Bridge, Lynn, Beckford, and River Streets roughly frame the Chestnut Street District, the Salem neighborhood you have entered. This is a compact neighborhood of carefully carved stories: it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was enlarged slightly in 1978. As you look, you can imagine the hands that shaped it — many houses here are the work of Samuel McIntire, the builder and woodworker who kept a house and workshop at 31 Summer Street and designed and built a number of these residences.
The street still speaks of the profits made in the Old China Trade by Salem’s merchants and is itself a subset of the larger, locally designated McIntire Historic District. Nearby, the Thomas Saunders House at number 39 Chestnut was built in 1805 and later remodeled by Arthur Little in 1893. Saunders also commissioned the famous McIntire-designed double house at numbers 41–43 in 1810 as a wedding present for his daughters Mary Elizabeth and Caroline, who married the brothers Leverett and Nathaniel Saltonstall; Leverett Saltonstall I became Salem’s first elected mayor.
Across the way is Hamilton Hall, a National Historic Landmark at 9 Chestnut Street. Notice Bridge, Lynn, Beckford, and River Streets nearby.