Walk Salem

Salem is a very walkable city.  In fact, we delight in our walkability.  Many people choose to live here because so many fantastic neighborhoods are within walking distance of the downtown shopping, dining, cultural sites, Farmers' Market, Salem Ferry to Boston, and MBTA Commuter Rail.

Salem is so walkable, walkBoston - a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to improving walking conditions in cities and towns across Massachusetts - created a Salem Walking Routes map.  The map highlights Salem Downtown, The Point Neighborhood, and Historic District / Derby Waterfront.  They provide a basic history of Salem, focusing on the maritime story, and recommend looking for slate roofs, pineapples, two-story wooden buildings, brick buildings, date stones, stucco, and the wonderful scenic vistas of Salem harbor (I don't want to give away the store here, so you're going to have to look at their map to find out why they highlight these things!)


Click here for the printable PDF of walkBoston's Salem walking routes.  

There are several other walking tours in Salem, including the Red Line, or Heritage Trail, which is painted on city sidewalks to connect historic sites and points of interest.  The Red Line route is on the Visitor Guide map, and you can read about traveling on the Heritage Trail in past blog posts (Part 1 and Part 2). 

Visit the Salem Maritime National Historic Site online for the McIntire Architecture Walking Trail, Bowditch's Salem: A Walking Tour of the Great Age of Sail, Architecture in Salem walking tour, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Salem: A Walking Tour of Literary Salem.  These are each great tools to inform your independent exploration of this very walkable, very historic city.

You may have noticed, as I did, that the Salem Witch Trials are absent from these walking trails and routes, which focus on the maritime and architectural history of Salem.  If you want to explore the Witch Trials via a self-guided walk around Salem, a blog post I did for the Carrier Family Reunion and author (The Heretic's Daughter, The Wolves of Andover) Kathleen Kent's visit to Salem last year connects some of the sites that are significant to the Witch Trial history.  


Walking tours are a great way to explore Salem. Lace up your sneakers and get out there! 

Images from Salem's South River Walking Tour

While an awful lot of people were watching the Patriots win their first game of the season, about 25 of us were enjoying a fascinating walking tour hosted by Historic Salem, Inc. The tour, led by historian Margherita Desy, was entitled, "Looking South: Salem's South River."

We began at the Gedney House on High Street, which once faced the water, and walked to Central Wharf, which we learned was once called Forrester Wharf, at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. The tour was fact-filled, focusing on the changing topography of Salem over the past 200+ years, and touching on some of the devastation of the Great Salem Fire of 1914.

In the photo above, we are standing in the municipal parking lot in Riley Plaza. Much of the tour took us over landfill. This spot looks up to Mill Hill and over toward the police station which was once the Mill Pond. The mills in Salem ground wheat, snuff, and chocolate (not at the same time, we hope).

Here we are on the corner of New Derby Street and Lafayette Street. The building on the top left of the image where Engine House Pizza is located is the only building on this block that survived the Salem Fire.


From this spot (above) on the South River Harbor Walk, adjacent to Finz, we learned about the Pequot Mills (now Shetland properties), which was the largest building under one roof when it was built.

Adjacent to Shetland Properties is the Pequot House, above. This house was built for the 1930 tercentenary of the settling of Massachusetts. It is not a First Period structure. When it was built by the Pequot Mills, it was for interpretive purposes. They had costumed guides and decorations that they believed represented the 17th century (but apparently they really represented the 18th century).

I always new this house was a replica, but I never knew why. The information is particularly useful because we have received letters at Destination Salem from visitors who are horrified to see the picture window in a 17th-century structure!

And we ended on Central (formerly Forrester) Wharf, adjacent to the tall ship Friendship (which is on Derby Wharf).

This was one of two Sunday in September Walking Tours. The second tour will be on Sunday, September 26 at 2:00 pm at Salem State University. The tour will include the history of Salem State, from Normal School to Teaching School to Salem State College, now University. The September 26 tour will also go to the Forest River conservation area to talk about the former Salem Lead Mills.

Salem's Old Jail Project

Every morning I pass the Old Salem Jail on my way into work. For the past five months a considerable amount of work has been going on at the jail, as it is being redeveloped into apartments, a restaurant (what restaurant, we do not yet know), and a small museum of jail history.

The 1813 jail operated until 1991 when a new facility was constructed up the road in Middleton, MA.

The building and its property is a frequent stop for many of the local walking tours. My son's favorite bit of jail trivia is that it did not have running water (ever, and did you note that it operated until 1991?) so prisoners were given a bucket upon admission.

The jail has an interesting history, which includes a few famous residents including Harry Houdini and the Boston Strangler.

I'm looking forward to its future as a new gateway to Salem, a beautiful restored facade, and yet another great (I'll hope) dining option for residents and visitors.

If you want more Salem Jail history or folklore, check out Salem's great walking tours on Salem.org.