At these Assemblies the students from Harvard College, as it then was, were very popular, and found many a fair partner among the Salem beauties, of whom there was no lack. No less a personage than President Washington himself commented, at the time of his reception at Assembly Hall in 1789, upon the large number, upwards of a hundred, of handsome ladies present. Mention of the Chestnut Street festivities would hardly be complete without reference to the Salem Cadets, an exclusive military organization resembling the famous Seventh Regiment of New York. They had an armory at 136 Essex Street, formerly the residence of Colonel Francis Peabody, to which a drill-shed was added. In the ‘Banqueting Hall’ of the Peabody mansion Prince Arthur of England, in the country for the purpose of attending the funeral of George Peabody, the London banker, in 1870, was entertained at dinner. This handsome room was finished in carved oak in the Elizabethan Gothic style. The figure of Queen Victoria appears over the fireplace, supported by mailed figures. This woodwork has been removed to the Masonic Temple on Washington Street, where it adorns one of the smaller rooms. The Peabody house was demolished in 1908. Wearing their famous scarlet uniforms, and swinging down Chestnut Street, their favorite parade-ground, with handkerchiefs waving from the classic porches on either side, the Salem Cadets lend a touch of color and life which is most attractive against the Colonial background. FAMOUS NAMES IN SALEM The house is nothing without its inhabitant; and thus Salem architecture, however beautiful, would lack in significance if dissociated from the persons, men and women, who have passed in and out of these hospitable doors, or spent years of life beneath the sheltering roofs.