Start of the Pre-Season

 

Although Pioneer Village won't officially be opening to the public for another month, the old place has been busy the last few weeks with pre-season tours. Pioneer Village, in addition to being open to the general public, conducts private, scheduled tours for school groups and other organizations during both the pre and post season. These group tours start in mid-May for the pre-season, and continue on until mid-November in the post season. The tours can be any size, from 10-75 people. Contact Marc Ewart, site manager, at 508-631-9514, for details.

The Size of Cod

On a recent trip to the Portsmouth, N.H. visitor center, I came across a display which handily illustrates something I refer to frequently on my tours of Pioneer Village; The size of codfish in the 17th century.
Fish, and particularly codfish, were the main reason Europeans including English Puritans first started coming to this continent. Economic, not religious reasons drove men to risk life and limb in a new land. The rich fishing grounds off of George's and Stellwagen banks were the home to many types of valuable fish, but none were more plentiful, or profitable as the codfish.
On my tour I often make the claim that codfish grew as big as the some of the people on my tour. This is generally greeted with some skepticism. However, there were many instances of the "king" cod, an enourmous fish that reached sizes of 120lbs or more. Here is the proof. The skull of one of those monster cod.

My lovely wife is standing next to it for scale. As you can see, it's skull is bigger than my wife's head.
Here is a detail of the skull.

This fish formed the cornerstone of the early colonial economy. The fish were caught, dried, salted, packed into barrels, and sold in Europe and the Caribbean. The depressing thing is that the cod stocks that fueled the settling and expansion of the New England colonies, are now seriously depleted to the point that cod no longer grow to this size. In fact , the average size of the codfish has shrunk as the size of the catch has decreased. In other words, the fishing grounds of New England are so overfished, that the cod themselves have become smaller. They just don't get a chance to grow to the enormous size they once did. This is illustrated by the display below.

The fish on the left is the average size of a cod in the mid-1600's. It is three feet long and weighs approximately 22 lbs. Compare that with the modern codfish, which only weighs about 6 lbs, and is about two-thirds the length. Although still a large fish, it is nowhere near the size and abundance that greeted our ancestors. Will we ever see another "King" cod again?

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.