The Peabody Museum of Salem, formerly the Peabody Academy of Science, was a museum and antiquarian society based in Salem, Massachusetts. The academy was organized in part as a successor to the East India Marine Society, which had become moribund but held a large collection of maritime materials in a museum collection at the East India Marine Hall, built in 1825 on Essex Street. The Peabody Museum was merged with the Essex Institute to form the Peabody Essex Museum in 1992. The East India Marine Hall, now embedded within the latter's modern structure, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 in recognition of this heritage, which represents the nation's oldest continuously-operating museum collection.HistoryThe Peabody Academy of Science, successor to the East India Marine Society, "was organized in 1868, having received funds... from George Peabody of London... for the 'promotion of science and useful knowledge in the county of Essex.'" It was incorporated by "Asa Gray, of Cambridge, William C. Endicott, of Salem, George Peabody Russell, of Salem, Othniel C. Marsh, of New Haven,... Henry Wheatland, of Salem, Abner C. Goodell, junior, of Salem, James R. Nichols, of Haverhill,... Henry C. Perkins, of Newburyport, and S. Endicott Peabody.The academy maintained a museum that displayed animals, fossils, minerals, and plants, as well as ethnological artifacts such as weapons, costume, tools, statuary, and musical instruments. In 1915 the Academy changed its name to the "Peabody Museum of Salem."
