The Danvers Archival Center
The Peabody Institute Library
15 Sylvan Street
Danvers, MA
http://www.danverslibrary.org/archive/
Phone: 978-774-0554 Email: trask@noblenet.org
The Peabody Institute Library
15 Sylvan Street
Danvers, MA
http://www.danverslibrary.org/archive/
Phone: 978-774-0554 Email: trask@noblenet.org
The Archives room is located on the lower floor, and you must call before visiting. From my photos below, you'll see a variety of books that are housed here. Almost all were familiar to me since I've researched my Danvers families at other repositories. I had been wanting to visit the Danvers Library and Archives for a very long time, and this is number 65 in my list of libraries or athenaeums visited and blogged about.
The important thing you should do is look at the Brief Guide for the Archival Center. Topics are Collection Policy, Collection Areas; printed materials, manuscripts, maps, architectural records, photographs, and pictures.
Because of so much interest in witchcraft, I'm posting from the above website:
WITCHCRAFT MATERIALS. This nationally significant collection is named “The Ellerton J. Brehaut Witchcraft Collection” in honor of Mr. Brehaut, a book collector, dealer and antiquarian who lived at the 17th century Daniel Rea house off Locust Street, and who donated his collection of witchcraft volumes to the Peabody Institute Library in 1960. The Brehaut Witchcraft Collection is perhaps the most complete collection of printed materials relating to the world-famous 1692 witchcraft delusion which began and festered in Salem Village (present-day Danvers).
The Archival Center attempts to continue to acquire any and all old or new publications which describe or interpret Salem witchcraft in particular and New England witchcraft in general. The collection also includes histories of English and some continental witchcraft of the pre-19th century, biographies of persons involved in witchcraft history, as well as fiction works that use the Salem witchcraft as its subject or location. The major thrust of the collection is, however, concerned with Salem Village and the witchcraft events of 1692. All editions and variations of Salem witchcraft subject imprints, as well as ephemeral and non-scholarly publications, are considered appropriate to collect.
The collection includes originals or copies of all the early imprints relating to the Salem Village witchcraft hysteria, as well as a number of seventeenth-century English volumes on the subject. Early, rare volumes concerning Salem and New England include: Increase Mather’s 1684 An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences; Cotton Mather’s 1693 Wonders of the Invisible World; Robert Calef’s 1700 More Wonders of the Invisible World; John Hale’s 1702 A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft; Deodat Lawson’s 1693 A Brief and True Narrative; Increase Mather’s 1693 Cases of Conscience; Charles Upham’s 1834 Lectures and 1867 Salem Witchcraft. Also sought are the most recently published non-fiction, fiction and children’s literature on the subject and many of the books that were owned and used by witchcraft scholars.
Printed transcriptions of the witchcraft documents include W. E. Woodward’s 1864 Records; a typescript copy of the 1938 WPA Salem Witchcraft Papers; the three-volume 1977 reprint The Salem Witchcraft Papers edited by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum; Richard Trask’s 1992 The Devil Hath Been Raised; and the 2009 Bernard Rosenthal et. al. comprehensive Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt. The last two volumes mentioned were produced using the facilities of the Danvers Archival Center. Augmenting the imprint collection are various manuscript and audio-visual materials, including records of the First Church of Danvers, Congregational.
Main entrance and reference desk to the right.
Photos of the Archival Center
Display of Danvers items and card catalog.
Card catalog, with many drawers labeled with Witchcraft in the category.
Essex Institute Historical Collections, probably original books.
Some familiar books, the New England Historical and Genealogical Register.
Above photo, I'm looking up to the dome and down to the 2nd floor.
Second-floor Reference, with 3rd floor above.
First floor.
Looking into a new reading room which used to be the original entrance.
Happy these two original features were incorporated into the new addition.
The original front door was to the left, currently, you need to enter to the right.
As we drove away, I got a glimpse of the back and took this shot. It is a huge library building but looks like a house on the outside. The trees block the view from the street. See Google Earth photo below.
