A walk around the historic downtown area of Marblehead, highlighting its historic architecture and the town’s dramatic and often traumatic social history due to perils at sea, storms, fires, and the service of over 1,000 men & boys in 3 different wars within 100 years. Widespread poverty followed all of those — but that is what preserved the nearly 300 houses surviving from before 1775 (out of about 520 at that time), when Marblehead was one of the most populous metropolis in British North America.

Special Instructions: Tour begins outside main front entrance to Abbot Hall and covers less than 1/2 mile in the 2-hour timeframe (mostly walking or standing). Restrooms in basement level of Abbot Hall (stairs or elevator). Optimium parking is behind or beside Abbot Hall (not ON Washington St.). Pleasant St. before Rockaway St. is another option, just two blocks from the starting point.

Reservations: email marbleheadtours@aol.com or call 781-631-1762