Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
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NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 42 OCTOBER 2019 L I V E + P L AY PHOTOGRAPHS BY PATRICK SPORLEDER Salem's Hamilton Hall has an impressive history as a place for advocating for social justice and beyond. BY DINAH CARDIN EARLY ACTIVISTS mansions on Chestnut Street. The elegant building has seen its share of history. It hosted five of the first eight U.S. presidents as well as the Marquis de Lafayette, and both Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt attended social dances there as Harvard students. Today there is a winter evening dedicated to Scottish dance and poetry as well as other social occasions designed to take advantage of the Samuel McIntire–designed "flexible" dance floor, developed to support the dancer's endurance. In addition a special Ladies Committee hosts an ongoing annual lecture series devoted to world affairs in the hall, a tradition since 1946. Raising money to help with the repairs and upkeep of this Salem gem is an ongoing mission for the board of directors. This is where the Remond family comes in. The year that Hamilton Hall was completed, John Remond, a free black man, "took up living For George Ford, Hamilton Hall in Salem is more than just an old New England assembly hall. It's where his fourth-great-grandparents, John and Nancy Remond—leaders in the North's abolitionist movement—lived and worked. Several years ago when Ford visited from San Francisco, he couldn't stop touching everything in the historic building. "In Massachusetts, you preserve your history so well and maintain things so well." he says. "It feels like I was walking in their footsteps." Providing a gathering place to dance, drink, and dine is a Hamilton Hall tradition that goes back more than 200 years, as is hosting lectures, weddings, and an annual Christmas Week Dance. Completed in 1805 during a turbulent time in our young nation, Hamilton Hall stands in Salem's McIntire District, alongside other stately Federal-style quarters" in an apartment at the hall. He worked as a barber and a restaurateur. Over time, Remond became the preferred caterer and provisioner for all social events at the hall, including cooking for dinner parties. On the 200th anniversary of the Salem Settlement, he served a multicourse meal that included green turtle soup, oyster pies, roast partridges, and preserved quinces. For over 50 years, the hall was home to all Remond's activities, along with those of his wife, Nancy, and his growing family of eight children, who all lived for a time in the hall. "The Remond narrative is a great African American, American, and Salem story," says Donna Seger, a history professor at Salem State University and board member at Hamilton Hall. Together, Seger and student Katherine Stone worked on Stone's final senior project: developong the Remond family history for visitors to Hamilton Hall. According to Seger, Redmond arrived in Salem in the summer of 1798 as a young boy, all alone. He had been sent north by his mother from his native Curaçao, where he would have seen signs of slavery. The owners of the brig that transported him quickly gave him work at their family bakery. An impressive Federal mansion, Hamilton Hall is on Chestnut Street in Salem.