Salem Maritime National Historic Site The Salem Maritime National Historic Site was created in 1937 as the first park to be established by the Nation’s federal park system administered by the National Park Service. Salem played a primary role in the American international maritime trade from the colonial period to the mid nineteenth century, and it is that legacy that the park seeks to interpret and preserve. The site today encompasses nearly nine acres bordering on the Salem waterfront that contain a variety of historic structures, including dwellings, wharves and warehouses, as well as the federal Custom House and associated Public Stores, all associated with the town’s contribution to a burgeoning world economy and growing nation.

This Archaeological Overview and Assessment is part of a system-wide inventory of archaeological assets on public lands. As such, the goal of this work was to indentify all known and potential sub-surface cultural remains and to make recommendations for their long-term preservation and management. Intensive documentary research succeeded in identifying a total of 68 known and potential archaeological sites within the park. Two of these are associated with Native American occupation and consist of a shell deposit under the Narbonne House ell, and a lithic scatter adjacent to the Public Stores. Archaeological assets associated with the historic period include a wide array of structures that were constructed and demolished over the course of the seventeenth through the twentieth centuries. These subsurface assets compliment those existing resources due to the wide range of domestic, commercial, institutional, civic and municipal activates with which they were associated.

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