Robert Booth

Robert Booth, a native of Marblehead, Massachusetts, grew up on salt water, racing sailboats, and working as a lobsterman. He is an authority on historic architecture and maritime culture, having reasearched the histories of hundreds of houses and their occupants, from Nantucket to Maine. He helped to rescue America's last surviving Revolutionary War privateering base, which was moved from Marblehead to Derby Wharf in the Salem Maritime Historic Site, a federal park devoted to seafaring. He works as executive director of the Center for Clinical Social Work, a national advocacy and education association for members of the largest mental-health-care profession in the country. His guidebook, Boston's Freedom Trail, has stayed in print for nearly thirty years, and he writes about history for the online version of The Boston Globe. He is Curator Emeritus of the Pickering House (1664) of Salem and is the founding director of the online Salem History Society. He resides in Marblehead with his wife and children.