A Guide to Historical Salem

A Guide to Historic Salem -- Volume 4, Number 2 -- Summer/Fall 1998

Local Spas Cured Ailments Galore
1893 Program Celebrated
The House at 424 High Street is Still There
Artists Develop 1998 Calendar
An Editorial

Local Spas Cured Ailments Galore

By Lon Savage

The old Lake Spring Hotel, situated a century ago in Salem's present-day Lake Spring Park, once figured in a health resort arrangement with the Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs across the mountain at Catawba -- an arrangement that some thought would make Catawba "the Baden-Baden of America."

It was a two-hotel venture owned and managed in the late 1800s by one of Salem's all-time great entrepreneurs, F. J. (for Flavius Josephus) "Joe" Chapman of an old Salem family, son of a hotel keeper, father of a hotel keeper, and a hotel keeper par excellence, himself. Visitors from throughout the South and Mid-Atlantic traveled to Salem to enjoy the Lake Spring Hotel, then to travel by stage over the Catawba Mountain to the "Roanoke Red," where they took waters that promised to cure just about every ailment known to man or woman.

Dr. Joseph A. Gale, who later was to become a founder of Lewis-Gale Hospital, described the Red Sulphur water as "a valuable and efficient remedy" in the treatment of the following ailments: "skin diseases, the early stages of consumption, and pulmonary affections generally; in dyspepsia, general debility, nervous prostration, and vascular excitement. Experience has proven it to be invaluable in diseases peculiar to females, and disordered conditions of the nervous system resulting therefrom."

And a Dr. Mattur added that the waters were "eminently beneficial" in treatment of "womb affections and diseases of the genito-urinary organs of both sexes, dyspepsia, neuralgia, debility supervening upon acute diseases, especially febrile affections; chronic intermitttants, chronic rheumatism, gout and dropsy, the cahexia of scrofula, syphilis and mercury, and some of the diseases of the skin and bone."

And Dr. E. G. Walls of Baltimore predicted in 1884 that "as soon as the Red is a little more accessible, it will be the Baden-Baden of America."

The people who flocked to The Red enthusiastically agreed, reporting cures of all manner of ailments, with reports like this one from Gale W. Sparks of Parish of Pointe Couper, LA, in 1886:

"When I left Louisiana in June, I was suffering from a complication of heart, liver and kidney troubles. It was with the greatest difficulty I could walk two hundred yards...My appetite and digestion were gone...I had been under the treatment of some of the ablest physicians of New Orleans for two years or more...without benefit." "As a last resort," he came to Red Sulphur. "After a sojourn of three weeks, I came away a changed man; my appetite was completely restored...[I] could run and romp like a boy. In fact, I am satisfied I owe my life to Roanoke Red."

Such testimonials were not unusual. It is estimated as many as 500 tourists visited Chapman's two establishments each summer -- most of them staying at least several weeks and many for the entire summer. Guests came from an area stretching from Pennsylvania to Texas, and especially from the Gulf states where yellow fever epidemics flared. Scores told of the marvelous cures they found to their ailments. Chapman and his son and partner J. Harry Chapman published more than 100 testimonials to the quality of their water and service, written by both satisfied customers and doctors.

Five of Salem's most prominent leaders were directors when The Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs Company was chartered in 1857: George Shanks. Abraham Hupp, William Walton, Green B. Board and David C. Shanks. They bought 700 acres in the Catawba Valley and invested $50,000. By 1858 a hotel was ready, and by 1860 it was leased to Chapman. He was the son of H. H. Chapman who owned the Salem Hotel.

The Civil War disrupted the venture, and it was in the 1870s before it really got going again. By this time, Joe's son, J. Harry Chapman, was helping him manage things, and they purchased the Red. From then on, both father and son made the enterprise go.

In 1876, Chapman saw an opportunity to build the Lake Spring Hotel just west of Salem. Always the astute businessman, he managed to make the hotel a companion project to the opening of Salem's first water system, winning an $11,167 contract for the water system. Grading of the lakes as a reservoir for the water system went on that spring of 1876 at the same time the Lake Spring Hotel rose 75 yards to the east. The hotel opened in July and the water system was accepted in December.

It was a time when everyone talked of the magic of voices traveling over wires, and Chapman took advantage of that situation, too. In 1877. with his usual foresight, he connected his hotels (he also owned the Lucerne in downtown Salem) by telephone and telegraph -- some nine years ahead of the next franchise for a phone line. The phone connection appeared prominently in his advertising thereafter.

