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.