Home of Mary Saltonstall Parker, and Mary Elizabeth and Caroline Saunders
41 Chestnut Street

Among the women artists whose work may be seen at the Peabody Essex Museum is Mary Saltonstall Parker (1856-1920), a native of Salem, whose textile artistry was quite well known during the days of the Colonial Revival. The fourth child and only daughter of John Francis Tuckerman and Lucy Saunders Saltonstall (1822-90), Mary was also the granddaughter of Salem’s first mayor, Leverett Saltonstall. Her earliest surviving textiles, probably done when she was a teenager or young adult, “demonstrate a predilection for colonial revival themes.”⁶³ It is not known where or if she received professional instruction, but Mary practiced a variety of needlework techniques and textile arts. As an adult, she was greatly influenced by the growing Arts and Crafts movement of the late 1800s, traveling frequently to view authentic colonial textiles and expand her own work. Mary was also active in local charitable organizations, selling her work to raise funds for worthy causes, and she authored several books on Colonial Revival themes.

Earlier, this was the home of Mary Elizabeth and Caroline Saunders whose father, Thomas Saunders, built a house for them next door at 39 Chestnut Street. A regular visitor to 39 Chestnut was their cousin, women’s rights advocate Judith Sargent Murray (see S18). The Saunders sisters both married into the prominent Saltonstall family, and became very active in civic affairs. Apparently, they did not fall far from the parental tree. Their mother, Elizabeth Elkins Saunders, is described in the Saltonstall family genealogy as “endowed with a noble nature… refined and sanctified by a true philosophy… the sweetness of her disposition, the generosity and magnanimity of her spirit, and the compre-hensiveness of her benevolence, with the advantage of her social position, mental endowments, and personal address, give her an influence such as few individuals of either sex can reach; and that influence was uniformly exerted in the cause of philanthropy, justice, and the truth… she was deeply interested in all the great movements of the times having the interests of liberty and humanity in view. She lamented the wrongs of the oppressed and the suffering of the poor… [b]y several elaborate and valuable publications, [and] her frequent communications through the newspaper press… few persons have given such subjects more attention, and her views were worthy of the consideration of legislators and statesmen.”⁶⁴

Notes
63. Paula Richter, Stories from Her Needle: Colonial Revival Samplers of Mary Saltonstall Parker (Dublin, N.H., 1999), 5.

64. Richard M. Saltonstall, Ancestry and Descendants of Richard Saltonstall (Boston, 1897), 186.