. Even though we can not say Perkins was a bonesman, but we can say that their crypt is built on his property. Plus Sturgis Russell bought his drug empire and kept his nephews employed. Through Sturgis’ cousin William Russell Perkins’ property in New Haven, Connecticut would be bought by Skulls & Bones. Russell would build their infamous crypt on his property.
Some famous politicians who went to Yale sit on both sides of our political system. Alumnus include the Clintons, the Bushs, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfield, and John Forbes Kerry. Kerry is a descendant of Thomas H. Perkins. Perkins was not a member of Skulls and Bones but he was a member of the secret society called the Salem Marine Society which still has their club house on the roof of the Hawthorne Hotel. As you guessed, Perkins was on of the many using the tunnels of Salem.
So what is down there? Within the pages of the book Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City I tell you. The book is filled with pictures of the tunnels in the city. On the Salem Smugglers’ Tour I take you where the photos were taken and show you them on my tablet while going over the history of the people who built them.
So are any of these smugglers important today, or even then? Well lets take a look…
Man who shaped the Constitution, Associate Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story.George Peabody orchestrated several economic panics with Rothschild in England. His bank is now called JP Morgan which orchestrated the 2008 Financial Collapse.
Timothy Pickering was Secretary of State for Washington and Adams. He wrote the Alien & Sedition Acts which are now very similar to Homeland Security and the Patriot Act.
So these men were the politicians who shaped our country. Pickering was Washington’s general and Secretary of State who helped ratify the Constitution. Joseph Story shaped the Constitution with Daniel Webster. Both were in Stephen White’s pocket defending the Second Bank of the United States and their attempts to create what we call the Federal Reserve today. George Peabody founded the Rockefeller Foundation, sold the majority of shares in our national bank to foreign investors, collapsed our economy several times, founded what became JP Morgan bank, and bailed out the local museum which was renamed after him. He owned the Eastern Railroad that built the Gothic railroad station in town.
Elias Hasket Derby Jr. spent the 10th Largest fortune in American history and extended 3 miles of tunnels in town.
Elias Hasket Derby America’s first millionaire and tenth richest man in American history.
Who else? Elias Hasket Derby was America’s first millionaire and the tenth richest man in American history to this day. Beyond Gates and Buffet put together. He built a tunnel from his wharf, to his home, and to his cousin’s Hodges house who founded the Peabody Essex Museum. His son Eias Hasket Derby Jr. who extended the tunnels so 159 politicians and businessmen could avoid paying Jefferson’s duties. Thomas Perkins who’s opium empire spurred on the wealth of the Forbes, Russells, and Sturgis families. In fact the Russells purchase his land in New Haven and erect the Skull & Bones crypt on it. Russell will create the fraternity with Alphonso Taft who is President Taft’s grandfather.
How do I know these tunnels exist? Because I have been in them!
Can I get you in…no! One day though so keep checking back, but for now there is so much more about this tour than witches. Stuff that still effects you today! Plus the tour is filled with vintage photos of town from the 1800’s, old car crashes, comedy, ghost stories and a famous murder!!!
Also you will learn how Stephen White who had the East India Marine Hall in the Peabody Essex built got away with murdering his uncle with the involvement of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story and Secretary of State Daniel Webster. A murder that empowered them to murder presidents Harrison and Taylor to secure the Third Bank of the United States so George Peabody could sell more of our country away to the Rothschilds.
President Taylor. Second president to be murdered because of the Third Bank of the United States.
President Harrison. The first president murdered by people in Salem.Daniel Webster who murdered two presidents in a failed attempt to create the Third Bank of the United States.
Here are some of the cool tunnels in Salem you will see in the book and on the tablet on the tour.
So book a tour today at www.salemtunneltour.com and head over to Barnes & Noble to buy Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City. If you buy the book on the tour you will save $5 and will have it signed and doodled in by the author for no extra cost! What a deal!!
Built in 1804-1805 for John Gardener Jr. by Samuel McIntire. Jeremiah Page provided bricks, David Robbins was the mason, Joseph Fogg the lumber, Epes Cogswell was housewright, and William Luscoomb III painter. Gardner had owned 6 ships. All but 2 had different captains and co-owners. He never captained any of his ships. The only economic venture he went on twice with anyone was with his relative Simon Gardener who had owned two ships with him and captained both. Next door was the site of the Captain Joseph Gardener home where the Plummer Hall now stands that houses the Essex Institute. The Captain was killed by Narragansets in 1675 at the Great Swamp Fight. At the Captain’s death his wife Anne inherited her father’s Emmanuel Downing’s house which is west of Plummer Hall and married Gov. Simon Bradstreet and lived there. This house was torn down in 1750 and Francis Peabody built his mansion. This book was written across the street from where the first American poet wrote her books, Anne Bradstreet.
