Caroline Plummer and the Salem Athenæum
337 Essex Street

Formed in 1810 by the union of the Social and Philosophical Libraries, (the former organized in 1760 and the latter in 1781) the Salem Athenæum occupied several locations in Salem before taking up residence in the original Plummer Hall (see S15) that was constructed in 1856 and 1857 with a bequest from Caroline Plummer (1780-1850). For almost fifty years, they shared the building with the Essex Institute until the Athenæum constructed this one in 1905. They designed a second Plummer Hall for their new home, and placed a bronze plaque in the entranceway of the library to commemorate the original benefaction of Caroline Plummer. Today, the Salem Athenæum houses more than fifty thousand volumes of rare books, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century titles and recent acquisitions, and runs a variety of educational programs. They also continue a book club, an offshoot of the one begun in 1848 by Susan Burley (see S21).

Caroline Plummer, the daughter of the prominent physician Dr. Joshua Plummer and the cultured Olive Lyman Plummer, grew up in Salem on what is now Barton Square (see S26). A regular guest in the home that attracted “enlightened society” was the Plummers’s friend Judith Sargent Murray and her husband, the Universalist preacher John Murray. As a little girl, Caroline was a frequent visitor to the Murray homes in Gloucester and Boston, and seems to have absorbed their teachings on liberal religion, the value of education, and women’s activism. As an adult, Caroline was described by her friend Judge D. A. White as “eminently distinguished by her intellectual gifts and graces, and her powers of conversation,” noting that “[her] absence of pretension added to the charm of her society.⁵¹ Her rich thoughts and sentiments flowed out spontaneously in appropriate language, often enlivened with genuine wit and humor. Her literary attainments, which were considerable, did not hang as ornaments on her mind to be displayed occasionally, but were so blended with her native good sense and the results of her own experience and observation, that they appeared alike natural and graceful; and what is perhaps a rarer excellence, her conversation was characterized by a high moral tone and true dignity, being as free from all scandal as it was above mere frivolity.”⁵²

Caroline’s generosity extended not just to the Athenæum. She also left funds to start the Plummer Farm School of Reform for Boys, and to endow the Plummer Professorship of Christian Morals at Harvard University in the name of her brother Ernestus. When she died in 1845, Caroline had outlived six brothers and an infant sister, all of whom she had “regarded… with the tenderness of parental as well as sisterly love.”⁵³

Notes
51. D. A. White, Proceedings upon the Dedication of Plummer Hall (Salem, Mass., 1858), 61.

52. Ibid., 62-3.

53. Ibid., 61.