The picture on the left looks back to shore from a mid-point on Derby Wharf. On the left side with a cupola, you can just see the red brick Customs House. Next to it, on the right, is Hawke’s House and the next house is Derby House, also built of red brick. Note the Derby House front garden is minimal as was true of most 18th century town houses. These domestic structures at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site introduced me to material topography directly related to the characters in my current project and answered many of my questions about how people lived in 18^th century Salem.

Derby House & Garden

In addition to being an outstanding example of Georgian architecture, Derby House at 168 Derby Street is the oldest surviving brick structure in Salem. Captain Richard Derby built the house as a wedding gift for his son Elias Hasket and his bride Elizabeth Crowninshield. The impressive house doubled as advertising for the family’s prosperity. If someone thought of placing an investment or shipping goods, the Derbys were the best choice for business.

The family lived in the house until about 1778 when they rented another house elsewhere in Salem, and rented out the brick house.

Behind the house, as was customary, the family maintained a formal garden. In 1990 the original garden was a memory, so the Maritime Park hired historic garden expert Suzanne Gentiliuomo to restore Derby Garden to its original glory. I visited the garden while it still slept in winter repose, but in the summer, the garden boasts over 150 varieties of heirloom annuals, perennials and bulbs that document to 1798 or earlier.  Even without floral  blooms, the garden delighted me with the opportunity to better understand how people constructed their city gardens.

Hawkes House

 Timing regarding the various Derby residences is a bit murky. Clearly, by 1778 the brick house no longer suited the family. Now one of the wealthiest men in Salem, Hasket Derby decided to build a new house on land he owned next door his first house. The address now is 4 Custom House Court. The couple hired Samuel McIntire, son of the man who built their first home, to build a 5,000 square foot, 3-story house in the new Federalist style. Numerous windows provided light and air. But the house was never completed. The fashionable residential neighborhood had moved. The family abandoned their unfinished structure without ever occupying it.

The Customs House

The building next to the Derby’s unfinished house at the corner of Orange and Derby Streets is the Customs House, built in 1819. But before that, George Crowninshield’s wooden house stood on the site. George’s wife, Mary, was Hasket’s sister. The land was a gift from her father Richard Derby. The Crowninshield family lived on the site until 1815 when George died. Four years later, the family sold the property to the United States government which demolished the wooden house to construct the Customs House.

Narbonne House

Behind the Derby Garden, Narbonne House faces 71 Essex Street. Occupied continuously from 1675 to about 1905, Narbonne House demonstrates how the middling classes lived in the 18^th Century. Thomas Ives, a butcher, built the house with a single room on the first floor, [usually called ‘the hall’], a single room on the second floor, an attic, and a shallow root cellar. It is probable that a large family filled the spaces before later owners added a kitchen at the back and a smaller addition with a parlor on the first floor and an additional chamber on the second, providing a bit more room.

More Recent History of these Properties

Derby House. After the Derby family vacated their cozy brick house, they rented it for a few years before selling the house in 1796 to Henry Prince, a merchant who built his West India Goods Store next to Derby House. During the Jeffersonian Embargo, Prince’s business failed and in 1811 he sold the home to William Ropes who had married his daughter Mary.

Henry died in 1861; Mary in 1873. After her death, the family sold the building to Daniel Leahy, an Irish immigrant, for $6,700 [about $145,000 today]. The Leahy family occupied the property until 1927.

Hawkes House. In 1801 General Benjamin Hawkes and his business partner William B. Parker purchased Derby’s unfinished house, and turned the structure into a duplex. Eventually Parker moved his portion of the structure elsewhere, and Hawkes renovated the remainder into a single-family dwelling. The house was in a convenient location proximate to Hawkes’ shipyard. Financial difficulties eventually forced the Hawkes family to sell their home. By the end of the 19^th century, the house provided shelter for immigrants and mill workers. The Park Service acquired the building in 1937, restored it, and gave it the name Hawkes House.

Customs House. In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne described Salem’s Customs House in his introduction to The Scarlet Letter. Once a proud structure, the building, like all of Salem, had fallen on hard times.

“In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf—but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half–way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood—at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass—here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick.

From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military, post of Uncle Sam’s government is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half–a–dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street.

Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunder–bolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later—oftener soon than late—is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.”

The Federal Government purchased the Crowninshield property and completed the Customs House in 1819. Before the Federal Income Tax Act of 1913, the primary source of fund for the Federal Government came from duties levied on ships’ cargo. In 1819 customs duties nation-wide amounted to over $20 million. In 1826 a carved eagle was installed over the entrance. It was removed in 2004 and replaced with a fiberglass replica. The eagle pictured above resides in the Maritime Museum Visitors’ Center. In 1936, the Customs House became part of the Park Service.

 Narbonne House. A final note regarding Narbonne House, named in honor of Sarah Narbonne whose grandfather Jonathan Andrews bought the house in 1780. Sarah was born in the house and lived there her entire life. Sarah’s unmarried daughter Mary continued to live in the house until she died in 1905. In 1963, the Maritime Park purchased the house from the family of Mary’s nephew Frank.

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Illustrations

Elizabeth Crowninshield Derby. PEM. Public Domain.

Elias Hasket Derby. Public Domain.

Architectural Drawing. General Benjamin Hawkes House.

Portrait of Nathaniel Hawthorne by Charles Osgood, 1840.

Additional Photos by Author.

___.1761-1762 Salem MA 168 Derby Street Derby House” Archipedia New England.

Nathaniel Hawthorne from The Scarlet Letter Lit2Go

Salem Maritime National Historic Site. National Park Service.

