Historic Sites in Essex County

History of Essex County

Essex County, on the North Shore above Boston, is one of the original shires of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, incorporated in 1643. It is best known for Salem, where the witch trials of 1692 ended with twenty people executed, and where, a century later, merchant ships made the town one of America's richest ports.

Salem Maritime National Historic Site has preserved Derby Wharf and the Custom House, where Nathaniel Hawthorne worked, since 1938. The House of the Seven Gables, built in 1668 and made famous by his novel, is a few blocks away. Gloucester's Fisherman's Memorial (1925) honors a fishing port settled in 1623, Saugus Iron Works dates to 1646, and Lawrence's mills were the scene of the 1912 Bread and Roses strike.