Salem Social Library
# Salem Social Library

The Salem Social Library (1760-1810) or Social Library in Salem was a proprietary library in Salem, Massachusetts. "Twenty-eight gentlemen ... subscribed 165 guineas. ... A Boston minister, [Jeremy Condy], was employed to buy the books in London and the library opened in a brick schoolhouse May 20, 1761, with 415 volumes including gifts given by members. The revolution was a bitter blow to many of the gentlemen who had founded the library. Many of the proprietors fled to England. ... In 1784 the library made a new start in new quarters in the new ... schoolhouse. Here they remained about 15 years, the schoolmaster acting as librarian." "In 1797 they became incorporated;" Edward Augustus Holyoke, Jacob Ashton, Joseph Hiller, and Edward Pulling served as signatories. "There were over 40 proprietors when in 1810 the library was turned over to the [Salem] Athenaeum."

## Subscribers

* Samuel Barnard
* Thomas Barnard
* Samuel Barton Jr.
* Joseph Blaney
* Joseph Bowditch
* William Browne
* Francis Cabot
* Joseph Cabot
* S. Curwen
* Richard Derby
* William Eppes
* Samuel Gardner
* Samuel Gardner Jr.
* Stephen Higginson
* E.A. Holyoke
* William Jeffry
* Daniel King
* John Nutting Jr.
* A. Oliver Jr.
* Timothy Orne
* Benjamin Pickman
* Benjamin Pickman Jr.
* Ebenezer Putnam
* William Pynchon
* Nathaniel Ropes
* William Vans
* W. Walter
