The Custom House is a historic Federal-style building on Derby Street in Salem, Massachusetts. It was a municipal building used to house the U.S. Customs offices, which collected taxes on imported cargo.
Built in 1819, it is a two-story red brick building with a slate hipped roof. The building was once topped by a gilded wooden eagle carved by woodcarver and cabinetmaker Joseph True until the eagle was later replaced by a fiberglass replica.
The building also features a raised Corinthian entrance portico and an octagonal cupola with round-headed windows. The rear wing is a bonded warehouse that features a fireproof vault and has three stories with a gable roof.
The land that the building sits on was originally purchased for $5,000, and the construction of the building cost around $14,000. The carved wooden eagle cost $50. Alterations and repairs to the building for the first 50 years cost around $16,500.
The first floor of the Custom House consisted of the Surveyor’s Office in the southwest corner of the building, the Weigher and Gauger’s office in the northwest corner, and the Collector’s Room across the hall in the southeast corner.
The second-floor rooms were not completed in the initial construction due to cost overruns, and three rooms on the second floor remained completely unfinished, lacking plaster, woodwork, and paint.
In 1846, Salem native Nathaniel Hawthorne began working at the Custom House after he was appointed to the position of surveyor of the port through his connections to the Democratic Party, which won the presidency that year with the election of James Polk.
Hawthorne worked in the Surveyor’s Office on the first floor and later wrote about the Custom House in his famous novel The Scarlet Letter, in which he referred to the building as “cobwebbed and dingy with old paint; its floor is strewn with grey sand, in a fashion that has elsewhere fallen into long disuse…”
In June of 1849, Hawthorne was dismissed from his job at the Custom House and replaced by Captain Allen Putnam due to administration changes after President Polk declined to seek reelection.
Between 1853 and 1854, the cupola on the roof of the Custom House was constructed, which allowed watchmen to scan the harbor for approaching ships, and the second-floor rooms were finally finished after a group of concerned citizens petitioned Congress in 1852 for more funds to repair and complete the building.
By 1855, the second floor was occupied by the naval officer in the northeast room, the collector’s private office in the southeast room, the Weigher and Gauger’s office relocated to the southwest room, and the northwest room became the inspector’s office. On the first floor, the old weigher and gauger’s office became the office of the Deputy Collector.
In 1872, a gas system was installed to provide interior lighting, and 14 bracket lighting fixtures and two noiseless Argand burners with porcelain shades were installed in the building.
In 1873, the interior and exterior of the building were renovated and repaired. During the renovation, the gilded wooden eagle was regilded, the interior walls were repainted French grey, the ceiling was repainted, and the woodwork was restained in a light oak color to give the rooms a more cheerful atmosphere, and the interior rooms were also newly refurnished.
In 1875, the Collector of Taxes, Mr. Cross, seized, sold, and bought the Custom House at auction on behalf of the City of Salem for the price of $182.98.
The sale was due to an unpaid sewer tax of $173.22 that Cross charged the federal government, according to a news report in the Boston Record. Cross even changed the name on the deeds to the City of Salem.
The sale went unnoticed until around 1901, when the treasury department wanted to make some repairs to the building but found that it belonged to the City of Salem. Since the city is not legally allowed to seize government property, officials were able to restore the federal government as the rightful owners of the building.
In 1898, the interior of the Custom House was repainted again, and the gilded wooden eagle was restored again.
Beginning sometime in the early 1890s, the Custom House became somewhat of a tourist attraction due to the popularity of The Scarlet Letter, according to a letter dated January 14, 1896, from the inspector of Public Buildings, E.M. Condon, to the supervisor architect J.K. Taylor:
“Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter has made this building–in which he occupied an office as surveyor from 1845 to 1849–famous, and the custodian informs me that during the summer months and in fact throughout the year people from all over the Union visit the building to look at the room which he occupied. It is still kept in the same condition in which it was left by him.” (Brucksch 39)
In 1904, officers at the Custom House notified the Treasury Secretary that many papers and documents relating to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s term as Port Surveyor were damaged or missing due to unknown persons searching the files for papers with Hawthorne’s autograph. Some of these papers were later discovered for sale in various shops in Salem, and the shop owners said they bought them from a former customs officer.