In 1811 John Gardner Jr. ran into financial problems and sold the house to Nathaniel West. Nathaniel West was a captain who owned many ships with Nehemiah Andrews, Crowninshields, Derbys, Benjamin Pickman, and Francis Boardman. Nathaniel West bought the John Turner mansion, next to the Peter Palfrey House to the right, opposite Central Street in 1833 and opened it as a tavern called “The Mansion house” in time for President Andrew Jackson’s visit. Later it would be called the “West Block”. Nathaniel West sold the Gardner-Pingree House three years later to Captain Joseph White. He was murdered in this house.
It’s raining, it’s pouring.
The old man is snoring.
He went to bed bumped his head,
and he couldn’t get up in the morning.”
Captain Joseph White who bought the “Come Along Patty” from Elias Haskett Derby with the Cabot brothers and renamed it the “Revenge” became the first privateer from Salem. He was in the slave trade. He had questionable feelings towards a young niece who lived with him. He hated the man whom she would marry and made a fortune which he was not going to give her any. In the winter of 1829-1830 Captain Joseph White was feeling ill and had his lawyer Joseph Waters draft him a new will. In 1830 someone snuck through the tunnel and murdered him. Not just once, but possibly on 3 separate occasions.
This murder would inspire Edgar Allen Poe’s to write the Tell Tale Heart. It is reminiscent of Agatha Christies’s Murder on the Oriental Express. The intrigue of the murder and the sudden death of Judge Parker might of led Parker Brothers to buy the U.S. rights to the 1949 Cluedo/Clue game because it reminded them of the strange tale that happened in this Salem house and the possible murder of their uncle the high Federalist Isaac Parker who was to hear the case! I wonder if it was a literature fan who moved the Crowninshield-Bentley House to the right from its old home in the Hawthorne Hotel’s parking lot. That house was in H.P. Lovecraft’s story The Thing on the Doorstep. Also Rev. Bentley wrote his memoirs of Salem in the Crowninshield- Bentley House.
Captain Joseph White was not kind to his relations that had worked for him in his house. He only showed a special form of kindness to his young attractive grand niece. The announcement of her engagement to a captain that was just released from Joseph Jr. & Stephen White Co.’s employment just sent him into a furor. At 82 he has been abandoned by his grand niece for 3 years and is ill during a hard winter. His favorite nephew, Joseph “Jr.” White, has been dead for some years but his brother is still at the old captain’s side. Was Stephen jealous of the attention his uncle gave to his female cousin or the attention she deprived him? Did Stephen foster some hatred towards his uncle for favoring his dead brother over him? Did the old Captain plan a mercy killing that would gain him “Revenge” against two x-business partners who aggrieved him?
In 1827 Jospeh Knapp Jr., who’s father was a partner of Joseph White who lost his favorite ship the Revenge to the pirate Phillips, marries Mary Beckford who was having an affair with the wealthy grand uncle in hopes of producing an heir. This is the same year Stephen White loses his own wife. At the end of the Embargo Act Richard Crowninshield insulted Joseph White publicly after Napoleon captured 3 ships from Salem in Naples. Richard Crowninshield will loose his heir Richard Crowninshield Jr. by a rigged suicide while waiting arraignment for Captain White’s murder and so Joseph Knapp will loose his two sons through the prosecution of Stephen White’s daughter’s father-in-law. All in the name of “Revenge”.
Stephen White rounds up the Committee of Vigilance which had no police or detective involved in its formation, but 27 scoundrels who were offered a $2,700 reward in the capture of the murderers. April 27th the Knapp brothers have their carriage attacked heading back to Cherry Farm. In 1827 Joseph Knapp Jr. looses his mother, marries Joseph White’s grand niece and lover, and Stephen White looses his wife. It has been 3 years since when the old man is murdered. Three months after the murder the high Federalist Isaac Parker who sits as the head of the MA Superior Court dies after saying three days prior he was never in better health and he has never missed a day on the bench in his whole career. Daniel Webster then offers the Superior Court position to Stephen White’s brother-in-law Joseph Story who turns down the offer to remain on the Supreme Court bench in D.C. The man he does offer it to next takes the position, but can’t hear the case since he acquitted two men in the murder previously. Daniel Webster opposition in the case is an attorney who had won a case against him for libel in the past. With all of this funny business the Knapp brothers will be tried twice for the same crime and hanged.
