Salem Social Library


The Salem Social Library or Social Library in Salem was a proprietary library in Salem, Massachusetts. "Twenty-eight gentlemen... subscribed 165 guineas.... A Boston minister, , 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| Athenaeum."

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