How many vigorous and adventurous figures must have passed through the Eden-Brown doorway! ‘King’ Hooper himself, owner of a house at Marblehead and another at Danvers, the well-known ‘Lindens,’ occupied as a summer home by the Royal Governor Gage, the year before Lexington. Many a wealthy captain, perhaps, and trader to the East, who in the spirit of the bold motto on the Salem official seal, ‘Unto the utmost bounds of wealthy Ind,’ had driven his fifty-ton schooner across the mysterious ocean, returning laden with silks, rugs, and shawls, mulls and muslins, jade, crystal, spices, and if not, like the far-famed navies of Solomon, with ‘ivory, apes, and peacocks,’ at least with many a comical monkey and gaudy parrot--the latter commonly past-master in the use of a certain deep-sea vocabulary not to be repeated here. Such cargoes made Salem owners wealthy, and paved the way for the erection of the spacious and dignified residences, with their noble pillars and pediments, so many of which are still standing to-day as a memorial of by-gone greatness. ‘THE LINDENS’ [Illustration: ‘THE LINDENS’] ‘King’ Hooper, partner of Thomas Eden, as just stated above, beside his Marblehead home, had a fine residence at Danvers, once a part of Salem, which is one of the most pretentious of the time. Now called ‘The Lindens,’ it was built in 1754, the siding scored and beveled so as to present the appearance of granite blocks, a resemblance still further carried out in the gray paint of the surface and the white of the beveling. The doorway is of special dignity and beauty, two Corinthian columns supporting a large gable containing a window, which rises to the deck of the roof. Of similar appearance was the John Hancock house on Beacon Street, Boston, now destroyed. At the time of his governorship of the Province in 1774, this handsome house was used by General Gage as a summer home. Colonel Leslie, commanding officer of the 64th Regulars opposed at North Bridge by the Salem citizens in February of the following year, pitched the tents of his regiment across the road. One may imagine how gay were the goings-on, as scarlet uniforms, rich with gold lace, passed in and out of the stately portal, through which might be heard the hum of conversation and the strains of music--for the British officers were good entertainers, and made the most of what society they had in a hostile environment. It was perhaps during some such festivity that an indignant patriot fired a shot from his musket through the panel of the door--the hole being still visible where his messenger of protest made its entrance. ‘The Lindens’ was lately the home of Francis Peabody. It is now owned by Ward Thoran. THE PIERCE-JOHONNOT-NICHOLS HOUSE [Illustration: THE PIERCE-JOHONNOT-NICHOLS HOUSE]