What to See in Beverly - Top Sights and Attractions

Lighthouse in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Hospital Point Range Front Light is a historic lighthouse at the end of Bayview Avenue in Beverly, Massachusetts. It forms the front half of a range which guides vessels toward Salem Harbor. The tower was added to the National Register of Historic Places as Hospital Point Light Station on September 28, 1987.

Established in 1871, the beacon marks the deep water channel to Beverly, Salem and Marblehead Two bronze plaques contain historical information about the site. One plaque honors Beverly men who manned a fort at the site during the Revolutionary War, and the second describes the lighthouse and a smallpox hospital that was previously located on the site. The lighthouse was first lit in 1872 and was automated in 1947. The Fresnel lens was replaced in 1976, and an acrylic optic was installed in 1981.

The square pyramidal light tower is 45 feet (14 m) tall, made of white painted brick and is topped with a 10-sided lantern. There are five sash windows in the tower, with the doorway facing the keeper's house. A small brick oil house stands nearby. The keeper's house is an example of Queen Anne style architecture, although its historic detailing are obscured by a major addition to the building in 1968.

Hospital Point Light is owned and operated as a navigation aid by the United States Coast Guard. The light is paired with a second light installed in the steeple of Beverly's First Baptist Church in 1927. Vessels are able to use the two lights to align themselves with the middle of the channel, avoiding the rocky shores.

Tours are offered to the public each August for Beverly Homecoming celebrations and include 40 winding stairs and a ladder to the top of the light.^[2]

Park in Beverly, Massachusetts. The Fish Flake Hill Historic District encompasses a section of Front Street in Beverly, Massachusetts that includes a remarkable concentration of colonial buildings, and which was notable for its importance in the American Revolutionary War. The district, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971, includes properties on both sides of Front Street between Cabot and Bartlett Streets. It includes houses dating to the middle 18th century, sixteen of which have been documented as being associated with ship captains active in the American Revolutionary War. The port area of Beverly was one of the most active during the war, and was one of the places where many captured ships were brought.^[3]

Auditorium in Beverly, Massachusetts. The Larcom Theatre is a 600-seat auditorium located at 13 Wallis Street in Beverly, Massachusetts and offers live music, theatrical productions, ballet, and comedy.

From 1985 through 2012 the Larcom Theatre housed the two-hour Le Grand David production, An Anthology of Stage Magic.

Harris and Glover Ware, two brothers and former vaudeville musicians from Marblehead, Massachusetts built the Larcom in 1912 and named it for the Beverly-born poet Lucy Larcom. In 1984, the Le Grand David Spectacular Magic Company bought the Larcom and launched a restoration project that dwarfed their previous Cabot Street Cinema Theatre restoration. The Larcom Theatre was purchased in 1984 and received a balcony-to-boiler-room renovation. In October 1985 the Le Grand David troupe premiered a second resident production of conjuring, music, comedy and dance "in the style and tradition of the turn of the 19th century."

In 1995, the Le Grand David Company opened an expanded wing adjoining the original Larcom structure at 9 Wallis Street. The new wing included: the Grand Salon lobby (appointed in oak, marble, and brass), a full kitchen, rehearsal place, three galleries of Le Grand David apparatus and poster artwork, a library, a meeting room, a guest suite, and a caretaker's apartment.

Le Grand David Magic show ended in May 2012 after founder, Cesareo Pelaez, died in March of that year.^[9]

Museum in Beverly, Massachusetts. The John Hale House, also known as the Rev. John Hale Farm, is a historic Colonial house located at 39 Hale Street, Beverly, Massachusetts. The house is now operated as a nonprofit museum by Historic Beverly, with period furnishings and a room containing witchcraft-related artifacts.

This house was built in 1694, possibly with structural members from an earlier parsonage, by Beverly's first minister, Rev. John Hale (1636–1700). Hale is now best remembered for playing a significant part in the infamous Salem witch trials in 1692. He had been at the forefront of the prosecutions but underwent a change of heart when his second wife Sarah Noyes Hale was accused of witchcraft. She was not convicted, and shortly thereafter the trials concluded. After his wife's death in 1697, Rev. Hale wrote a book entitled A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, condemning his colleagues who played leading roles in the trials.

Rev. Hale lived in this house until his death on May 15, 1700. Generations of descendants succeeded him in the house, until in 1937 they finally sold it to the Beverly Historical Society & Museum. Over the years the house was much altered from its original state. Additions include a 1745 gambrel-roofed ell facing Hale Street that now contains the main entrance.

Descendants of Reverend Hale still remain in Beverly.^[10]