Room and board at the Lake Spring cost $25 to $40 a month in 1889; $30 to $40 for four weeks at the Red, with special rates for families. The Chapmans also shipped their healing waters over much of the country at $4 per case of 12 half-gallon jugs, or $5 for a ten-gallon carboy, on railcars at Salem.

The Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs resort was kept in continuous operation from 1876 until its sale after F. J. Chapman's death in 1894. His sons sold it in 1908 to the Commonwealth of Virginia (deed shows $18,774 paid in cash) and it became the location of the Catawba Sanatorium, for tubercular patients. Today it is the site of Catawba Hospital.

The Lake Spring operated from 1876 until the night of June 16, 1892, when it burned to the ground as a ball celebrating the hotel's summer opening broke up about 2:15 a.m. Departing guests in tuxedos joined citizen volunteers in a bucket brigade, and firemen used their hose to pour water on the cottages. The hotel was never rebuilt.

But while the two hotels lasted, they were enormously successful. The waters were key to the success, but of almost equal importance, the Chapmans made sure their guests enjoyed themselves.

Chapman's carriages met every train at the Salem Depot, taking guests first to the nearby Lake Spring Hotel which overlooked three natural cold water lakes encompassing a three-acre plot. A small bandstand stood in the center of one lake where Italian string bands serenaded guests paddling in boats beneath overhanging willows. The hotel also offered the mineral waters, along with horseback riding, fishing (in either lake or river), hunting, croquet, nightly dances, and, biggest of all, a jousting tournament, in which knights riding horseback and carrying lances attempted to spear rings strung out for about 80 feet, followed by the "Coronation Ball". The knight who speared the most rings in the tournament won the honor of crowning "the Lady of the Lake" and was featured, with her, at the ball.

Even the trip between them the two hotels was an attraction. A stagecoach ran every day over the mountain to the Red, and the ride was an adventure. W. H. Beveridge of Richmond described it in 1888: "I started [from the Lake Spring Hotel] early next morning in an open buggy, and arrived at the Red for dinner. I believe I can say I have seen the grandest scenery in my native State, Virginia, and I now place the route from Salem to the Red as one of the loveliest sceneries in Virginia, and can safely say that this trip alone will fully repay the tourist or seeker for health or pleasure, and give you a good appetite for dinner."

At the top of the mountain, the driver usually stopped to allow guests to admire the breathtaking view and also to regain their composure from the harrowing ride, before starting the last leg of the ten mile trip. George Braden of Louisville, Ky., wrote in 1886 about the trip: "Its very roughness added immensely to the enjoyment of my summer vacation."

Once at the Red, guests chose from still more activities: horseback riding, croquet, ten-pins, billiards and bowling, checkers parties, the usual bands and dancing; trout fishing, hunting, hot and cold sulphur bath rooms, and walks and other excursions into the surrounding country. One of the favorites was to 4,200 foot high McAfee's Knob, five miles away, described by one visitor as "one of the most magnificent pieces of scenery in America." Standing atop the table rocks on the knob, he looked outward and exulted as "Hundreds of square miles, tinged with the crimson purple and gold of the approaching autumnal sun, unbosomed themselves before us."

Still, the basic stock in trade was the mineral waters -- sulphur, chalybeate, freestone and limestone -- and most guests seemed to agree with Dr. Thomas F. Goolsby of New Castle when he said, "there are but few diseases that one or the other water will not benefit." Their testimonials agree enthusiastically. Here are some of them:

"I was suffering with malaria when I arrived, but a week of the sulphur water regimen completely restored my health." J. D. Peterson, Washington, DC, 1887.

"I was a great sufferer from Asthma and had been for thirteen years almost constantly with it. Ten days after my arrival at the Springs all signs of asthma had left me and I continued to improve..." C. R. Coolige Jr., Helena, Ark., 1886.

"I visited the Roanoke Red...at my physician's advice, having suffered for months with constipation and general debility. After a seven weeks' stay...I returned to my business, having gained in weight 19_ pounds and feeling better than for months previous. I consider my visit to the Red more beneficial than all the medicine ever used..." Frank T. Phillips, Norfolk, 1887.

"My wife...was in wretched health; had no appetite; her complexion almost deathlike in its pallor; so weak that the least exercise caused her to pant, and her heart to palpitate rapidly.... [At end of a summer's stay,] there was very great improvement in appetite, color and strength;...she became able to walk considerable distances up the mountains. She considered that she gained a new lease of life..." Alexander D. Barrow, Port Allen, LA, 1888.

