Born around 1643, Parkman (formerly Gedney, née Clark) serves as a clear example of the ways in which early Salem families consolidated, financially and otherwise. Susana’s parents, William and Katherine Clark, had come to Salem in the 1640s and William established the Ship Tavern on Essex St, in the area where the Red Line Cafe stands today. The Ship Tavern would serve as a vital part of Salem’s downtown, with town meetings being held there while the Town House was under construction. Although the Ship Tavern would operate for decades, William Clark would only personally run the tavern for a few years, dying in 1647 and leaving his wife and daughters in possession of the valuable property.
Katherine would continue operating the Ship Tavern after her husband’s death, eventually marrying innkeeper John Gedney. Susana and her sister Hannah would follow their mother’s lead, marrying their stepbrothers John Jr. and Bartholomew respectively. The Gedney/ Clark family continued running the Ship Tavern for the next several decades, with both John Sr. and John Jr. dying in the 1680s. During this period John Louder, a servant to John and Susana, began to have altercations with their neighbor Bridget Bishop, who he later accused of witchcraft (it’s worth noting that by 1692, the Gedneys had let the property and its occupant at the time, John Stacy, had nothing to say on the subject of Bridget Bishop).
The widowed Susana would marry again, to the thrice-widowed Deliverance Parkman, to whom ownership of the estate was conveyed. Despite being nearly a decade her junior, Deliverance died first in 1715. Susana would remain single until her death at the age of 85, joining Deliverance and two of his other wives in Charter Street Cemetery. Her daughter, also named Susana, would marry Sheriff George Corwin, although after she died in 1688, he married her cousin Lydia, daughter of Bartholomew Gedney. Susana Parkman’s stone, while legible, has sunk into the ground and the view of it is obstructed by the somewhat intrusive footstone of Elizabeth Simmons.