This cabal that was formed with the Joseph White murder goes on and protects the murder victim’s investments in the Second Bank of the United States. Daniel Webster and Joseph Story will become directors in the Second Bank of the United States. Story will defend the bank in the Supreme Court. Democrat Joseph Story would turn on Andrew Jackson in 1836 after he does not renew the charter for the Second Bank of the United States. Afterward there will be an assassination attempt against Jackson because of the bank. Daniel Webster will help Stephen White, head of the Ma National Republican Party that transforms into the Whig Party, elect William Harrison president after Webster fails to be elected. They chose Harrison explicitly so they could control him and create the Third Bank of the United States. Daniel Webster writes Harrison an inaugural address to only be rebuked as he writes the longest one in American history. Harrison expels Webster’s cohort Henry Clay from the White House and refuses to create the Third Bank of the United States. Embolden by the murder they got away in Salem; Story, White, and Webster assassinate Harrison by typhoid poisoning one month into office. Mysteriously Stephen White dies 3 days later. Harrison’s successor Tyler will also refuse to establish the bank.
Later Daniel Webster , after the deaths of Stephen White and Joseph Story, on the verge of the Civil War will assassinate President Taylor 16 months into office by Typhoid once more. President Polk who also was against the Third Bank of the United States would die 3 months after leaving office and 13 months before Taylor of typhoid. These three men would add to the ranks of political assassination which would include Alexander the Great. It becomes public that foreign investors hire Daniel Webster to leave his wealthy law practice to become Secretary of State for his successor Millard Fillmore in hopes of the creation of the Third Bank of the United States or the Fiscal Bank which in time becomes the Federal Reserve under Wilson. These investors could of been owners of shares in the Second Bank of the United States after Jackson did not renew the charter. One reason Jackson removed the federal finances from the bank because 70% of the shares in the bank were owned by English bankers who bought a majority of them from George Peabody, the namesake of Peabody MA. Today most of the shares in the Federal Reserve are held by foreign investors.
The trees in front of this house and the home being named Gardenor-Pingree was inspired by Louisa Dupont-Crowninshield. For the love of her husband and his relationship to the murdered Richard Crowninshield Jr., who was implicated in the murder of Joseph White, she donated to the Peabody Essex Museum large funds to erase the memory of the murder that happened here. A museum that was bailed out by George Peabody who was selling shares in the Second Bank of the United States.
The tunnels connect the White/Story compound to the old man’s mansion. The old man bankrolled Joseph Jr. & Stephen White Co. and the construction of his nephews houses with the tunnels attached to them. I have been in the White brothers homes and seen the sealed up entrances to the tunnels and I have friends who have played in the tunnels attached to Judge Story’s House. I have been in the tunnels under the old Sacon Jewelry Building. It leads me to strongly believe that this house with exterior chimneys, the tunnel marked on an old city engineers map leaving the Armory, it was built by Samuel McIntire, plus manhole covers reading “Sewer”, “Drain”, and “S” which mark converted tunnels for public utilities in front of the property lead me to believe this house is connected to the tunnels in town.
The purchase of the English game Cluedo by William Parker’s sons would be inspired by the murder of Isaac Parker.
Get the book everyone digs before its sequel comes out!
Salem Secret Underground:The History of the Tunnels in the City!
Available at Barnes & Noble, Remember Salem, and Wicked Good Books in Salem on Essex Street. Also on Amazon.com!
