The Salisbury Mansion and Store is an
historic house museum
A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...
at 40 Highland Street in
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...
.
History
The house was originally built on Lincoln Square in 1772 by
Stephen Salisbury I with an attached storehouse from which he sold imported goods under the name ''S. & S. Salisbury''. He and his brother Samuel had originally been in business together selling hardware goods in Boston, and Stephen moved to Worcester to expand the operation. In 1820 the store was closed down, and the space was converted for residential use by the family, which occupied it until 1851. Thereafter it served as a girls' school, tenant house, and then a gentleman's social club until 1929, when the building was threatened with demolition by the then occupants, the
Worcester Lincoln Square Boys Club, who wanted to build more modern premises. It was saved by local efforts and moved to its current location on the former Salisbury estate near the museum and next to
Salisbury House. It was donated to the
American Antiquarian Society
The American Antiquarian Society (AAS), located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and a national research library of pre-twentieth-century American history and culture. Founded in 1812, it is the oldest historical society in ...
, which promptly gave it to the
Worcester Art Museum
The Worcester Art Museum, also known by its acronym WAM, houses over 38,000 works of art dating from antiquity to the present day and representing cultures from all over the world. WAM opened in 1898 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and ranks among th ...
, both of which were founded by
Stephen Salisbury III
Stephen Salisbury III (1835–1905), also referred to as Stephen Salisbury Jr., was an American businessman, lawyer, and politician. The son of a wealthy landowner, Salisbury helped manage the family's extensive properties and businesses in Worce ...
. The museum undertook to restore the much-altered building to its condition as of 1830, and opened it for group tours as a historic house museum.
The building was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1975.
See also
*
*
References
External links
Salisbury Mansion- Worcester Historical Museum
on WAM website
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Worcester County, Massachusetts
Houses completed in 1772
Historic house museums in Massachusetts
Museums in Worcester, Massachusetts
Houses in Worcester, Massachusetts
National Register of Historic Places in Worcester, Massachusetts
Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts
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