The Pickering House
We are open for regular Sunday tours as of June 4, 2023.
When seeing Salem, start where it all began. The Pickering Foundation welcomes you to an extraordinary place!
It is not only Salem’s oldest House, but also America’s oldest Home: home to a single family for over three and a half centuries; home to carpenters, farmers, patriots, military leaders, deacons, diplomats, linguists, scientists, and statesmen. And as homes will, it changed with the times.
Built in 1660 by settler John Pickering — a carpenter form Coventry, England — and his wife Elizabeth, it was once just a two-room farmhouse on a vast plot of land that ran all the way down to the seaport on the North River, encompassing what is today Chestnut Street and the McIntire District.
Over the next 350 years, the succeeding John Pickerings and their wives added wings, gables, and Gothic peaks. They raised ceilings, extended the roofline, and created the distinctive fence, to evolve into the warm and gracious home it is today.
You are cordinally invited to come and see a piece of Salem history that is very much alive!
Upcoming Events
Timothy Pickering and the Essex Agricultural Society
Sunday, February 12, 2023
Scientific and Learned Societies were established in America since Colonial Times. Col. Timothy Pickering was involved in the founding of agricultural Societies that remain active today.
4:00 pm at Pickering House: 18 Broad Street, Salem
$15.00 members, $20.00 non-members
The Canandaigua Treaty of 1794
Sunday, March 12, 2023
Presentation by Charles Newhall & Tim Jenkins The Pickering Foundation was pleased to accept the gift of a wampum belt originally given to Col. Timothy Pickering in 1794 as part of the signing of a treaty between the United States and the “western” Native Americans, one of the first such treaties signed by the new […]
4:00 pm at Pickering House: 18 Broad Street, Salem
$15 Members; $20 Non-members