Chestnut Street District (Boundary Increase)

This addition to Salem's Chestnut Street Historic District takes in 23 houses on River, Lynn and Beckford Streets, built from the mid-18th to the early 19th century. The houses are two to two-and-a-half stories, with gambrel, ridge and saltbox roofs, and they are plainer versions of the Georgian, Federal and Greek Revival buildings found elsewhere in the district. Small lots, streets about 16 feet wide and tightly spaced buildings give the area a distinctive scale. The neighborhood housed Salem's artisans, craftsmen and small merchants rather than its wealthiest families. Benjamin Goodhue, a delegate to the 1789 Congress, built 9 Lynn Street around 1778, and housewright John Wright, who built the McIntire-designed Old Customs House, built 7 River Street. The area has changed little since the early 19th century, with no gaps or intrusions in the streetscape. Its largely undisturbed ground also offers potential for archeological study of late 18th and early 19th century life.