Salem Judge Defends the Second Bank of the United States
Joseph Story House
26 Winter Street
This house was built in 1811 for Joseph Story. His sisters married the White brothers. The year in which Elias Hasket Derby Jr. begins his plan to build a new series of tunnels in town, Joseph Story in 1801 was admitted to the bar in Salem. At the time he was the only Jeffersonian Democratic- Republican in Essex County to be admitted. He would rise to be the head of the bar in Essex County. Because of his alignment with Jefferson the firm George Crowninshield & Sons Co. had retained him. In 1805 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives alongside his brother-in-law Stephen White. This year his wife Mary F.L. Oliver and his father would die. Joseph Story made a power move when in April 1807 Congressman Jacob Crowninshield spat up blood while speaking in Congress and soon died. Story was the Crowninshield family lawyer. Benjamin Crowninshield was tapped to replace his brother but Story took his seat in 1808 with the help of the White brothers and his new marriage to Judge William Wetmore’s daughter Sarah Waldo Wetmore. She would give him 7 children. Story now felt that his power in Washington and the White’s power in Salem could dethrone the Crowninshields that he had worked for. Story lobbied for Jefferson’s downfall after the Embargo Act and became the Federalist favorite Democratic-Republican. He only sat in Congress for a year. Now power in Salem was truly now in the hands of the White family and Story’s. They would start the Friday Evening Club which brought together 10 members who were friends and family to discuss affairs of banks, insurance companies, and the local Democratic-Republican Party. In 1811 Story became the Speaker in the Massachusetts House of Representative.
In 1811 Joseph Story, who was head of the Essex Bar in Massachusetts, was appointed to the Supreme Court at 32. He is still the youngest to ever be appointed. His main course in the Supreme Court was to protect the property rights of the minority of the rich man in the country. He was a hero of Alexander Hamilton’s and John Marshall’s conservative Republicanism. In his life he wrote many books concerning his opinion on the Constitution. It has been said that Joseph Story was more influential on how we perceive the Constitution today than even Judge Marshal. After the War of 1812 Stephen White and Judge Story pushed forward for Salem to install new sidewalk curbs, plant trees, pave roads, and create schools. In 1819 he led the pursuit to denounce the slave trade. In 1841 he presided over the case of the escaped slaves who mutinied on the Amistad. He also was a Whig in the 1820’ and 1830’s. He fought against Jacksonian Democrats as a conservative Republican. He was a staunch supporter of the Second Bank of the United States in which he was a director of in Philadelphia and Boston. This was the main reason he would be against Jackson who would veto the charter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1836. In many cases in the Supreme Court Story would rule in favor of the bank. His associate in the Supreme Court Daniel Webster was also a director of the Boston Branch of the Second Bank of the United States. Daniel Webster was also tied to Stephen White though the marriage of his brother-in-law to Stephen White’s daughter and his son’s marriage to the other daughter. Stephen White was the man behind the curtain who controlled Story and Webster and their role in the election of William Harrison and his future murder. In 1829 Story moved to Cambridge to become Harvard’s first Dane Professor of Law.
In 1830 the uncle of his brother-in-laws was murdered. He would accuse his brother-in-law Stephen White of murder. Two blackmail letters came to Salem, the first accusing Stephen White which Story believed. The second only appeared afterward.
Captain Joseph White who was on his death bed for months before the murder was bludgeoned and then stabbed 13 times. The blow by the club killed him. The first autopsy attested to this. Then someone came back to stab him with two different daggers for a total of 13 stab wounds to make the murder more ghastly and shocking. None of which produced any blood splatters or stains on the walls or sheets for Captain White would of been dead for some time by then. Joseph White had heavily invested in the Second Bank of the United States in which Stephen White now inherited.
After the mysterious death of the high Federalist Isaac Parker who had said 3 days before he died that he never missed a day at the bench in all of his years and he never felt better, Daniel Webster propositioned Story to be the head of Massachusetts Superior Court to hear the murder. Since the murder was a capital offense the Superior Court Justice was to hear the case. Daniel Webster was hoping this would become Story. Story refused to give up his position in Washington.
In 1845 Joseph Story dies in Cambridge.
I have not been in these tunnels of yet. Since I have seen that both of the White brother’s house and Stephen White’s other brother-in-law Stephen Foster were connected I would conclude their brother-in-law and partner’s home would be connected as well. But, I have one friend who grew up in this home and several others who had played with him tell me how they ran through the tunnel that leads from this house.
Also Story’s neighbor Richard Gardener’s (17 Winter Street on the corner of Pickman Street) brother John had built the home that Captain White was murdered in. The Gardener brothers were Commons Improvement subscribers too..
Get the book everyone digs before its sequel comes out!
Salem Secret Underground:The History of the Tunnels in the City!
Available at Barnes & Noble, Remember Salem, and Wicked Good Books in Salem on Essex Street. Also on Amazon.com!
