Landex Inc

About forestry service, 1913, Amesbury, MA, US, Massachusetts

Salisbury is a small coastal beach town and summer tourist destination in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The community is a popular summer resort beach town situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of Boston on the New Hampshire border. It is home to the new Salisbury Beach Boardwalk, full of souvenir shops, restaurants, cafes, arcades and panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean. The population was 9,236 at the 2020 census. Parts of town comprise the census-designated place of Salisbury. == History == === Pre-Colonial Era === The area currently known as Salisbury was inhabited for tens of thousands of years prior to European colonization. At the Morrill Point burial mound site on the north shore of the Merrimack River, there are human remains dating to 7,000 years ago with some dating suggesting settlement there as early as 8,500 years ago. At the time of European contact and colonization, the area north of the Merrimack River was inhabited by the Pentucket Tribe of the Pennacook confederation, who lived at the coastline seasonally to fish in the coastal wetlands. Unlike other towns of what would become Essex County that negotiated the terms of European settlement with native inhabitants, Salisbury was settled under the jurisdiction of a land grant from the Massachusetts Bay Colony General Court and laid out in a compact defensive arrangement with a garrison house, night watch, and militia for the purpose of defending against native attack. === Colonial Era === Salisbury was colonized by the English in 1638 as Colchester, and incorporated in 1640 as Salisbury, after Salisbury in Wiltshire, England, the birthplace of Christopher Batt who was appointed to train the colonists' militia.