Plaque Program

If you walk around Beverly and take a close look at the houses and buildings, you may see plaques by the entrance of many of them. These are historical plaques about the history of the house and property. When I was walking about the city during my explorations, this is a big thing that I noticed. I saw these plaques on tons of houses downtown and also in Beverly Farms. I figured that Historic Beverly had something to do with this, so I decided to look deeper into it.

I asked Susan Goganian about these plaques because of my curiosity. She said that this was absolutely Historic Beverly’s doing. Most of the plaques are uniformed and look the same, and this is because they make them all in the same style. The city likes this because it keeps a common look for them. She did mention that nothing is stopping someone from making their own plaques and putting them on the house, as it is their own property (S. Goganian, personal communication, December 4, 2024). However, most people go through Historic Beverly because of the ease of it and their extensive knowledge.

To make these plaques, they look through the deeds and historical records that they have as an organization. When they get a request for one to be made, they do the research, make it themselves, and then send it to the resident. Goganian said that for some houses, there is not a lot of information that they can find except for baseline information. For others, they can dig up all sorts of information, and while they put it on one plaque, there is more information that they find that does not make it onto the physical plaque (S. Goganian, personal communication, December 4, 2024).

I think this plaque program is very interesting. It is a great way to spread education and information about the city in people’s everyday lives. I saw these plaques all over the city, and they prompted me to do extra research to find out more about the people that used to live there. For residents of these historical homes, these plaques are a really cool way they can learn a little extra about their home. 

Two plaques that can be found in Beverly. These two houses in particular are not only extremely old, but carry some rich, important history of the city.