"For more than twelve months my wife had suffered with what her physicians said was nervous dyspepsia, evidenced by chronic diarrhoea; great and almost continual depression of spirits, with unrefreshing sleep and disturbed dreams and other distressing concomitants...After a most agreeable sojourn of six weeks at the Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs, she has returned home relieved of all disagreeable sensations and entirely well." Jno. Geo. Wyat, Richmond, VA 1884.

"My daughter, who had been suffering for several years from the effects of diphtheria, derived special benefit from her visit to the Red Sulphur Springs..." Mrs. J. J. Lipscomb, Halifax County, VA 1889.

"My little boy, who had up to his visit to your Springs, been of the lean kind from his birth, for the first time fleshened up and became positively fat..." A.C. Pryor, Petersburg, 1887.

"I have been a great sufferer from hay fever for the past nine years, and have not escaped a single summer until the past one, which I spent at the Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs." U. B. Dugas, Assumption Parish, LA, 1883.

"I was quite feeble when I came to the springs, and in four weeks time I gained 11 pounds." Mrs. Fred B. Jones, Memphis.

"I was confined to my bed... with malarial fever...In ten days after my arrival at the Red Sulphur I had entirely recovered..." James R. Graham, Helena, Arkansas, 1884.

And a minister, the Rev. W. A. Robertson of Chatham, said he suffered breathing problems so bad that he had to curtail his preaching. After two months at the Red, he wrote: "I have now almost entirely recovered and am able to do full work of a Methodist itinerant minister without the least inconvenience from exposure to all kinds of weather."

One of the hotels' greatest attractions was the guests, themselves. Mr. Beveridge of Richmond, who was so complimentary about the trip over the mountain, raved about the quality of the guests, too: "At the Red the summer of 1887," he wrote, "there were about three hundred, most of whom were Southerners, and a more sociable homelike people cannot be found in America, from the oldest man (all ladies are young and lovely) to the youngest child seem bent and determined that everybody shall have a good time at the Red, and be made to feel at home..." Beveridge could find no fault in the Red. "A remarkable feature alone of the Red," he wrote, "is in rainy weather there is no mud, in dry weather no dust."

Others agreed about the quality of the patrons. "A charming feature of the place is the cultured people one may meet there each recurring season," wrote George Braden of Louisville, Ky., in 1886. "I should be glad to meet them every summer." Norman Walker of New Orleans in 1888: "The guests are thrown more together, are on friendlier and closer terms, than at most other places, and the season is the more agreeable on that account."

Many gave credit for the pleasures at the Red to the Chapmans. J. W. Martin of Norfolk, described Joe Chapman as "the 'Jumbo' of hotel-keepers," and added that he "gives better fare for the price charged than any place of resort in the Virginia mountains." E. C. Chayton of Elizabeth City, NC, after complimenting the "unsurpassed beauty and grandeur" of the scenery, added, "For solid comfort, there is no place like it; the table cannot be excelled..."

The weather also was praised. The water was "never above 47 degrees" in the hottest summer, one visitor observed, adding, "There has not been a night this summer that I have not found certain comfort under a sheet and two coverlets."

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1893 Program Celebrated
Emancipation Proclamation
Mile-Long Procession to Town Hall Preceded Speeches

Editor's Note: Rand Dotson, author of this article and recently accepted as a doctoral student in history at LSU, found the information about this 1893 Salem event on the Internet. It is located in the "American Memory" Webpage of the United States Library of Congress. Use the following URL (Web address): http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amabout.html. To get into the Page, use the Search option and search for "Salem, Virginia." The pamphlet on which this article is based will be the first item listed on the return.

By Rand Dotson

On January 2, 1893, nearly one thousand former slaves and their children paraded through the streets of Salem and gathered in its town hall to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The Salem Emancipation Club, a group composed of black Salem businessmen and clergy, conceived, organized, and supervised the celebration. Given the mercurial racial climate of the era, the festivities marked a dramatic and bold showing of solidarity for African Americans living in the Roanoke Valley.

The achievement justifiably impressed the celebration's organizers. With the featured speaker's endorsement, they published a brief history of the event in the form of an inspirational pamphlet designed to "promote the welfare of the people." It was distributed nationally throughout the mid-1890s under the title 'Emancipation Address: Our Duties and How to Discharge them, Delivered in the Town Hall of Salem, Va., January 2, 1893, Under the Auspices of the Emancipation Club of Salem, with which was Joined the Emancipation Club of Roanoke, Va. : by Prof. Daniel B. Williams; with an Introduction by Prof. R.G. Chissell."

