The town of Salem in the USA today is primarily famous for the witch trials at the end of the 17th century. However, Polish traces can also be found here, as the community of Poles was quite numerous in the state of Massachusetts at the beginning of the 20th century.

Salem and emigrants from Europe
Salem is located on the east coast of the United States in the New England region, in Essex County near Boston. This historic town, founded by English settlers in 1626, was one of the most important trading ports on the Atlantic coast at the time. It is also known for the witch trials that took place in the late 17th century. Today, it has a population of approximately 45 000, and its former position as a major centre of world maritime trade and its partially preserved historic buildings make it a point of interest for tourists and historians in the United States. Also those coming from Poland to discover the traces of material and spiritual culture left by the once numerous and well-organised community of Polish settlers.

The influx of European emigrants to Salem increased rapidly in the wake of the progressive industrial revolution (1760-1840), and the maritime trade and shipbuilding previously developed in the area gave way to new industries. Irish arrivals from 1830 onwards found employment in the emerging leather factories, French Canadians took up work in textile mills (cotton processing). Over the years, Italians, Lithuanians and Russians appeared, as well as Poles, who had been settling in Salem since around 1870. These were mostly landless or smallholders, mostly from Galicia (Austrian partition, where rural overpopulation was particularly severe). In 1900, there were about 50,000 Polish emigrants living in the state of Massachusetts (out of about 2 million newcomers from Polish lands then in the United States).

Polish community in Salem
The Polish community in Salem settled in a small area of a few streets around the St. Joseph House (St. Joseph Hall). Such a compact location and the organisation of life in all its aspects (residence, shopping, national, religious and cultural activities) created a "small homeland" for the representatives of the newly arrived community. It gave it the strength to persist and develop in the midst of a culturally alien element.

It should be emphasised that the Polish community became the dominant immigrant ethnic group in the town from the early years of the 20th century until about 1980. Significant traces of its life in Salem are the former St. Joseph's House, the Polish church, tombstones in St. Mary's cemetery, the names of some streets and squares, and the Polish Veterans Legion of America, which still exists today.

St Joseph's House in Salem
The building was constructed in 1909 at 158-162 Derby St. for use as a centre of Polish life. The construction was initiated by the St. Joseph's Society (part of the Polish Roman Catholic Union in America). The organisation assisted Poles in settling on American soil.

The ground floor housed shops, the income from which provided the building's upkeep. The first floor was occupied by a spacious hall used for special events (including weddings) and meetings. The second (top) floor, on the other hand, housed the newly arrived emigrants. In 1988, as the Polish diaspora in Salem dwindled considerably, the building was sold to the National Park Service (the government agency that manages the national parks in the USA) to be used as a branch of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site.

Today, the ground-floor windows at the front of the building house an exhibition on the historical presence of the Polish community in the town.

The former Polish Church of St John the Baptist in Salem - a brief history
. The first church in Salem to bring together the Polish immigrants there was the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church at 15 Hawthorne Blvd, where an underground space was made available for their liturgical needs.

Then, in 1903, Boston Archbishop John J. Williams appointed Fr Joseph Czubek as the first pastor of the newly established St John the Baptist parish in Salem. The first, and extraordinarily solemn, Mass was celebrated on 3 June 1903 in an apartment building on Herbert St., converted into a church and purchased by the parish committee (at a cost of $2,000). This institution was run by the nuns from 1904 to 1977, and was attended by thousands of Polish children.

Due to the rapid increase in the number of worshippers, the parish priest decided to acquire a much larger church building. In 1906, the former defunct Central Baptist Church in Salem, located at 28 St. Peter St., was purchased. After adaptation work, the church was consecrated under the name of St. John the Baptist as the new Polish parish church. The interior of the so-called upper church was then changed from neo-Gothic to "colonial" style, the hall below was transformed into a chapel and a pair of double doors were placed in the front entrance.

The former Polish church in Salem - architecture
The former St John the Baptist Church-now the Saint John Paul II Shrine of Divine Mercy-is a massive, architecturally simple red brick building with a gabled roof. The walls have four pairs of alternating tall, rounded eleven-pane windows at the top. This is complemented by a low, cross-shaped tower set above a pilastered façade with a clearly accentuated white pediment. Adjacent to the tower is a tall porch, also with a gabled roof, lit from the front by three interlocking semicircular windows and two in the side walls.

The church, in fact its part called the upper church, has a hall-type interior with a shallow chancel. It houses the main altar with a copy of the famous painting of the Merciful Jesus (also known as Jezu ufam Tobie) by the Vilnius painter Eugeniusz Kazimirowski (1873-1939) and the choir with an organ. The ceiling is decorated with a geometric decoration of the ribbed type with a modest painterly filling. All eight windows in the nave, two located in the chancel and five in the walls of the porch have stained glass windows made of multicoloured glass. They depict figures of saints - in English their names and the degree of relationship of the donors to their relatives with Polish names commemorated in them are given. The names of the religious societies that donated some of the stained glass are also given in Polish.

The Polish parish in Salem did not have its own cemetery. Its deceased representatives were buried in the local Roman Catholic St. Mary's Cemetery. Their stone tombstones are not in a separate plot, but can be encountered in many places in the older, closer to the street, part of the cemetery.