Ropes Mansion, c. 1727, Salem, MA: Real History of the Hocus-Pocus House- History Bites: New England

This stately mansion was home to three generations of the Ropes family and is recognized as one of New England's most significant and thoroughly documented historic houses. It was in 1893 that the three Ropes sisters developed ambitious plans for the house they inherited. It was their goal to make the Ropes mansion the first historic house museum in Salem. The doors first opened to the public in 1912. Today, Salem's Peabody Essex Museum, which manages the site, continues the mission of the three sisters and welcomes visitors to the Ropes mansion. Before touring the interior of the mansion, take time to explore the garden, which was designed by Salem botanist John Robinson in an elegant colonial revival style, which was popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this style, notes the Peabody Essex Museum, geometric flower beds are arranged in concentric circles intersected with axial paths. Robinson included more than 150 original plantings with many rare species provided by the Arnold Arboretum of Boston's Jamaica Plain. The massive copper beech tree in the side yard stands out as one of the centuries-old plants that survive. It was following the death of their only surviving sibling, Nathaniel Ropes V, that the three unmarried sisters decided to leave their Cincinnati townhouse for the Salem mansion, inheriting their late brother's home and considerable fortune. Arriving in Salem, the sisters merged the contents of their townhouse with the Ropes mansion. Their plan was to create a comfortable home for themselves, while preparing it for its future role as a historic house museum. The Ropes sisters hired the architects Stone, Carpenter, and Wilson of Providence, Rhode Island. They planned a renovation in the colonial revival style, which drew inspiration from American buildings of the colonial and federal eras. In a nod to more recent history, the exterior of the historic Ropes mansion was featured in the 1993 Disney film Hocus Pocus. Every October, the Hocus Pocus house becomes a popular selfie stop when the outside is decorated to resemble how it looked as Allison's house in the movie. Part of the late 19th century renovations, the open archways joined two previously separate rooms, thus creating this double parlor. Its coffered ceiling and new mantelpieces, notes the Peabody Essex, echo earlier architectural styles and blend with the recessed windows dating from 1807. New wallpaper and carpet made this a fashionable place for the Ropes sisters to display family heirlooms, including furniture owned by their parents and their aunt, Sally Orne. The sisters moved into their remodeled home in 1894. Eliza, the last surviving sister, died in 1907, and in 1912, the sisters' vision was realized. The Ropes mansion opened as a museum. A parlor offered a welcoming place for guests and for the pursuit of leisure activities, such as card games and playing the piano. Parlors also provided a setting for social gatherings focused on particular interests. The Ropes sisters had several. Active in philanthropic work, they also studied genealogy. Mary Ropes presented papers about her family at Salem's Essex Institute, eventually part of the Peabody Essex Museum. In 1895, Mary and Eliza Ropes joined the General Society of the Daughters of the Revolution, 1776, to celebrate their Yankee heritage. Located next to the double parlor, the old china closet was designed in 1894 to display the array of dining ware belonging to generations of the Ropes family. Collecting china had recently begun to become a popular hobby in the United States, and the Ropes sisters aimed to show theirs to advantage. Joseph and Sally Fisk Ropes Orne acquired this 284-piece dinner service when they married in 1817. According to family tradition, they ordered two complete sets to have replacements in case of breakage. The service includes more than 30 forms of platters, bowls, and tureens for serving different types of food, as well as five sizes of plates. Some plates are hollow, with a small opening in the edge so they can be filled with hot water to keep food warm. Sally invited several of her neighbors, including Charles Wentworth Upham, the historian and minister of Salem's First Church, with his wife, Anne, and their 17-year-old son, Charles Jr. According to the Peabody Essex Museum, the room's stylish new decor impressed Sally's guests, but it was her 1817 wedding furniture and elegant tableware, a complete set of blue and white Chinese export porcelain and Anglo-Irish cut glass, that commanded the most attention. Breaking with the tradition of placing all the food on the table before seating the guests, Sally adopted the newly fashionable service à la Russe, or service in the Russian style. Staff served the meal in six courses, each requiring a new table setting. By the end of the meal, 80 pieces of porcelain and three tablecloths had graced the table. Abigail's sister, Sally Orne, paid the artist $40 to paint this portrait, plus an additional $7 for the expense of taking a plaster cast of Abigail's face following her death, in order to create a death mask that would serve as a model for this posthumous portrait. Also on a somber note, the Ropes family lost many loved ones at an early age, a more common event in the 19th century than now. Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph and Sally Fisk Ropes Orne, died in this room in 1842 from tuberculosis. She was 24 years of age. The same disease had claimed the life of Elizabeth's father at age 22. Efforts to cure both patients, including travel in an open carriage in the country, in the belief that bouncing up and down would relieve the relentless congestion in the lungs, proved futile. Educated by a private tutor, Elizabeth loved reading and was devoutly religious. The wealthiest unwed woman in Salem, she undertook many charitable acts, always anonymously. After her daughter's death, Sally became the lone occupant of the house. She preserved the daughter's possessions to honor her memory. This room was the house's original kitchen. During the renovations of 1893 and 94, the architects redesigned the space as a formal dining room, while retaining elements of the past. The sideboard that Nathaniel Ropes III ordered in 1797 still fills the bay window designed to hold it. For the fireplace, they created a new mantle in the colonial revival style, but they kept the iron trammel used to hang cooking pots as a reminder of the hearth cooking of earlier times. Each generation considered it important, notes the Peabody Essex, to observe correct dining etiquette, yet the rules sometimes changed. Books and magazines informed 19th century women about the latest fashions and manners. Today's visitors to the Ropes Mansion can read etiquette tips for diners and servers at the table. The kitchen is the center of the household, and from it will radiate comfort or discomfort for every member of the family. So said Mrs. Elizabeth F. Holt in her 1892 book, Housekeeping Made Easy. The Ropes kitchen featured the most up-to-date appliances and utilities available in 1894, including a gas-fired hot water heater, electric lighting, a servant's call system, and a McGee grand stove. Two immigrants from Ireland, Mary T. Kenney, age 25, and Lizzie Coyle, age 30, worked here as parlor maid and cook in 1900. Their busy round of duties included preparing foods, setting tables, serving meals, and washing dishes. In her book, Housekeeping Made Easy, Mrs. Holt provides guidelines for the proper washing of dishes. Indoor plumbing was still a luxury when this bathroom was installed in 1894. The enamel bathtub and marble sink retain their original nickel-plated fixtures. The steam radiator is the original heating device. The elevated water tank with pull chain flushed the original porcelain toilet. The one seen here is a reproduction. When the Rope sisters left Cincinnati for Salem in 1893, they traveled mostly by train, a journey of about three to four days. They benefited from innovation in transportation. When Sally Fisk Ropes Orne and her daughter traveled between the same cities in the 1840s, the trip took about 12 days with transfers between steamships, stagecoaches, canal boats, carriages, ferries, and rail cars. Perhaps the many household furnishings that Sarah, Mary, and Eliza Ropes brought from Cincinnati, including a bed, dressing chest, and washstand, provided a welcome sense of familiarity as they settled into a new city. The following two playthings are miniature versions of the dinnerware that Elizabeth's family used at home. The dinner service shows Benjamin Franklin flying a kite with an attached iron key in a lightning storm, a legendary American scientific experiment. This monumental chest-on-chest is a masterwork of 18th century Boston furniture. The ornamental columns called pilasters and other carved details show the influence of classical architecture. The brass door pulls and plates are original. Judge Nathaniel Ropes probably owned this plate which reflects the colonial taste for blue and white ceramics that British merchants imported from Asia and sold in American ports. Invented in the early 1800s, lithophanes are decorative porcelain panels that became popular in Europe and the United States as household objects and novelties. When the lithopane is held before a bright light, the molded image in the porcelain appears. Porcelain manufacturers adapted imagery from famous paintings, genre scenes, landscapes, and literary and religious subjects. Today, 3D printing technology can be used to create lithophanes with various materials. Work tables, also called sewing tables, were among the earliest forms of American furniture made specifically for women. Probably a young woman in the Ropes family ornamented this table. Sally Fisk Ropes and Joseph Orne seemed to face a bright future when they married in 1817 in the Ropes mansion. Joseph had inherited a sizable fortune and they both enjoyed purchasing furnishings for their new home on Washington Street, a large brick townhouse. Then Joseph died from tuberculosis in 1818. Sally, along with her infant daughter, moved back to the Ropes mansion to live with her stepmother and her sister. She brought her wedding furniture with her. Her most cherished possessions hang above the fireplace. The young couple's portraits painted on their honeymoon, the happiest time they spent together.