History Of The Library :

In December 1856, the American banker, philanthropist, and Danvers native George Peabody gave $10,000 for the establishment of a Danvers "branch" of the Peabody Institute Library of South Danvers (now Peabody, MA). This branch library was originally set up at Danvers Town Hall; but in 1857, Joshua Silvester, Simeon Putnam, and John R. Langley sold to the Town for $4,000 a four and one half acre plot of land on Sylvan St. (near to the Town Hall) for use as a site for the library.

In 1866, George Peabody, realizing the difficulty of a single institution serving two separate communities, allowed the branch to become independent and gave the new Peabody Institute Library of Danvers an additional $40,000. A Gothic style library was built at Peabody Park in 1869; the purpose of the new library was (in the founder's language) "the promotion of knowledge and morality in the Town of Danvers." The governing body of the Institute was vested in a board of nine trustees who were appointed for life by Peabody; thereafter, vacancies in the Board were filled by the legal voters of Danvers.

The first story exhibits alternating wood quoins and two oculus windows. The Sylvan St. facade contains a balconial entry portico, now enclosed as a reading area, while the two side facades contain two story elliptical porticos with second floor Ionic support columns. The second floor has much ornamentation including Palladian windows with fanlight and tracery, arched windows with swags, Ionic pilasters and columns, and roof modillion blocks.