In the mid-nineteenth century, the community of Danvers,
Massachusetts, celebrated the 100th anniversary of its
separation from Salem. Formerly known as Salem Village,
Danvers had been the location in 1692 of an infamous witch
hunt, and in the nineteenth century it still retained numerous
historical ties to those early, traumatic times.
In this marvelous new photographic history, the story of
Danvers from 1850 to 1899 unfolds before our eyes through the
medium of early American photography. Readers will gaze at
the fresh, young faces of Danvers shoemakers and farmers turned
soldiers, dressed in uniform and prepared to fight in the Civil
War. The pocket villages of Danvers are revealed and illustrated
both in images of structures forever lost and others now preserved
as historic house museums. Also illustrated are many of the
elegant estates occupied by such notables as poet John Greenleaf
Whittier and Secretary of War William C. Endicott.