Critical Commentary Related to Other Salem Houses

Crowninshield-Bentley House, 126 Essex St. Built in 1727-30 for sea captain and fish merchant John Crowninshield

By 1800 the Crowninshields, were taking over the position of power in Salem once occupied by the Derbys. In her book The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret Moore Margaret Moore talks about the Crowninshields, who were Republicans, and the Derbys, who were Federalists (courtesy of the University of Missouri Press)

Richard Derby House (Derby-Ward House), 27 Herbert St, corner of Derby and Herbert Streets

Elias H. Derby (1739-1799), a prosperous merchant of the eighteenth century, grew up in this house built for his father, Richard (1739-1799), a successful sea captain and ship owner, in 1738.
In The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret B. Moore talks about the attitude of Derby and of Salem to slaves brought from Africa, and she also discusses the possibility that Hawthorne wrote some of his stories in the garden of the Richard Derby house (courtesy of the University of Missouri Press)
Joseph Felt House, 113 Federal St.
This house was constructed in 1794-5 for Joseph Barlow Felt and occupied by the Felt family for many years. In The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Margaret B. Moore discusses Felt's and Bentley's different views on the presence of Indians in the Salem area and the theory that links the witchcraft hysteria of 1692 to the fear of Indians. (courtesy of the University of Missouri Press)