The New International Encyclopædia/Salem (North Carolina)
SALEM. A city in Forsyth County, N. C., 112 miles west by north of Raleigh; on the Southern and the Norfolk and Western railroads (Map: North Carolina, B 1). It is the seat of the Salem Female Academy and College (Moravian), opened in 1802. Salem is chiefly a residential city adjoining Winston, the county-seat, the two municipalities forming practically one industrial community. (See Winston.) Under the revised charter of 1891, the government is vested in a mayor, elected biennially, and a unicameral council. Salem was founded by a body of Moravians in 1766 and was for many years distinctively a church community—the church having complete charge of secular as well as ecclesiastical affairs. Count Zinzendorf drew up the plans on which Salem was laid out. Population, in 1800, 2711; in 1900, 3642.