About \\ Historic Houses

East India Marine Hall

Tune into the PEM Walks audio postcard below to listen to a tour of East India Marine Hall:

Erected in 1824-25, East India Marine Hall was the headquarters of the East India Marine Society, a group of 22 sea captains and traders who sailed all over the world from Salem. In 1799, this is where they started the oldest collecting museum in America. The structure is the intellectual, historical and physical heart of the museum.

East India Marine Hall. Photo by Kathy Tarantola/PEM.

Designed by Thomas Waldron Sumner, protégé of major Boston architect Samuel Parris, this Antebellum building is a two-story gable front structure in the Greek Revival style that was built using local Cape Ann granite. Over time, added gallery spaces have surrounded the building, further integrating it into the greater museum.

East India Marine Hall circa 1909. The Phillips Library Collection. © Peabody Essex Museum.

As they sailed around the globe, the original members of the East India Marine Society began to collect objects, which is PEM’s origin story. To walk around this room, was to circumnavigate the globe. Visitors would have seen things brought back from all over the world -- coins, shells, musical instruments, weapons, sculptures of Indian and Chinese merchants. Suspended overheard from the ceiling was a large whale skeleton and visitors would have seen their first penguin, a stuffed one from the Falkland Islands brought back about 1820.

The (now) Diane M. and Walter C. Meibaum, III Staircase circa 1943. The Phillips Library Collection. © Peabody Essex Museum.

Peabody Essex Museum 2008 Phillips Library Collection

Nine carved ship figureheads are juxtaposed today with special contemporary exhibitions like a swirl overhead of digitized ship logs from PEM’s collection or the sea ballads of Scottish artist Susan Philipsz.

Guests enjoying ‘Charles Sandison: Figurehead 2.0’ currently installed in East India Marine Hall. Photo by MEl Taing/PEM.

Visitors experience Charles Sandison’s interpretation of PEM’s collection of ship logs across the ceiling of East India Marine Hall. Photo by Kathy Tarantola/PEM.

Susan Philipsz has been featured twice in East India Marine Hall with her haunting recordings of Scottish ballads, in an installation called If I With You Would Go. Photo by Walter Silver/PEM.

In addition to exhibitions, today, East India Marine Hall is a gathering space of history, art and culture. Over the years, this space has welcomed guests of weddings and cocktail parties, exhibition openings, galas, concerts and has been the venue for rising young opera stars.

Concert with Matt Aucoin and Anthony Costanza. Photo by John Andrews.