The Commons had a creek that ran into the ocean. It started where the basketball court is and ran parallel to Washington Square East and turned and ran down what is now Forrester Street towards the Ocean. Land on the north side of Forrester was also land held in common to the town. The creek had five ponds in total attached to it. There was Flag pond that formed after heavy rains to the southeast; then opposite Southwick’s School House was Southwick Pond; opposite Captain Mason’s was Mason’s Pond; then to the east of that was Cheever’s Pond across from Cheever’s tannery; and one near the school house by Forrester Street was Lang’s Pond. Also it had included several hills and hillocks. This area was used to graze unfenced livestock, gather berries, cut flags and hoops. Ducks, horses, cattle, geese, hens, and stray pigs ran free in the Commons. It had several names including “pen”, “Town Swamp”, “Training Field”, “Washington Square”, and “Salem Common”.Previous to 1714 there were disputes between cottagers and commoners who had rights to the swamp. The Rev. John Higginson had a house on thenorth of the Commons and Col. Nathaniel Higginson had a house where the Hawthorne Hotel is now. In 1714 the Commons was voted to be forever a training field for the use of Salem’s militia in front of Higginson’s house.
In 1772 an almshouse was built on the northeast corner on Washington Square South. Also there were a powder house, engine house, and a tavern owned by Beadle. This street was home to the Phillips School House and the Southwick School House.
On Washington Square East there was the Captain Francis Boardman house built in 1782. The land was owned by John Hodges. Next was the house of Joseph Vincent with his rope walk in the rear running to the Cove and next north of that a two story house owned and occupied by Thomas Briggs. Then an old building which had been occupied by Benjamin Brown as a bake house. Briggs street was not then opened. It was first a Court extending about two thirds the length of the street. Briggs’s Rope Walk commenced at the place now occupied by Hon. Nathaniel Silsbee’s house (Knights of Columbus) and extended to the Cove. Andrew street was not opened till after the Common was leveled. The field extending from north of Briggs’s Rope Walk (to the north of the house which was owned by William B. Vincent which was built in 1799) was owned by Col. William Browne who bought it from Capt. Joseph Gardner who was slain in the battle with the Narragansets in 1675. Col. William Browne will have all of his property in Salem confiscated after fleeing to Canada during the Revolutionary War, including what would become Derby Square. Elias Hasket Derby’s wife was a relation so she inherited most of his property. Vincent’s grandson Jonathan A. Vincent carried on the tanning and currying business there until it was sold in 1791 to another William Browne and his son who continued the tannery until they opened Andrew Street and sold it off as house lots. The Full-Spychalski Funeral Home stands where Dr. Hardy Phippen house was and earlier to that it was Benjamin Ives tan yard and bark house. This site was also the ropewalk owned by Joseph Vincent which stretch to Collins Cove as well. In 1785 a school was built on the commons. In 1788 the Beverly Bridge was opened and Pleasant Street was extended from the commons to meet Bridge Street. Also after the opening of the bridge Winter Street and Bath Street (Forrester Street) was created. Hay scales were erected on Winter Street in 1789 in front of a pond next to Robert Upton’s house half way up the road. On Washington Square North was the Samuel Cheever house who had a tannery in the rear. Then there was James Wright’s bakery. On the corner of Oliver was Mr. Austin’s brass founder shop. After that was Jeremiah Shepard’s grocery store, behind that runs an alley to Rev. John Higginson’s mansion. Next was Jonathan Mason’s shop (the mason William Roberts lived in this home after it was moved to Federal Street) followed by Frederick Coom’s Bakery, The Collins house, Tutle’s Rope Walk, Henry Williams on Williams Street, Thaddeus Gwinn ropewalk, Nehemiah Adams cabinet maker, and the East Church (Witch Museum). On Hawthorne Blvd. was a school house and the Gardner-Pingree Mansion.
Other facts of the Commons. In 1769 custom agents Thomas Row and Robert Wood were tarred and feather on a Liberty Tree for informing on the Salem privateers to the Crown. Salem never liked paying duties… Then in 1801 Elias Hasket Derby Jr. commanded the Second Corp. of Cadets to fill in the ponds and grade the Commons. The Commons was leveled by the Spring of 1802. Derby had raised a subscription of $2,500 to do so and planted rows of poplars and surrounded it with a whitewashed oak fence. The poplars came from the nursery owned by Joseph Franks on what is now Winter Street.
