Home of Susannah Ingersoll and Mary Turner Sargent; Caroline Emmerton, Cent Shops, and Salem Midwives
54 Turner Street
(now, the House of the Seven Gables)

Built in 1668 by John Turner, what is now called the House of the Seven Gables is widely known as the home of sea merchants and as the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1851 story of the same name. But a number of women lived here as well, and their stories are also compelling. One, Susannah Ingersoll (c. 1783-1858), inherited The Gables from her parents and remained at the house during her entire life. She ran a farm in nearby Danvers from which she derived a substantial income, and was actively involved in bringing her products successfully to market. She never married, but adopted a young boy named Horace Connolly who became the main interest in her life. Letters in the collection of the Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum (see S45) written to Horace while he was away at Washington College in Connecticut (now, Trinity College) show her concern for her son as well as her fascination with books and cultural and political goings-on. Susannah was active in Salem's antislavery movement (see S17) and may have been involved in the Underground Railroad, possibly using The Gables’ secret staircase as a hiding place for enslaved African Americans on their way to freedom in Canada. One regular visitor to Susannah’s home was her second cousin, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who listened to her stories about Salem history and their family. It is thought that Susannah inspired the writing he published years later.

Before Susannah lived at The Gables, Mary Turner Sargent (1744-1813) resided here until she married Daniel Sargent of Gloucester and the couple moved to Boston, where he led the effort to build Long Wharf. A copy of Mary’s portrait by John Singleton Copley is on display at The Gables but interpreters are still piecing together her life. To date, no papers of hers have been found, but the recent discovery of the letter books kept by her niece, Judith Sargent Murray (see S18), are revealing important information. In these letter books — in which Judith made copies of her correspondence to family and friends — the letters to or about Mary describe her as a woman of integrity, selflessness, and compassion. Even in her last moments, slowly dying from water on the brain, Mary “expressed great astonishment at the presence, and solicitude of her friends. She persevered, while a vestige of strength remained, in refusing the assistance of watchers, nurses &c &c and her desire, and ability to do every thing for herself was uncommonly prolonged.”¹ One of Mary’s sons was the renowned portraitist Henry Sargent. Another, Lucius Manlius Sargent, became a well known historian and writer.

History is indebted to Caroline Osgood Emmerton (1866-1942) who is responsible for preserving The Gables for future generations. Born in the building that now houses the Salem Inn (see S40), Caroline’s grandfather was the wealthy philanthropist Captain John Bertram, and Caroline followed the family tradition of public service. By the age of twenty-eight, she was serving on the Charter Street Home board of directors (now, the Salem Hospital, see S11). In 1907, as Salem welcomed a growing number of immigrants, Caroline spearheaded the drive to open a settlement house in the city to provide much-needed community services (see S2). The following year, she purchased the John Turner House with the idea of turning it into a museum. She would use the proceeds from tours to fund her settlement house, and to provide employment for young female college graduates. In 1911, Caroline purchased the Hooper-Hathaway House and moved it to The Gables property. In 1924, she did the same with the Retire Beckett House — singlehandedly preserving three significant historic properties in Salem. Caroline was a pacifist and opposed the United States’ involvement in World War I, serving as chairman of the Public Welfare Society. In the 1920s and 1930s, Caroline’s attention turned to the Salem Fraternity (now, the Boys & Girls Club) and she became the first woman to serve on its board. She remembered each one of her charities in her will, and in December of 1999 the Salem Evening News (Salem’s local newspaper) named Caroline Emmerton its “Person of the Century.”

Thanks to “Miss Emmerton,” as Caroline Emmerton was called, visitors can see a reproduction of a typical Salem “Cent Shop” at The Gables. One of the few occupations open to women in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Cent Shop owners stocked everything from sewing supplies and sheet music to candy and snuff (see S46), usually working out of an “ell” attached to the family home. The Gables also manages “Salem 1630 Pioneer Village” located in Forest River Park where visitors can learn about Salem’s earliest settlers who arrived in 1626 from Cape Ann, located just north of Salem. Led by Roger Conant, these women, men, and children settled at the abandoned Native American fishing village Naumkeag and doggedly forged a thriving village that would later become Salem, Massachusetts. Considered the oldest living history museum in America, the interpretation and reenactments of women’s lives are an integral part of Pioneer Village offerings. At The Gables, we also remember Salem midwives. Ann Moore, was practicing here as early as 1668 when she “executed a deed to John Turner, Mariner, for a dwelling house etc.”² Other Salem midwives include Mary Bass, who practiced from the home of Abijah Northey at the corner of Lynde and Sewall Streets. She had recently moved from her lodgings at “Mrs. Hodge’s,” and her advertisement promised no interruption in service and “to wait on those Ladies who desire her Assistance.”³ Abigail Hodges practiced midwifery up to 1805, when the profession began to change. According to Salem historian Joseph B. Felt, “the females in this profession, who used to visit the families of their patients, within 50 years, and were treated as welcome and respected guests, have ceased. The science and nerve of male practitioners have allowed but few female successors to these grandams, however desirable, in view of their sex, if it were accompanied with other qualifications.”⁴

Notes
1. Judith Sargent Murray to Winthrop Sargent, December 6, 1813, in the Judith Sargent Murray Papers, letter book 18 (Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson, Miss.).

2. Jospeh B. Felt, Annals of Salem (Salem, Mass., 1849), II: 438.

3. Essex Gazette, June 14, 1774.

4. Felt, Annals of Salem, 438.