Elias Hasket Derby House (1762)

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The Salem house of Elias Hasket Derby was built in 1762 and is the oldest surviving brick house in Salem. It was built by Richard Derby for his son on the occasion of Elias Hasket’s marriage to Elizabeth Crowninshield. Richard Derby had made his money through fishing and trade enterprises. During the Revolutionary War, Hasket converted many of the family’s cargo ships into privateers which preyed on British shipping. Wealth amassed from these activities later funded Derby’s involvement with the East India trade, which would make him America’s first millionaire. The house was sold in 1796 to another successful merchant, Captain Henry Prince, Sr., who built the West India Goods Store next to the house around 1800. After the Prince family left the home in 1827, it had other owners and was used as a tenement house for a time. In the early twentieth century, it was purchased and restored by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities and in 1937 was transferred to become part of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

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