SALEM, a city, port of entry, and one of the
shire towns of Essex co., Massachusetts, occupying
a peninsula between two arms of the
sea, called North and South rivers, and adjacent
territory, 14 m. N. by E. of Boston; lat. 42° 31' 18" N., lon. 70° 53' 53" W.; pop. in 1870, 24,117, of whom 6,084 were foreigners; in 1875, 26,063. The peninsula is about 2 m. long and ¾ m. broad. A small peninsula called the Neck is attached to it, and was first inhabited; a large portion of it belongs to the city, and is occupied as the almshouse farm. The site of that part of the city within the peninsula is flat, but healthy; in other parts the surface is more uneven. The streets are irregular, but well built. In the E. part of the city, toward the end of the peninsula, is a beautiful park or “common” of 8½ acres, called Washington square. Harmony Grove cemetery, on the W. border, contains 65 acres. Salem is connected with Lowell by the Salem and Lowell railroad, and with Boston by the Eastern railroad, and there are branches to Marblehead and Lawrence. Horse cars run through the principal streets and to the adjoining towns.—Salem was formerly noted for its foreign commerce. In its very infancy its inhabitants not only engaged in the fisheries and the coasting trade, but in vessels of 40 to 60 tons traded with Spain, Italy, France, and the islands of the West Indies. In the revolutionary war 158 privateers, mounting at least 2,000 guns, and carrying not fewer than 6,000 men, were fitted out from the town of Salem. These vessels captured 445 prizes, and brought nine tenths of them into port in safety. In 1785 the first vessel ever sent from this country to the isle of France, Calcutta, and China, was despatched by Elias Haskett Derby of Salem; and for years Salem held almost the monopoly of that trade, and in 1818 had 54 vessels engaged in it. The trade to the other ports of the East Indies and Japan was also commenced by the merchants of Salem, as was that to Madagascar and Zanzibar, and the other gum and ivory ports of E. Africa, the legitimate trade to the ports of W. Africa, the commerce with Brazil and the Amazon, and especially the India-rubber trade, in which for many years she took the lead. The foreign commerce of Salem is now small, but the coasting trade is large and increasing, coal for shipment to the interior