The celebration's featured speaker, Professor Williams, was the Dean of Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute of Petersburg and the author of "Science, Art and Methods of Teaching" and "Freedom and Progress." The pamphlet includes the bulk of his speech as well as his recollection of the celebration. It also outlines the planning of the festivities by the Salem and Roanoke clubs and includes remarks made during the festivities by local dignitaries.

Reverend B. F. Fox, pastor of the First Baptist Church, composed Williams' invitation on behalf of the Emancipation clubs in December 1892. The professor graciously accepted the honor and made his way to Salem from Petersburg the following month. He was greeted by an anxious contingent of club members at John Baptist's Salem boarding house and at the request of Reverend Fox, Williams addressed the First Baptist congregation on "The Growth of Christianity" the next morning.

Two days later an elaborate parade down the main streets of Salem launched the Emancipation tribute. The opulence of the cavalcade was duly noted in a description by Professor John H. Duckwilder, the club's president: ..."the procession was fully a mile long, containing two brass bands, five hundred horsemen, one hundred carriages, and nine hundred pedestrians, making in all more than fifteen hundred persons in line."

After the parade, hundreds of spectators gathered inside Salem's Town Hall in anticipation of Williams' address. On the speakers' platform, Williams was joined by a contingent of local black dignitaries, including "lawyers J. T. Oatneal, T. T. Henry, John Liver and J. R. Dungee; J. W. Wingfield, Rev. J. L. Spurlarke, Rev. B. F. Fox, John Davis, the colored capitalist of Roanoke, Professor John H. Duckwilder, the President of the Emancipation Club, Professor W. R. Watkins, the Chairman of the Committee on Publication, Professor D. W. Harth, and others." The audience, the professor observed, included "even some prominent white citizens" who "showed their appreciation by their presence."

After a laudatory introduction by his hosts and an emotional reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Miss. Josie B. Matthews, Williams took the podium. His address began with a call to "keep green and fresh the memories which cluster around Emancipation," but suggested a turn away from the past and toward "duties to our race, state, and nation." His address extolled the virtues of a "noble Christian family" and a strong, patient, and unwavering faith in God.

"When we were bowed under the yoke of serfdom," Williams said, "he inclined his ears to the piteous cries of our fathers and mothers, and brought us into the sunlight of freedom." Williams likewise called on parents to further the "unparalleled progress of the colored people since 1865" by seeking higher education for their children and urged spectators to "acquire property and enlarge our business interests," to be temperate, and to benefit by living "on friendly terms with our white fellow citizens."

Willliams argued vehemently against African colonization efforts and reminded his black listeners that their ancestors aided white colonists in the struggle for America's independence. He similarly discounted notions of a northern exodus of southern blacks, predicting instead that the South's African Americans would stay put and "zealously labor in the future as in the past for its peace and prosperity." Black southerners' future, he ventured, would be fraught with "problems which are destined to confront us for some time to come." To overcome these obstacles, the professor concluded, would be abundant remuneration for both his and festival organizers' efforts.

After repeated standing ovations, Williams led Reverend Fox to the podium. In an emotional closing, Fox suggested that there were greater rewards in turning away from memories burdened with the injustice of slavery. "As free American citizens, we should let the past be past, and advance in the right direction by taking into consideration and practicing those things which make noble men and women, worthy citizens and consistent Christians."

The success of the celebration brought accolades from The Roanoke Times, which despite condescendingly noting that Williams remarks were "a trifle beyond his audience," deemed his keynote speech "so entirely different from the average run of such speeches, that it could not fail to do some good." In the state capital, The Richmond Dispatch also praised the celebration and the principal message of its speakers, noting that they offered remarks "full of good advice, rich in eloquence."

Tragically, Professor Williams' prognosis of "problems which are destined to confront us for some time to come" was made horrifically clear only eight months later when race riot erupted in downtown Roanoke. It culminated in the public lynching, mutilation, and burning of a black resident and received national and international press coverage. The riot likely also obscured for some time the uplifting and hopeful message of the Salem Emancipation Proclamation celebration.

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The House at 424 High Street is Still There
Salem Courtship Of Early 1900s Described in Book

As the twentieth century draws to an end, a story of Salem in the century's beginning is told in a book that is available in the Salem Public Library.

The book is "I Ruth, Autobiography of a Marriage" by Ruth Painter Randall, published in 1968 by Little, Brown. In it, Ruth Painter Randall tells the happy story of her marriage to the great Lincoln scholar and writer James G. Randall. In Salem, however, the book's special attraction is her story of growing up on High Street 100 years ago and her Victorian-like courtship with "Dr. Randall," a professor at Roanoke College.

