For more information: info@colonialhallsalem.com
Jennifer: 978.857.1607
At a prescribed moment in the ceremony Peter Lander, the oldest member of the congregation, deposited into a space beneath the cornerstone a silver plate. The plate was engraved with the names of past and current ministers of the church and was intended as a gift to whoever ultimately demolished the building. The choice of a silver plate as a present would prove prophetic- in time the building would become the home of Daniel Low and Co., one of the largest and best- known jewelry firms in America The transition from house of worship to a famous gift and jewelry store was a gradual one. From the outset the church used the second floor for worship and rented out the ground floor to various commercial establishments to help defray the cost of building and maintaining the structure. A survey of city directories for the period between 1836 and 1900 shows that a crockery, glass, and china shop owned by William Bowditch, Edwin Ide's dry goods store, and John P. Peabody's ladies' furnishings establishment all rented space from the church at one time or other. The National Exchange Bank was a fixture in the building in the 1860s and 1870s. A safe and double depth windows are ongoing reminders of its former presence. In 1874 the First Church building was restored in the High Victorian Style. At that time additional retail space was created by the construction of two towers and a pavilion on the Washington Street side of the building. Shortly after the completion of the renovation the church got a new tenant, a jeweler and silversmith named Daniel Low. The 32 year- old Low had been born and raised in Salem and after graduating from high school had apprenticed as a watchmaker and jeweler. The young man learned his crafts well and in 1867 opened a store at the corner of Essex and Central Streets. Low's jewelry and gift business grew rapidly in his new location in the First Church. The firm gradually took over the entire first floor of the building and later acquired additional property on Higginson Square from the Naumkeag Trust Co.. The company's growth was fueled by Low's foray into the mail order business in 1892. The product that drove Low to make this move was a souvenir witch spoon the company began manufacturing and selling in the late 1880's. Low advertised the spoon in many national publications, including Century magazine and the Saturday Evening Post, and the response was overwhelming. Daniel Low's mail order catalog introduced millions of potential customers to the company's high quality "Made in America" jewelry, silver, and other gift products and quickly grew to more than 200 pages. It garnered so much business and publicity for Low that by 1900 his company was said to be one of the largest purveyors of jewelry in the world. In 1907 Low diversified his product line when bought the Nevius Company, a large New York firm known nationally for its jewelry and colonial reproductions. In incorporation papers filed that same year with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Low described his company as a purveyor of solid and plated gold and silverware, precious stones, works of art, watches and clocks, novelties, china, cutlery, leather and carved goods, instruments of science, stationary, and a variety of other products. Four years later, on February 3, Daniel Low suffered an angina attack in his store and died. He was replaced as company president by his son Seth who had been a partner in the firm since 1896. When the First Church reunited with the North Church in 1923 it moved to the latter's house of worship at 316 Essex Street. Seth then acquired the Town House Square building and broke through to the second floor which he renamed Colonial Hall. It was at this point that a grand staircase brought visitors from the first floor directly to the 2nd floor. Daniel Low and Co. was run by Seth Low until his death in 1939 and by his widow Florence until the mid 1950s. The landmark company was subsequently bought by local retailer Bill Follett, who ran it for four decades before selling both the business and the building in 1994. The building was exchanged to multiple investors throughout the late 90s before being purchased by developer Brian McKay in 2001. McKay restored the 2nd floor of the building before leasing it to Joan Boudreau. Boudreau had attempted to bring a function hall to the space over the course of two years. In 2003 McKay sold the building to Christos Christoudias who was looking for a new location for his interactive business Digital Bungalow. Christoudias coordinated an arrangement where Boudreau's function hall business would be sold to new owners who would move their lease to the vacant first floor to open "Rockafellas" restaurant. Digital Bungalow then occupied the 2nd floor until 2009. At the time of this write up in 2010, Christoudias has joined forces with coordinator Jennifer Linehan to restore Colonial Hall to its original grandeur and establish the Daniel Low building as a premier destination for events on the North Shore.
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