The bills was:
ESTIMATE OF THE COMMITTEE
1,5000 feet of lumber for railing and posts at $10 per hundred is
$156.00
Labor on the above one man 60 days at 9s
$90.00
Ditto one man for digging post holes Ac 60 days at 6s
$60.00
Poplar trees 10 feet apart at 1s apiece
$100.00
Expenses for Drink
$20.00
1 lb of paint will paint 3 square yard twice over 3s 1733 square ft.
577 lb White Lead is equal to 5 ewt at $13 per ewt
$65.00
10 Galls boiled Oil at 8s per GaM
$14.00
20 days work for painting at 6s par day
$20.00
For Leveling say
$1,000.00
For Gravel Walk say
$1,000.00
Stone Gutter
$100.00
Total:$2,625.00
They received a loan from Benjamin A. Gray that 159 subscribers to the Commons improvement* paid back. Some gave twice when funds fell short. The biggest contributors were William Gray, Elias Hasket Derby Jr., George Crowninshield & Sons Co., and Joseph Peabody. Now out of this list we have two subscribers who were block and pump makers, two who owned hardware stores, two were auctioneers to fence the goods, a carpenter who opens up a coffee shop in Boston afterwards, several people working for the Customs Agency (Bartholomew Putnam Surveyor of Port, Henry Tibbets Inspector of Customs, C. Cleveland Deputy Collector, Elijah Haskell Inspector of Customs, James Cheever Officer in the Customs House, Benjamin Crowninshield Collector of Marblehead, Penn Townsend Revenue Agent, Henry Prince’s son captained a Revenue Cutter, Joseph Hiller Customs Collector), 3 presidents of insurance companies, 4 store owners, 5 distillers smuggling molasses again, 4 tavern keeps, 4 politicians, 2 judges, 3 dry good store owners, 2 hardware store owners, 2 ropewalk owners, 4 grocers, 4 in local government, 2 butchers, 2 die at sea, 1 murdered, 2 Clerks of Courts, several Masons, several merchants and captains, several relatives of Hodges, Derby, Peabody, and Crowninshield.So you have a group of captains and merchants who need to smuggle goods pass a series of bribed Customs employees and politicians. Then convince a group of merchants to construct new homes to attach to the tunnels on the Commons to move money and goods through. These tunnels will need to be pumped out of water so carpenters, muscle provided by the several militias, and masons could create them utilizing hardware and rope from other subscribers. These tunnels will smuggle goods into several stores to sell dry goods and food, molasses to the distillers to make spirits, flour and spices to the bakers, liquor for the taverns to sell, auctioneers to sell your big ticket items, and banks to hide your money away tax free. In 1802 the selectmen changed its name to Washington Square. 1803 a bath house was placed on Bath Street (Forrester Street). In 1817 the popular trees gave place to elms and a new wooden fence was put in.
In 1850 the iron fence was installed at the cost of $7,000 by Messrs. Denio, Cheney and Co. of Boston. After these improvements in 1801 Derby started getting his accomplices to build 2 brick Federal Style mansions set apart from each other the distance between the Derby House on Essex Street and the Hodges House on Orange Street. The industrial and agricultural appearance of the Commons became opulent. These house were to be used to run the tunnels through town to the jail, courts, each others homes, banks, and the businesses downtown. There is even rumors that the tunnels lead under the Commons. There is a square iron cover over a cement shaft in front of the Knights of Columbus and a round manhole cover in front of the 1926 Gazebo. Who knows…
Get the book everyone digs before its sequel comes out!
Salem Secret Underground:The History of the Tunnels in the City!
Available at Barnes & Noble, Remember Salem, and Wicked Good Books in Salem on Essex Street. Also on Amazon.com!
One of the most famous architects in Salem was Charles Bulfinch. In Salem he built the new building for the Essex Bank, the town asylum, and Old Town Hall.
Old Town Hall was built on the foundation of Elias Hasket Derby’s mansion. This was the last mansion he lived in before he died. The first was the little brick house on Derby Street his father had built for him when he married the daughter of the enemy in town. The second was what is now named the Hawkes House. Derby never finished this one, instead he opted to use it as secret warehouse for all of his booty his fleet yanked from the Brits at sea. The remaining house we have not mentioned yet was razed to build the Essex Lodge in 1918. All of his mansions were connected to the tunnels. When they built the Mason Lodge the new owners kept the foundation untouched and left the tunnels unfettered. The last mansion was sold to the town by relatives of Elias Hasket Derby Jr., who engineered the most daring expansion to the tunnels to date, to build the new town house and market.
