Picnic Area

This Park is the historic site of Gloucester's first settlers in 1623. Dorchestermen set up fishing stages on this land. Two beaches are located in Stage Fort Park - Cressy's Beach and Half Moon Beach . Half Moon is a sheltered sandy beach that is more like a lagoon. Cressy's Beach is a rocky, more natural beach.

Chandler Hovey Park, also known as Lighthouse Point, is located at the end of Follett Street, off Ocean Avenue on Marblehead Neck. The 3.74 acre park overlooks the mouth of the harbor and the shorelines of Beverly and Manchester-By-The-Sea and offers pavilions, benches. picnic tables, restrooms, swimming and parking. Originally owned by the U.S. government, it was purchased in 1948 by Marblehead resident Chandler Hovey, who donated it to the town.

Salem Common began as the town's common pasture land, to which each Salem citizen could bring a cow to graze.

The Common is now Salem's large, pleasant central park, with the Hawthorne Hotel at its southwest corner.

MA Route 1A passes right along the edge of the Common via the streets named Washington Square North and Washington Square West.