115 Derby Street
Salem, MA 01970
Phone: 978-744-0991
www.7gables.org/about/history/nathaniel-hawthorne-birthplace/
“I was born in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, in a house built by my grandfather, who was a maritime personage. The old household estate was in another part of town, and had descended in the family ever since the settlement of the country; but this old man of the sea exchanged it for a lot of land situated near the wharves, and convenient to his business, where he built the house . . . and laid out a garden, where I rolled on a grass-plot under an apple-tree and picked abundant currants.”
— NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The house Hawthorne (1804–1864) refers to was originally at 27 Union Street in Salem and moved to this site in 1958. Boston mariner Joshua Pickman built it around 1750. There is evidence that some of the timbers in the house may be from a seventeenth-century house that had stood on the same site. In 1765 Nathaniel’s grandfather Daniel Hathorne (the “w” was later added to the surname) moved into this house with his wife, Rachel Phelps, and their children. Nathaniel’s parents moved into the house in 1801, and he was born here in 1804. His older sister Elizabeth recounts that Nathaniel was born “in the chamber over that little parlor . . . in that house on Union Street. It then belonged to my grandmother Hawthorne, who lived in one part of it. There we lived until 1808, when my father died, at Surinam.”
In 1842 Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody (1809–1871). They made their home successively in several places, including two residences in Concord, Massachusetts: The Old Manse (see page 75) and The Wayside (see page 76). A prolific writer, Nathaniel penned many novels, short stories, and short story collections. His best-known and most-loved works include The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Scarlet Letter (1850), and Twice-Told Tales (1837).
This red clapboard Georgian house has Hawthorne family furniture, memorabilia, and displays about the author, his life, and his work.
Special note: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Birthplace is accessible through the visitor center of The House of the Seven Gables.