The explanation of this fact is found in a number of circumstances. First, in the location of the town, which led to its early importance as a shipping center and port of entry; second, in the quality of its settlers, who were of earnest purpose and serious determination in the business of home-making; third, in their continuous intercourse with the mother country, resulting in a familiarity with her own architectural renaissance during the period involved, from 1626, the date of the founding of Salem, up to the year 1818, when the Colonial vogue began its decline and the Greek style gradually took its place; fourth, in the occupation of the people, which became more and more commercial, their merchant flags appearing in every harbor in the world, leading to increasing wealth, a familiarity with comfort and style, together with the means of securing and maintaining them; and last, but by no means least in importance, in the presence in Old Salem of that remarkable man Samuel McIntire, who as designer, builder, and cunning craftsman in wood, for a period of thirty years, from 1782 to the date of his untimely death in 1811, so guided the architectural taste of the Salem people, and so contributed to their building activities by the ingenious and beautiful productions of his own hands, as to leave upon the town a stamp of genius hardly paralleled in the world. The doorways and porches of the loveliest old Salem homes owe so much either directly or indirectly to the influence of McIntire, that he might almost be termed the architect of Salem beautiful--as for over a quarter of a century he was its master-craftsman, working with an originality of conception, an ingenuity of combination, a freedom from hampering tradition, yet with a restraint and refinement of taste, which render his productions individual, beautiful, and noble, the true notes of the Colonial style at its very best. CHAPTER III THE EVOLUTION OF THE SALEM DOORWAY