Derek Strahan. “Benjamin Hawkes House, Salem Mass.” Lost New England. Jan. 10, 2019.

Ibid. “Custom House, Salem Mass.” Lost New England. Jan. 12, 2019.

Ibid. “Derby House, Salem Mass.” Lost New England. Dec. 5, 2020.

The post On-Site Research: My Visit to Salem MA, pt. 2 first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

In 1761 Elias Hasket Derby, age 22,  married Elizabeth Crowninshield, age 26. When they married, Elias’ father built them a brick house on Salem’s waterfront. Elizabeth’s father provided household items, including furniture, linen, brass kettles, and looking glasses. Elias acquired a new beaver hat to mark the occasion. 

The couple were well-suited. The Derby family participated in the carrying trade with a spot of privateering during the French & Indian War (1756-1763). Elias ran the company from Derby Wharf. He employed young men as officers and crew aboard his ships, paid them well, and gave very precise instructions regarding they cargo they carried. The company prospered. When Elias died in 1799, he was one of the first millionaires in the United States.

The Crowninshield family was well-known in shipping and commerce, but in 1761 the Crowninshield youths worked for Elias Hasket Derby.

E. H. Derby acquired great wealth. His wife spent it, moving from the brick house on Derby Wharf to larger and larger homes. In 1780, she began building a mansion with glass from Holland and marble from Spain. Three years later, she abandoned this for a house on Washington Street where the family lived for 16 years. In 1795 work began on the ultimate Derby Mansion located on Essex Street. At the time it was unequaled for its architecture, gardens, and interior furnishings with imported glassware and Chinese porcelain. In 1799 the house was complete. Mrs. Derby had only weeks to enjoy it before she died. Her husband, a few months more.

Besides wealth and real estate, the Derby marriage produced three sons who lived to adulthood, and three daughters. Their marriages were of considerable importance to their parents. In the case of sons, it was important the avoid competing family interests. In the case of daughters, Elias Hasket Derby wanted their husbands to bring assets to the family business. All had served on Derby’s ships, but that wasn’t enough to make them proper husband material.

Miss Elizabeth Derby Marries Nathaniel West

In 1783 at 21 years of age and against her parents wishes, Elias Hasket Derby’s eldest daughter married Nathaniel West. Elizabeth could have had her pick of any socially appropriate young man. Some sources say the courtship was, if not secret, less than public. The couple often met at the home of Elizabeth’s aunt. It’s unclear whether the marriage was public or an elopement.

Derby accepted the reality of his new son-in-law, giving him more responsibility in the business. No doubt he helped the young couple set up housekeeping. For Nathaniel, this was a great step up the social ladder. But for his bride, it was a social disaster.

Once the daughter of the richest man in Salem, Elizabeth was now the wife of no-one particularly special. As appropriate for a matron of her perceived station, Elizabeth became active in charitable associations. She soon discovered her status was simply Mrs. West. As if that wasn’t enough, her name was now at the bottom of the membership roster. Elizabeth resigned from one organization, because the members didn’t elect her as ‘directress.’

The couple produced six children. Nathaniel West Jr was born in 1788. There were three daughters: Martha born in 1787; Eliza, born in 1790, and Sarah, born in 1797. I’ve yet to track down the other two sons. There was nothing overly remarkable about the West family until it fell apart.

On September 8, 1799, Elias Hasket Derby died. As the oldest daughter, Elizabeth expected to inherit the recently completed Derby Mansion. She was more than a little disappointed when the property went to her brother Elias Hasket Derby, Jr. 

Nathaniel West may have been equally disappointed, either in not receiving the property or having to deal with his wife’s frustration. It is known that in 1800, Nathanial and his brother-in-law had a public fist fight on Derby Wharf. Shocking!

In fact, Elias Hasket Derby left his daughter and her husband a generous settlement. Elizabeth received one-seventh of her father’s real estate, Derby Wharf with docking privileges, the land under the store Nathanial erected on the wharf, and her father’s farm, Oak Hill, in nearby Danvers. Derby also forgave any outstanding debts Nathaniel owed to Derby personally, or to his estate.

Elizabeth immediately set out to improve the property at Oak Hill. When Rev. William Bentley paid a call in October 1801, he found ‘the apartments are finished in as good order as any I have ever seen. The furniture was rich, but never violated the chastity of correct taste. The pictures were excellent, the paper and linen hangings were superb. The moveable furniture; rich, uniform, but simple. The mirrors were large and gave full view of everyone who passed.”

The house was a showplace, but it wasn’t on Essex Square in Salem.

Two years later in October 1803, a surprising event occurred. Rev. Bentley reported that “a singular affair has happened in the family of the eldest daughter of Elias Hasket Derby, deceased. After a long quarrel, she has left her husband and taken up lodgings in town, and has become the ‘make game of the public spleen.’ This interests the pride of a very haughty family.”

Tongues are wagging, but the best gossip is yet to come. 

Illustrations

Salem Harbor. 1907 Postcard.

Elias Hasket Derby

Fireplace from Derby Mansion on Lafayette Street, Salem.

Derby Wharf, Salem by Charles Herbert Woodbury, 1889.

William Bentley. Diary of William Bentley.

Richard H McKey. Elias Hasket Derby of Salem, Massachusetts. 1961. Proquest.

Gordon D Ross. Crowninshield Family in Business & Politics. 1964. Proquest.

The post West v. West:The Salem Scandal of 1806, Part I first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.