A Brief History of Pioneer Village

 

Pioneer Village has a long and interesting history. Built at Forest River Park in 1930 for the tercentennial celebration of Salem's founding in 1630, it was host to a day-long reenactment of the arrival of Governor John Winthrop, which included a replica of his ship the Arbella (seen in an old postcard below) arriving in the harbor. The re-enactment showed the Governor's arrival, the transfer of authority from Roger Conant to Winthrop and the pageantry of daily activities in a Puritan village. 

Originally built like a stage set (the reason the cottages and Governor's house have no windows on their backside) the village was scheduled to be torn down after the pageant, however a Salem commission decided that it might serve well as a permanent attraction. 

Pioneer Village was the first living history museum in America, and served as a model for other museums such as Plymouth plantation, which it preceded by almost 20 years. The village has been in almost continuous use since June 1930. 

Very popular until the 1960's, the village started falling into disrepair in the 1970's for various reasons including declining attendance, a fire, and escalating costs.

 By 1985, the City of Salem Park Commission voted to raze the village. However within the year the Commission signed a contract with Pioneer Village Associates, headed by Peter LaChapelle of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site and David Goss of the House of the Seven Gables, to restore and manage the once-popular site. Through their fundraising and restoration efforts the Village was refurbished and re-opened in 1988. A grand reopening of Pioneer Village was held in June, 1990.

The museum underwent another renovation under the supervision of Salem Preservation, Inc. from 2003 until Spring 2008 when Gordon College  took over its management along with the Old Town Hall. The Gordon College Institute for Public History and their theater group History Alive! stages performances of their popular re-enactment of the Salem Witch Trials Cry Innocent at the Old Town Hall and manages the village's use as a set for hire for special events, festivals, television shows and movies.

2012 Season

Things kick-off at Pioneer Village this year with a clean up of the grounds and replanting of the gardens, which will take place the last Friday of March (weather permitting) in preparation for re-opening  in late May/early June. The actual date will be posted here once that has been decided.  Unlike previous years, the Village will be open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, closed the rest of the week. There will also be several special events planned for the summer months including a performance of a new play celebrating the 400th birthday of America's first poet, Anne Bradstreet in June, as well as a Pirate Faire in early August. We look forward to seeing you!

The 2011 Season

A picture of the Pioneer Village crew. Taken November 18, 2011, last day of the 2011tour season. Present (from left-right) back row; Marc Ewart, Lisa White, George Courage front row; Carol Smolinsky, Christine Tremblay, Jasmine Myers. Thank you to everyone for a wonderful season!

“Village Blacksmith" image wins first place!

This photo of our own village blacksmith, "Mr. Snitch" (Kevin Stirnweis) taken by yours truly during the regular October season at Pioneer Village, won first prize in the "People and Places" category of the 2011 Essex National Heritage Photo Contest. Starting next May you can come and see him in person! The link to the contest site is here:
http://www.essexheritage.org/photocontest/index.shtml

Halloween Craziness

October was a very busy month at Pioneer Village. The Village was not only the site of numerous tours this October, but several special events, including a Pirate Day, trick or treating Halloween weekend, and a "Haunted Village" attraction that ran the last two weekends of October. There were storytellers, witches, and a demon blacksmith. All told the Village had several hundred visitors. To all those who worked at the Village in all kinds of weather, Thank You. For those patrons who attended, Thank You as well.

Pioneer Village is now officially closed to the public, although private school group tours will continue until November 20th. The Village will re-open in may of 2012.

A Word about Puritan Crime and Punishment

The site of a lawbreaker sitting in the stocks or fastened in the pillory is a site familiar to anyone who is familiar with New England history. The stocks are one of the first things that you see when you enter Pioneer Village, and one of its most popular attractions. People are fascinated by this visible symbol of a stern, even brutal penal code. This fascination is appropriate, as the Puritans were very big on corporal punishment. As a small, isolated group living in the midst of wilderness and surrounded by enemies both real and imagined, the spectacle of public shame, humiliation and punishment, is a powerful social glue.
Puritan law was not only based on English Common Law, but on Old-Testament Biblical Law as well. You might be just as likely to find yourself in the stocks for violating the Sabbath as for stealing your neighbors' corn.
If you are interested in a detailed look at Puritan crime and punishment, I would recommend the book Wicked Puritans of Essex County by Tom Juergens. Juergens is a writer and journalist with roots in local daily and weekly newspapers such as the now defunct Beverly Times and  the Cape Cod Register. He has collected a series of stories, gathered from court records, that detail Puritan crime and punishments. The accounts are listed by type of crime. There are many surprises. There are the usual crimes of rape, arson, and murder, but also the crime of being a Quaker (a dissenting Christian sect) fornication, adultery, and disrespecting your parents. Punishments abound; whippings, brandings (on the hand and face), the wearing of symbolic letters designating your crime, nostril-splitting, heavy fines, banishment, and forfeiture of property. (Apparently spurious civil suits are not an exclusive invention of the twentieth century). The book shows that all people are subject to weakness, jealousy, greed and violence, regardless of what century they live in, or what moral code they subscribe to. 
It humanizes the Puritans, who are sometimes caricatured as cold, morally-superior people. It turns out they were all too human after all.

What's Cooking at the Village

Chris Tremblay

Hearth in the great hall of the Governor's House.

If you visit Pioneer Village, you may happen upon some samplings of Puritan cooking.

Chris Tremblay, our resident expert on all things pertaining to Puritan domestic life, will sometimes use the great hearth in the Governor's house to cook up treats for the other village interpreters. This recently has included squash as well as chicken soup, "journey-cakes" (a kind of cornmeal pancake) served with freshly-churned butter, fresh ground cinnamon, and nutmeg. There is also a signature "sweet chicken" dish. All of these are cooked on the fire in a cast-iron pot, much as they were over 300 years ago. There is nothing like having a hearty bowl of hot soup on a cold day, eaten from a wooden bowl, with a hand-made wrought-iron spoon to make you feel like a 17th-century Puritan.

Home-made chicken soup