Custom House — Attraction in Salem

We visited on a Friday around noon in mid-June 2025.

We found parking by the Salem Armory Visitor Center near Witch City Mall. We could not use the parking garages because our minivan with cargo carrier was too tall. We circled the lots maybe 5 times before we saw someone leaving.

We walked over to the visitor center first where we got maps and NPS Passport Cancellation Stamps. We also bought some merch and checked out the few exhibits and took some pictures. Then we headed down to where the majority of the points of interest were near the water. Our first stop was going to be the Waite & Peirce Park Store. They have additional NPS Passport Cancellation stamps and also has a many items not available at the store in the visitor center. So make sure you visit both.

Then across the street was the Custom House. This was the only other thing that was open to us on a Friday in Mid-June 2025. We went in and explored the 2 floors worth of rooms. There were a number of rangers here to answer questions as well. There was were many rangers in fact I was curious why some of the other locations weren't open for us to explore.

Overall it was a nice experience. All the rangers we spoke too at each of the sites were great and since many of the places were closed, we would visit again to try and hit more of the sites. Same goes for Salem in general. We only had enough time in our road trip for half a day here and that was just not enough to see everything...

I'm a Salem resident and I am on a mission to tour all the local attractions AND historical sites.

About this one: The Custom House has reopened! It is now accessible to the public again, seasonally (you should check the Maritime National Historic Park website before your visit to see if/when its doors are open).

This building has been made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who worked here and talked about his job as a surveyor in the introduction to the Scarlet Letter.

You can visit the first and second floor of the building. Some rooms are set up like they were when the Custom House was active in the 1800s, others display scales and gauges, used to weight cargos for duties, and the wooden eagle statue that originally topped the building (now replaced by a fiberglass replica).

There is a good amount of information about the Custom House and Hawthorne on the walls. The tour is self guided but very informative (and rangers are around to answer questions).

Don't forget to check the BACK of the building! Accessible from the gardens on the back, you can visit the "Public Stores", the area where goodies were stored to await transfer or payment of duties, and the "Scale House".

PROs Visiting the Costum House, you can learn both about Salem Maritime history and Salem's most beloved author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's free!

CONs Nothing...

We visited Salem from Boston, hoping to learn more about its history, especially the infamous witch trials. The town clearly thrives on these stories, but sadly, most of it felt like theatre – very little from that time actually remains, and many of the shops seemed quite cheap and touristy. We were ready to leave when, by chance, a ranger told us about the Customs House. We entered with low expectations and were absolutely blown away.

The Customs House offers a fascinating insight into Salem’s rich maritime history across several rooms. The rangers took a lot of time to explain everything in detail – we ended up staying for over an hour. A special thank you to Ethan Keller, who spent a lot of time with us and shared not only historical facts but also stories about Salem’s more recent past, the growth of witch tourism, and what it’s like to grow up in the Boston area. An unexpected highlight...