Salem Common, Coastwatch Projects Awarded Essex Heritage Grants

SALEM, MA — Salem Common and Salem Sound will be the sites of projects through a pair of Essex National Heritage Commission grants.

The Essex National Heritage Commission awarded 12 grants throughout the North Shore and Merrimack Valley as part of the commission's annual spring meeting on April 22.

The Salem Common Neighborhood Association was awarded one of the grants to restore carvings on renowned woodcarver Samuel McIntire's Washington Arch at the main park entrance.

The arch was designed in 1805 to mimic the Triumphal Arches used in Roman welcoming processions. It includes the state emblem and a golden eagle. The arches were removed in 1850 and presented to what is now the Peabody Essex Museum for safekeeping.

The restoration of the arches was commissioned in 2013, but the carved pieced were not replicated. The Salem Common Neighborhood Association will use the grant to rebuild the carvings and attach them to the arch.

The Sound Coastwatch grant will allow for the development of a project-based learning program that serves as an "outdoor classroom" to create a place where nature and education are accessible to the public.

The project is intended to provide an opportunity to invest in two critical areas simultaneously —the education of local youth and the stewardship of our community's environment — in a way that has a lasting impact and creates resources that would be utilized by the school and the community.

The grants are intended to promote a diverse range of educational, interpretive and preservation projects that this year included an "Access and Inclusion" category.

"We recognize the importance of supporting local organizations and we are proud that we are able to award 12 partnership grants again this year," Essex Heritage CEO Annie Harris said. "Over the 23-year life of the program we have provided grants to every community in Essex County — and we know that this seed money greatly impacts the region by leveraging more investments in the Essex National Heritage Area."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)