Northshore magazine showcases the best that the North Shore of Boston, MA has to offer.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/996797
NORTHSHOREMAG.COM 32 JUNE + JULY 2018 PHOTOGRAPHS BY, TOP TO BOTTOM, STEPHEN ORSILLO/SHUTTERSTOCK, RICHARD CAVALLERI/SHUTTERSTOCK To those who came in ships from English fishing villages, the rocky harbor looked like marble. Arriving from Devon and Dorset with accents unlike those already in the colonies, these hardworking people set about making a living by the sea. ey established a town known for hard drinking and rough talk—a community far different from the Mar- blehead of today, with its multiple yacht clubs, international sail races, upscale boutiques, and dog-walking gentle people. Stop by Haley's Wines & Market Café and find owner Paul Baker, originally from Portsmouth, England, wearing a Vote for Meagan Taylor for School Committee T-shirt. "It's local here," says Baker. "I like being in a small town. I live local and I shop local. People don't just drive through here. You have to come here." It's true that Marblehead is famous for being hard to reach, at least by car. Go to Salem, turn onto Route 114, and keep going until you can't anymore. is spring, I spent a day talking with the town's residents and historians to try to make sense of the achingly beautiful town on a peninsula. Sure, it's easy to be distracted by the latest sundresses in the windows of She and Bobbles and Lace along Washington Street, or to be lured by the white marble bar at 5 Corners Kitchen for a cold cocktail, but the town is also layered in history. e streets are marked with not only their current names but also what they were called before. My mission: connecting some of the dots to understand the depth of this place. In the 1760s, Marblehead was a thriving Atlantic seaport that boasted more residents than Salem. "Salem was always the dominant town, but for that one brief moment, Marble- head shined," says Judy Anderson, a social, architectural, and cultural historian who moved from Los Angeles 25 years ago to live and work among Marblehead's exceptional old houses. Winding along stone paths with breathtaking views of the water in this totally walkable town, she ticks off details of its nearly 300 homes built before the American Revolu- tion, pointing out residences that were once bakeries and taverns, and also bakeries and taverns now operating out of former homes. Our meeting spot is historic Abbot Hall, where the famous painting e Spirit of '76 hangs in the town selectman's room. Portray- ing determined-looking musicians marching through a tragic war scene, artist Archibald Willard captured the feisty spirit of the revolutionaries. e painting wound up here thanks to General John Devereux, who had commissioned the patriotic painting and presented it to his native Marblehead. e town's history is inextricably intertwined with the struggle for our nation's independence—a time that both made heroes and devastated the town economically. In the neighborhood surrounding Abbot Hall, Anderson points out porticos and decorative architectural details that tell the economic history of the place, with its rise and fall in Atlantic fishing and trade. When the Revolution, and then the War of 1812, ended, the architecture changed to reflect "a new expression of American identity for a new and viable country," says Anderson. We stop to chat about the recent sighting of whales off Devereux Beach with a lady / F A C E S + P L A C E S / D A T E O F S E T T L E M E N T 1629 D A T E O F I N C O R P O R A T I O N 1643 A R E A 20 square miles (15 of which is water) P O P U L A T I O N 20,363 Z I P C O D E 01945 M E D I A N H O U S E H O L D I N C O M E $ 103,148 Marblehead Public Schools oversees eight schools: Bell School, Coffin School, Eveleth School, Gerry School, Glover School, Village School, Marblehead Veterans Middle School, and Marblehead High School. The town is also home to the Marblehead Community Charter Public School, the first Commonwealth charter school to open in Massachusetts. Investor and author Peter Lynch; architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable; musician, and member of the alternative rock band The Pixies, Frank Black; Women's 2017 New York City Marathon winner, American record– holding distance runner, and bronze medalist at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Shalane Flanagan; and yachtsman and America's Cup winner Ted Hood S C H O O L S N O T A B L E R E S I D E N T S THE DETAILS Marblehead is rich with history. Top to bottom, Abbott Hall and a home dating to the 1700s.