"Salem," she wrote, "was a beautiful little town in which to be born. It lay in a green valley completely surrounded by mountains. The sun rose over them in the morning and passed over Twelve O'Clock Knob around noon, a fact that had given the name to that picturesque peak south of the town."

It was a time and way of life that even Mrs. Randall knew was fast disappearing -- a time of gentility. innocence, kindness, sentimentality and sugary sweetness, but also a time of attitudes and customs that would not be accepted today.

The big white house with green shutters where Ruth Painter grew up is still there, at 424 High Street. It's still called "the Painter House" though occupied today by Mr. and Mrs. T. C. Rohrbaugh. Ruth was the youngest of six children (five of them daughters) of Dr. and Mrs. F. V. N. Painter. He was a Roanoke College professor and author of widely used textbooks on English and American literature, a man with a scholarly face, gray eyes, auburn mustache and Vandyke beard. All six grew up in that house; all became successes in adult life.

The house had eleven rooms, two room-sized halls, four porches and a large attic. The "parlour" was used only on special occasions or when callers came. The home's wooden shutters were "always closed and securely fastened on all our windows at night." The clatter of shutter-openings was a pleasant morning sound, like the crowing of roosters in the chicken yard.

"The front porch...was our outdoor sitting room," she wrote, with a "railing whose top was wide enough for us children to sit on and dangle our legs." It looked out over the lawn with its half-dozen trees to a wrought-iron fence along High Street, probably much as it does today. The property included twelve acres -- an orchard, pasture, and numerous gardens and outbuildings.

In her childhood, the entire family gathered at the dining room table for all three meals every day, father dishing out eggs and bacon for breakfast at one end of the table, mother pouring coffee at the other. Always present was "Aunt Mary," the African American cook who lived in a little room above the kitchen, descended from slaves in Mrs. Painter's family. Although Ruth tells convincingly of a genuine and deep affection between the family and "Aunt Mary," she does not tell us Mary's last name. Such were racial relations.

Dinner was the midday meal, usually at one o'clock, and supper a somewhat simpler meal at six in the evening. "Lunch to us meant the food we took on picnics." Evening meant afternoon. Events after supper were at night.

She tells of habits that today are not allowed. After several attempted break-ins at their house, "father...taught all of us how to shoot a little twenty-two revolver." Once, when their parents were away, Ruth and her sister Laura, both very little girls, thought they heard a burglar, got out the revolver and Laura fired it out a window, shooting a hole in the kitchen roof. It is told as a funny story. Today it would be anything but funny.

In winter evenings, Dr. Painter often read aloud to the family, usually in the parents' bedroom where the youngest children would pile on the bed to listen. The teen-aged children, too, frequently took a turn at reading -- everything from Shakespeare's plays to the latest novel.

Salem's business district was virtually all on Main Street -- "the courthouse and a few stores..." not much more. "We did most of our shopping in Roanoke," she wrote, "by boarding a streetcar in front of Dillard's drugstore, whose windows containing huge glass bottles filled with colored water, red, and blue and green, I admired extravagantly as a little girl."

She never went to public school. Her parents educated her at home until she enrolled in Roanoke College, where she studied for one year of prep school and four years for her degree. She tells how freshmen at the college were required to wear little green caps.

She graduated, one of three "local girls" allowed to attend Roanoke College -- which was not coeducational. Their pictures were in the yearbook. but they were not allowed to sit on the stage with the male graduates. Dr. Randall's smiling comment as he passed them by was a significant memory of the graduation: "It's a shame the prettiest part of the class was not on the platform." She had never spoken to him and did not then.

It was after graduate school in Indiana that she got to know "Dr. Randall." He had lost his wife years to illness, after only two years of marriage, about the time that Ruth had left for Indiana. In his loneliness and grief, he became friends with Dr. Painter. After her return to Salem, she met him in the family home. It was her father who introduced them.

The courtship was formal to the end. She called him "Dr. Randall," and he called her "Miss Painter." They were very close to being engaged before she dared call him "Jim."

She tells of his buying her "a record for our Victrola. It was, as I remember, 'Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.'" He sent her chrysanthemums.

She tells how he took her for a walk "out the Hanging Rock road...The road was a beautiful wooded one and I still have the watercolor sketch he made of it later for sentimental reasons. It shows a curve in a road on a hillside, a road tinged with the red clay of Virginia and bordered by goldenrod. Above it and below are green pine trees and in the distance a glimpse of blue mountain."

