Salem City Library history

In 1855, the Bertram family moved from their smaller house at 24 Winter Street and took up residence in their new High Style Italianate brick and brownstone mansion at 370 Essex Street.

In 1860, he was a founder and life-long supporter of the Old Ladies’ Home (now the Brookhouse) on Derby Street.

The architect, Richard Bond(1797-1861) was described in contemporary reports as "an architect of great fame," "an architect of high reputation" and "a distinguished architect." He also designed Gore Hall --the old Library at Harvard, the Bowdoin Square Church in Boston, both no longer standing.

Salem Hospital opened on October 1, 1874, with 12 beds.

In 1877, he founded the Bertram Home for Aged Men.

In 1879, he donated the Bertram Fund to the City which provided an annual supply of fuel to the worthy poor as the Mayor and Aldermen should designate.

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After his death in 1882, his widow and children donated the Bertram mansion to the City of Salem for use as a public library.

In a letter dated December 1, 1887, his widow and daughters offered the Mansion on Essex Street to the City of Salem for use as a Public Library.

The offer was accepted and the Salem Public Library opened its doors on July 8, 1889.

In 1908, Bertram’s granddaughter, Caroline Emmerton, purchased the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion on Turner Street, which had fallen into disrepair.

Emmerton renovated the house and opened it as The House of the Seven Gables Museum in 1910, with admissions helping to fund her House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association, a group that, to this day, helps the immigrant families in Salem.

Development at the site was slowed when a huge steel truss collapsed and injured four workers on March 2, 1912.

The original charter, with a bicameral legislative body, was replaced by the Commission form in 1913.

On June 25, the Great Salem Fire of 1914 takes place.

Bolstered by 400 volumes of fiction from the college and a few books bought by subscriber fees, circulation began in late April 1921.

Residents of Salem also had access to a county library in a room of the Conehurst clubhouse of the Roanoke County Junior Woman's Club, beginning in 1932.

When completed in 1936 with the use of money from the town and the depression-spawned Works Progress Administration, there were public toilets at each end of a 30-by-13 foot building - and a space in between designated on the plans as a tourist information room.

At its January 1937 meeting, the Council appropriated $150 to get the library started.

She was back in early 1938 when another $50 was appropriated, money that probably helped in opening that same year a branch library for blacks in the Bessie C. Hall building on Water Street (now South Broad).

The congestion in the building was only slightly relieved in 1939 when NYA funds and town materials were used for a one-room addition at the rear.

She was steeped in the belief that libraries should be truly "public" in image and nature. It was only in 1940 that the library was recognized for the first time in the town's printed annual report.

WPA money to pay the part-time library workers was cut off in February 1943 and the Town took over salary payments at a cost the first year of $900 at the main library and $300 at the branch.

By 1947, there were 6,269 volumes at Main and 1,075 at the branch - about double the number Main had 10 years earlier at the opening.

However, it was not until 1957—more than 250 years later—that Massachusetts formally apologized for the events of 1692.

Over the years, it transformed its mission and eventually became Salem State College in 1968.

Martin was at the helm as librarian, when the core of the present building was opened on another red-letter day, January 2, 1970.

One of the most concrete studies, published in Science in 1976 by psychologist Linnda Caporael, blamed the abnormal habits of the accused on the fungus ergot, which can be found in rye, wheat and other cereal grasses.

Salem Times-Register Thursday, May 2, 1991

In August 1992, to mark the 300th anniversary of the trials, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel dedicated the Witch Trials Memorial in Salem.

The population of Salem Town and Village at the time of the witch trials cannot be stated with precision, but a reasonable estimate for the population of the combined area was about 2000 residents, with the population of Salem Village numbering between 500 and 600 residents.