Columbus Day in Victorian Salem
Columbus Day in 1892 at the John Tucker Daland House, in Salem, Mass., long before Native Americans and sympathizers were well organized to educate the general public on how Western Hemisphere indigenous people suffered in many ways in centuries of European colonialization started by the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus. 1892 was before the bulk of Italian immigration to America. Italian-Americans were naturally big fans of the holiday, but it didn’t become an official federal holiday until 1971. Southern New England, of course, drew large numbers of Italian immigrants.
The Daland House, an imposing, Italianate structure designed by architect Gridley James Fox Bryant, is at 132 Essex St. in the Essex Institute Historic District and now owned by the fabulous Peabody Essex Museum as home for the Essex Institute.
The three-story brick house was originally built for John Tucker Daland, a prosperous merchant. The Dalands lived in the house until 1885, when the Essex Institute acquired it. It was then remodeled as offices by architect William Devereux Dennis (1847–1913) and in 1907 connected to the adjacent Plummer Hall (former home of the Salem Athenaeum).