Tag: Middle Street Gloucester

An ever evolving neighborhood

The Cape Ann Museum is pleased to present Historic Middle Street, a guided walking tour of one of Gloucester’s many historically rich streets, on Saturday, August 29 at 10:00 a.m. The tour meets at the Cape Ann Museum at 27 Pleasant Street and lasts about 1 1/2 hours. Tours are held rain or shine. Cost is $10 for Museum members; $20 nonmembers (includes Museum admission). Space is limited, reservations required. Email info@capeannmuseum.org or call(978) 283-0455, x16 for more information or to reserve a spot. Additional walking tours are offered through the end of September – please visitcapeannmuseum.org/events to find out more.

Image credit: The Saunders House, now part of the Sawyer Free Library, in the early 1880s. Photo by Edward Corliss & J. F. Ryan House Photographs, c. 1882-85. 4″ x 6″ cabinet cards. From the collection of the Cape Ann Museum Library and Archives.

Did you know that a resident of Middle Street, Gloucester, saved the town from a British attack by sea during the Revolution? Or that a leading feminist and religious free thinker lived halfway down Middle Street? Or, that the 1764 Saunders House that forms part of the Sawyer Free Library has undergone at least three radical architectural changes including a massive Victorian tower? Four centuries of Gloucester’s social, economic, and architectural history are packed into this one short street in the heart of downtown Gloucester. Join us for a docent-led tour of an ever-evolving neighborhood where you will see surviving evidence of the past and will learn about structures and people now gone.