Excerpt from A Half Century in Salem I like to think that the young letter writer was a good dancer according to the fashion of the time, as she figured in the sailor's hornpipe at Turner's dancing school. She will tell us about the gay parties that abounded in sober Salem and I find a description Of a summer even ing's festivities at the house Of the rich merchant, Mr. William Gray, who built and occupied the brick mansion in Essex Street, known afterwards as the Essex Gof fee House, stil] later as the Essex House. Our party at Lucia Gray's was pleasanter than could have been expected at this sea son; we had a good deal to eat and to drink, and considerable conversation, and to crown all we closed the evening with a reel to the music Of the piano. I had Lev A'gay dance erett Saltonstall for my partner, a sensi ble, agreeable, good-natured soul, and to be sure, in spite Of the heat, we jigged it away most merrily. Mr. Saltonstall was probably at the time a law student in Sa lem he certainly retained through life the qualities alluded to, and although reels disappeared in the progress Of events, he. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.