Historic New England's Gedney House

Historic New England's Gedney House Visit HistoricNewEngland.org for more information. Salem shipwright Eleazer Gedney built the earliest portion of the Gedney House in 1665.

Gedney House is open for the season, with guided tours available on the first Saturday of each month from June through September, and every Saturday from September 27 through November 1. Originally, the house was an asymmetrical composition consisting of two rooms on the first floor, a single chamber above, and an attic with a front-facing gable. Significant renovations to the structure in 1712 an

d 1800 resulted in dramatic changes to the house's appearance. Gedney House was a single family home until the Gedney family sold it in 1773 to Benjamin Cox, who used it for the next twenty-five years as an investment property. Around 1800, Cox added two townhouse-style ells to the west elevation of the house, converting it into a multi-family dwelling. During the years that followed, it served as a boarding house and tenement in what was then Salem’s Italian-American neighborhood. In 1967, Historic New England acquired the house as it was being prepared for demolition. The house is significant not only for its framing, but also for its evidence of early decorative finishes in the hall chamber and parlor. Three successive color schemes, the earliest of which is believed to date to the house's construction, were discovered in the hall chamber. This evidence was preserved by the addition of plaster ceilings, beam casings, and paneled walls by the mid-eighteenth century.

07/23/2026

A painting depicting Salem, Massachusetts' first winter, hanging in Phillips House, tells us more about mythmaking than the town's founding.

Meet the person helping bring Salem history to life at Phillips House and Gedney House.As part of our Meet Your Site Man...
05/14/2026

Meet the person helping bring Salem history to life at Phillips House and Gedney House.

As part of our Meet Your Site Managers series leading up to Open House on June 6, get to know Abby Stewart, North Shore Regional Site Administrator at Historic New England. From new tours to live music and community favorites like the Phillips House Car Meet, there’s a lot to look forward to this season.

Learn more →

As we prepare to welcome visitors to for the open season, we invite you to get to know the people who make our tours and events so special.

The season is almost here—we hope you’ll stop by for tours and programs and join us for our Open House on June 6.
04/17/2026

The season is almost here—we hope you’ll stop by for tours and programs and join us for our Open House on June 6.

On Saturday, June 6, 2026, our historic sites across the region are open and FREE to the public. Join us for a fun day of fantastic storytelling! Love architecture, history, fantastic stories, great landscapes, fine art, folk art, or interior design? Then join Historic New England on June 6, 2026, f...

Address

21 High Street
Salem, MA
01970

Telephone

+19787440440

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