Home of Sarah, Mary, and Eliza Ropes
318 Essex Street
(now, the Ropes Mansion, a property of the Peabody Essex Museum)

In 1768, Nathaniel Ropes purchased this home, and generations of the Ropes family lived here until the early twentieth century. Its last residents were three unmarried sisters: Sarah (1827-99), Mary Pickman (1843-1903), and Eliza Orne Ropes (1837-1907). They had returned to Salem from their home in Cincinnati to remodel the house, add a modern kitchen and plumbing, and preserve their family home as a historic house museum. They also left funds to establish a botanical garden in the rear of the house, hoping it would be used for botany classes and lectures. The Trustees of the Ropes Memorial opened the house as a museum in 1912, showcasing a fine collection of furnishings and works of art that had never left the Ropes family home. In the late 1980s, the Peabody Essex Museum assumed ownership and continues to offer regular tours of the building and grounds.