Home of Bessie Munroe
7 Ash Street
Born in 1887 in New Brunswick, Canada, Bessie Munroe lived here
from 1950 until 1970 despite efforts to evict her and tear down
her home during Salem’s urban renewal efforts. The small two-story
brick Federal house was built about 1811 for Thomas Perkins, and
is now the only one of its kind surviving in Salem. Its surrounding
neighborhood, except for the adjacent First Universalist Meeting
House, was destroyed by the city in the late 1960s. That this one
house exists, and that the rate of wholesale demolition slowed in
the early 1970s is due, in large part, to Bessie’s refusal
to obey eviction orders even after the arrival of a wrecking crew.
Assuming Bessie Munroe, then an octogenarian, would pass on soon,
she was allowed to stay in her home. Fortunately, as Salem historian
Jim McAllister tells it, “Bessie lived long enough for preservation
policies to gain wider acceptance over the bulldozer technique and
she saved the old house.”42
Notes
42. McAllister, From Naumkeag to Witch City,
124.
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