New Easthampton mayor reflects on new role, Wampanoag heritage

When Salem Derby was sworn in as Easthampton’s mayor on Nov. 19, he brought two decades of experience in city government, along with a Native American heritage that he says has helped shape his philosophy of public service.

Derby was elected mayor on Nov. 4, after having served almost four months as interim mayor. Formerly the City Council president, he accepted the interim role when former Mayor Nicole LaChappelle left on July 15 to become commissioner at the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

A member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), Derby joins a relatively small group of mayors nationwide with Native American backgrounds. Derby told the MMA that his Wampanoag heritage doesn’t impact most policy-making decisions, but it does influence his world view.

“I think that it’s just an important foundation to operate from, to understand that you’re not the only ones, and there were people that came before you,” Derby said. “And so how you act now makes a difference to the people who come next — and how we are inclusive and embrace all of the people that are around us, to create a community that’s welcoming and supportive of all different cultures and all different types of people.”

Derby, who first joined the City Council in 2004, traces his immediate Wampanoag family to his great-grandmother, Carrie Derby, who was born in Aquinnah. She was a model and a musician who may have been the first woman to sing on Boston radio, according to family lore. She helped raise Derby’s father, Charles, who went on to become a Tribal art historian.

“And so for my dad, really, it instilled in him a deep respect of his Native heritage,” Derby said, “and that was transferred to me.”

Derby’s great-grandfather, Benjamin Derby Jr., served as the postmaster general in Concord, and both he and his father had served as elected municipal officials there. Benjamin Derby Jr.’s lineage derives from the prominent Derby family dating back centuries in Salem, which accounts for the interim mayor’s name.

“And so it was like this melding of these two really interesting cultures of the Native American culture from Aquinnah, and then the kind of old-school Derbys from Salem,” Derby said.

Derby did bring his background to the forefront in 2021, when he was one of Easthampton’s leaders who called for its recognition of Indigenous People’s Day in October. And this past August, he participated in a land acknowledgment during an event to mark the 80th anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan during World War II.

“As far as me putting it out there … I put it out in ways that it’s meaningful,” Derby said.

After his election, Derby stepped down from his longtime role as a wellness and physical education teacher at Northampton High School. He is now focused on ensuring Easthampton’s fiscal stability, seeking renewable ways to lower electricity costs for the city and for residents, balancing development and open space needs, and keeping redevelopment projects on track, including two affordable reuse projects that he hopes will help mitigate rising housing costs.

Derby said it was a “little sad” to leave teaching behind, but he is “so happy to be able to continue to serve the city I love.”