On March 7, 1904, an electric generating plant was installed in the basement, and electric lights were placed in rooms throughout the building. That same year, the old stove in the basement was replaced with a new furnace that circulated hot water to cast iron radiators throughout the building.
In 1907, it was reported in the news that the gilded wooden eagle on the top of the Custom House was deteriorating and had to be removed from the building because pieces of it were falling into the street below. The eagle was reportedly put on display at the Essex Institute. It’s not clear when or how it was returned to its spot on top of the building.
In 1910, the government considered selling the Custom House after a bill was passed in Congress for money to build a new Custom House, but the sale did not happen, and a new building was never built.
In 1922, the Custom House was renovated again when the gilded wooden eagle was removed from the building and restored again in Boston while the building itself underwent repairs, including a new coat of paint on the exterior, a new fence, and new fixtures installed inside the building.
In 1936, the building ceased to be used as a custom house anymore, and, on June 17, 1937, it was officially transferred to the National Park Service, where it was added to the Salem Maritime National Historic Site in 1938. It is now open to the public for tours.
In 2003, the gilded wooden eagle on top of the Custom House was taken down and replaced with a fiberglass replica while the original underwent a three-year-long restoration. The original eagle is now on display inside the Custom House.
Sources:
Brucksch, John. Historic Furnishings Report: The Salem Custom House. National Park Service, 1986.
“Historic Building Detail: SAL.2571 Custom House and Bonded Warehouse.” MACRIS, mhc-macris.net/details?mhcid=SAL.2571
“Our National Insignia is a Majestic Bald Eagle.” Lewiston Evening Journal, 26 Sept. 1975, p. 52.
“Salem Wants Its Old Custom House.” The Boston Transcript, 3 Sept. 1932, p. 17.
“The Salem Custom House.” The Boston Herald, 2 Aug. 1922, p. 14.
“To Restore Famous Salem Custom House.” The Boston Herald, 6 Aug. 1922, p. 28.
“May Sell Old Salem Custom House by Auction.” The Boston Post, 5 Jan. 1910, p. 4.
“Salem Custom House Likely to be Sold.” The San Francisco Call, 9 Feb. 1910, p. 9.
“Salem’s Famous Eagle Taken Down From Ancient Perch.” The Boston Post, 23 Jul. 1907, p. 2.
“Salem. Proof Against Destruction.” Daily Evening Item, 24 Jul. 1907, p. 2.
“Salem’s Custom House A Mecca of Romance.” The Boston Record, 19 Oct. 1903, p. 6.
“Salem Custom House: Will It Be Annexed to Boston?” Salem Gazette, 11 Aug. 1902, p. 1.
“News to Uncle Sam, Salem Custom House Sold by the City in 1875.” The Boston Herald, 30 Mar. 1901, p. 12.
“Who Owns Salem’s Custom House?” The Boston Traveler, 30 Mar. 1901, p. 3.
“Title in Error. Salem’s Custom House Appears to Belong to the City.” 30 Mar. 1901, Daily Evening Item, p. 9.
“Eagles in Salem. Painters at Work at Custom House.” The Salem Gazette, 28 Jan. 1898, p. 7.
“Salem’s Custom House.” The Boston Post, 23 Sept. 1898, p. 19.
“The Custom House.” The Salem Gazette, 14 Nov. 1873, p. 2.
“Custom House.” The Boston Globe, 14 Nov. 1873, p. 8.
“Proposals for Repairs on the Custom House at Salem, Mass.” The Boston Post, 29 Mar. 1854, p. 1.
“The Salem Custom House.” The Boston Daily Atlas, 12 Jun. 1849, p. 2.