Now Bulfinch was called to be the man on the job to build the new town house and market. Bulfinch perfected the art of crafting buildings with secret entrances to the tunnels he had designed. In Salem this was a necessity for the majority of the wealthy who depended on this system to circumvent the custom agents. Granted the custom agents were smugglers too, but they did collect from the honest unconnected merchants. Bulfinch would build the State House in Boston as well, but his biggest project would call on him to be the one who finishes building the nation’s capitol. He became the Architect of the Capitol. Bulfinch was the original Warren Bellamy in Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol. He held the position from 1818 to 1829. He was appointed by James Monroe.
Old Town Hall
In July of 1817 James Monroe had seen many of the homes that were connected to the tunnels. He visited the homes of Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Crowninshield , Superior Court Justice Joseph Story, Senator Nathaniel Silsbee, and Old Town Hall built by Bulfinch. Monroe might of been so impressed by the network of tunnels that he hired Bulfinch to do the same for Washington D.C.
Bulfinch dug his way to the top by going through the bottom building homes for the wealthy and ended up working for the government building their capitols and maintaining theirs secrets.
Tunnel in D.C. You can see where part of the tunnel was sealed off.
For more info visit the best Salem walking tour! Plus read the book Salem Secret Underground:The History of the Tunnels in the City on Amazon.com.
Oh, Salem was named Arkham by H.P. Lovecraft. An area encompassing Salem to Ipswich. Inside these bounds is Arkham Asylum. In real life it is even scarier than what Bob Kane or Lovecraft could imagine.
Danvers State Hospital is where they invented the lobotomy. Its building are connected to a series of tunnels that had trains move food and laundry from building to building. Kirkbride in fact connected all of his asylums he built by such tunnels. In these tunnels patients would wander and doodle perverse or surreal illustrations on the wall. The film Session 9 was filmed within its confine. Next to it is a potter’s field in which the patients only received a number to mark their identities. Now it is luxury condos…
Before they were converted for the punishment of the wealthy, my friend Jonathan Archer took one of its towers down that housed the ward for the sexually insane and attached it to a new addition to his mansion.
Jonathan Archer is the descendant of Samuel Archer III who built the first commercial property in which the Parker Brothers sold their first Ouija board out of, Thomas Perkins (Opium dealing Boston Brahmin who is the predecessor to the Skulls and Bones) once owned, and one of the oldest secret societies in America had owned. The Salem Marine Society who pilfered artifacts from around the world through the tunnels attached to this building to their museums still retain a clubhouse on top of the building that stands in that location now. They sold it to Frank Poor who founded Sylvania.
The Hawthorne Hotel is built on a property that once held a building that burned down 6 times taking many lives. In its parking lot once stood the Crowninshield-Bently House which was featured in H.P. Lovecraft’s “Thing on the Doorstep”. Its other parking lot is holy ground for a Jewish Temple once stood there.
Further down the tunnel, this building connects to the second oldest jail in the country. A truly haunted penitentiary that has been converted over to luxury condos to abuse the wealthy once more. This is also attached to a potter’s field haunted by Giles Corey. Just beyond that is the location of the haunted Lyceum in which James Russel Lowell read Dante’s Inferno in English for the first time. A building attached to the nefarious George Peabody’s home on the common.
Thomas Perkins the founder of Mass. General Hospital, Perkins School for the Blind, the Perkins Library had a guilty conscious. He was a drug dealing slave trader. When Opium was outlawed in China he thought it was a good move. He felt the competition would shrink under fear of the law allowing him to almost create a monopoly on its sale. One of the other tricks Perkins did to keep his reputation untarnished, was to allow his cousins to run the company in name only. Some of these cousins belonged to the Forbes and Delanos. Yes like Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Perkins met the Walkers (George Herbert Walker Bush, George Walker Bush) in Milford, Ma. Their influence at Yale can still be felt. The link between drugs, big business, and politics with Yale alumnus start from this pair. Even though we can not say Perkins was a bonesman, but we can say that their crypt is built on his property. Some famous politicians who went to Yale sit on both sides of our political system. Alumnus include the Clintons, the Bushs, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfield, and Kerry. Perkins was not a member of Skulls and Bones but he was a member of the secret society called the Salem Marine Society which still has their club house on the roof of the Hawthorne Hotel. As you guessed, Perkins was on of the many using the tunnels of Salem.
