Ye Olde Pepper Companie, also known as the Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie, is a candy company in Salem, Mass that is the oldest candy company in America.
The company was founded in 1806 when an Englishwoman named Mary Spencer settled in Salem with her son, Thomas Spencer, where she began selling her homemade candies, called Salem Gibralters, in the streets of Salem.
These candies were a boiled lemon flavored sugar candy wrapped in white paper. Thomas Spencer reportedly acquired the recipe for the candy from an Italian traveler while onboard a ship from England to America.
It is rumored that the Italian traveler acquired the recipe himself from either an old monk or an English soldier recently who returned from Egypt with the ancient recipe in hand (King 172.)
Thomas showed the recipe to his mother Mary who decided to try it out. The candies sold well and soon became very popular among Salem’s residents.
Thomas Spencer later bought a house, now known as the Thomas Spencer – John William Pepper House, at 49 Buffam Street in North Salem and also purchased a horse and wagon for his mother to drive to the shops to sell her candy wholesale. In 1832, Spencer leased the Buffam Street house out and bought another house at 17 Bryant Street.
Mary Spencer died in 1835 and Thomas decided to return to England two years later (when he reportedly received a large inheritance in England.) He sold the company and all of his real estate holdings to John William Pepper, prompting John to change the name of the company to Ye Olde Pepper Companie.
According to a 19th century account written by a Salem resident, Caroline Howard King, the recipe that Spencer sold to Burkinshaw seemed to have differed from the original because she said that the candies, where she referred to as “gibs,” were not the same after that.
King said the original Gibralters were smaller, rounder, harder and had a clear yellow band like amber or barley candy around the middle yet were a of a much more “delicate consistency.”
When George Pepper took over the company from his father John in 1864, he moved the company and its candy factory to Elm Street in Peabody.
In 1897, Pepper sold the company to Snow Rich of Salem. After George Pepper died in 1902, it appears that the Pepper family attempted to return to the candy-making business because they started a competing company, also called Pepper Candy Company, on Central Street in Peabody. A legal battle over the name ensued which resulted in the Pepper family changing the name of their company to the Peabody Candy Co in 1904.
In 1910, Pepper sold the company and its recipes to George and Alice Burkinshaw, who had actually met and married while working for the original Pepper Company, and it has remained in the Burkinshaw family ever since.
In 1972, the company moved into a historic 19th century grocery store, known as the David Augustus Nichols Grocery Store, at 122 Derby Street where it still resides today.
Sources:
Silsbee, M.C.D. A Half Century in Salem. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1887.
King, Caroline Howard. When I lived in Salem, 1822-1866. Stephen Daye Press, 1937
Saville, Susanne. Hidden History of Salem. Arcadia Publishing, 2010.
“Candy Made in Peabody – Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie.” Peabody Historical Society & Museum, peabodyhistorical.org/2021/07/candy-made-in-peabody-ye-olde-pepper-candy-companie/
Reid, Levan. “It Happens Here: Salem’s Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie is the Oldest in America.” CBS News, 9 Feb. 2023, cbsnews.com/boston/news/ye-olde-pepper-candy-companie-salem-massachusetts-it-happens-here-wbz-tv/
“Historic Building Detail: SAL.1658 Spencer, Thomas – Pepper, John William House.” MACRIS, mhc-macris.net/details?mhcid=SAL.1658
“Slavery Siege in Salem.” Streets of Salem, streetsofsalem.com/2021/05/21/slavery-siege-in-salem/
“Peabody Happenings – Death of G. W. Pepper” Salem News, 20 Nov. 1902
“Nationals’ oldest candy store, home of ‘Gibraltars’, moves”, Barbara Yagerman, The Salem Evening News, December 16, 1971.
“History of Blackjacks.” Old Ye Pepper Companie, oldepeppercandy.com/history-of-blackjacks
“Our Story.” Old Ye Pepper Companie, oldepeppercandy.com/our-story
“Historic Building Detail: SAL.3233 Nichols, David Augustus Grocery Store.” MACRIS, mhc-macris.net/details?mhcid=SAL.3233