And so the story goes. We learn details of Jim's proposal (June 24, 1916), their engagement, their marriage in the college church in August of 1917, and their early married life, also in Salem; .they lived in a small home her father owned at 96 High Street. But finally, Jim goes on to bigger and better things in Washington, Richmond, and finally the University of Illinois, to become one of the nation's foremost Lincoln scholars.

She, too, became a successful writer and historian, herself. Ruth's books include "Mary Lincoln: Biography of a Marriage;" "Lincoln's Sons," "The Courtship of Mr. Lincoln," and "Colonel Elmer Ellsworth," plus several books for young people.

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Artists Develop 1998 Calendar
Fifteen local women watercolorists and the Salem Museum have developed a calendar featuring full-color reproductions of Salem scenes. It will be available this September at the Museum, and an exhibition and silent auction of the original watercolors will be on display at the Museum September 27- December 13.

This fall, the Salem Museum will be splashed with every color of the season.

No, there aren't any plans for a massive tie-dye party.... Nor do we expect a paintball war to break out among the Salem Historical Society volunteers.

Instead, the Museum's walls will be colored with original paintings from "Women for All Seasons," a calendar developed by the Salem Museum in partnership with fifteen local women watercolorists. The calendar, featuring full-color reproductions of Salem scenes on high-quality paper, will be available this September at the Salem Museum. In conjunction, an exhibition and silent auction of the original watercolors will be on display at the Museum from September 27 to December 13.

"It all started on a rainy day in Bermuda," says Mary Hill, Director of the Salem Museum. Jennifer Joiner, a member of the Board of Directors and volunteer of the Salem Historical Society, was forced to spend some of her island vacation shopping when the weather turned stormy. She came back home with a unique calendar made by a Bermudan artist--and the idea of creating something similar for the Salem community.

The 1998 Salem calendar turned out to be quite a community project. Artists Judy Bates, Susan Egbert, Mimi Givens, Betsy Harvey, Mary Lou Hill, Jennifer Joiner, Martha Brown Mayo, Chrystelo Meador, Pam Martin Ogden, Cathy Powell, Stella Reinhard, Harriet Martin Stokes, Kitty Martin Thomas, and Beverly White all created original watercolors of Salem scenes for a designated month. Sara Ahalt and Frankie Robbins developed and edited the calendar text, and Jennifer Joiner and Frankie Robbins illustrated the calendar pad. Walters Printing and Manufacturing Company are printing the calendar at a reduced price for the Salem Historical Society.

The calendar will make its debut on Olde Salem Days at the Salem Public Library and the Museum Shop, where the Historical Society will be hosting an Open House. Thereafter, it will be available at the Salem Museum Shop and select businesses around town. You may call 389-6760 to reserve a "Women for All Seasons" Calendar. Also, call for information about large order discounts. Additional information is available on the Salem Museum's website at http://www.intrlink.com/shs/.

Located in the historic Williams-Brown House in Longwood Park, the Salem Museum is open Tuesday through Friday, from 10 am to 4 pm, and Saturday, from noon to 5 pm. Admission is free. Tours are welcome.

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An Editorial...

Times-Register Now Sponsors Historic Salem

With this issue, Historic Salem takes an important new step in the publication's devleopment. For the first time, it is published jointly by the Salem Historical Society and the Salem Times-Register.

The Times-Register joins the Historical Society in sponsoring the publication, now in its fourth year, in recognition of its growing popularity among Salem residents. Readers' reactions grow increasingly favorable with each issue, to the extent that the Society receives calls asking when the next issue will come out.

Under the new arrangement, the Times-Register takes on full responsibility for advertising. In addition, beginning with this issue, the newspaper will distribute copies of Historic Salem to its more than 5,000 subscribers.

The press run will continue to be 10,000 copies, and the Society will continue to mail copies to its members, remaining copies will be distributed as in the past; to area businesses, hotels, and public buildings where readers may pick them up free of charge.

The Historical Society continues its responsibility for the publication's editiorial content. Also to be continued are the tabloid newspaper format and publicationschedule of three issues per year, in March, July, and November. The publication's purpose also remains the same: to publish information of historical interest in the Salem area, and to promote interest in preservation of area properties of historical and architectural significance.

With the Salem Times-Register's leadership and experience in advertising, plus the quality of its added circulation, Historic Salem should make still greater contributins to the Salem community and to the interests of historic preservation.

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