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Salem Maritime National Historic SiteThe dining room of the Derby House showcases elegant 18th century furniture and silver.
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Salem Maritime National Historic Site
The Derby House
 
The Derby House, a Georgian style house.
NPS photo
The Derby House is a beautiful example of the Georgian style of architecture.

Built in 1762 as a wedding present,
the Derby House was the home of Elias Hasket and Elizabeth Crowninshield Derby for the first twenty years of their marriage. The Derbys raised seven children in this house. 

Hasket, Elizabeth, and their children lived here during most of the Revolutionary War. As part of the war effort, Hasket converted many of his family's cargo vessels to privateers. The wealth that the Derbys amassed from privateering was the foundation of the great East India trade that Hasket and others pioneered after the Revolution.

The Derbys sold the "little brick house" as Hasket called it, in 1796, to Capt. Henry Prince, who built the West India Goods Store next to the house around 1800. The Princes lived in the house until 1827. After that time, the house had numerous owners during the remainder of the 19th century. For a while, it was used as a tenement house, and multiple families lived in the building. Many of those families were members of the Polish community who came to work in the nearby mills.

In the early twentieth century, the Derby House was purchased by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England), and restored to its 18th century grandeur. In 1937, SPNEA transferred the house to the newly formed Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

 

 

Visiting the Derby House
The Derby House is open by tour only. Click here to go to our tour schedule page.

 

For More Information

On architecture in Salem:

  • Download Architecture in Salem: A Walking Guide (3.5M pdf format)
    [Coming Soon!]

On privateering in the Revolutionary War

On the residents of the Derby House

Pickled Fish and Salted Provisions
Links to pdf files of issues of our occasional publication on subjects associated with Salem Maritime National Historic Site. These issues are directly related to the Derby Family and their home.

 
A reproduction of a seventeenth century chest on exhibit at the Regional Visitor Center
On exhibit at the Regional Visitor Center
find out about our permanent and rotating exhibits in the Regional Visitor Center
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The octant is a navigational tool based on the curve of one eighth of a circle. It measures angles for solar and celestial navigation.  

Did You Know?
In 1799, Salem native Nathaniel Bowditch revised John H. Moore's New Practical Navigator, the standard navigation manual of the 18th century. Bowditch discovered and corrected over 8,000 errors in Moore's manual! In 1802, Bowditch published the New American Practical Navigator.

Last Updated: June 03, 2007 at 16:48 EST