August 20, 2022
We arrived about 11AM at the Wakefield Elks for our three-night stay. I found an app with a set of walking tours for the Boston area. We headed out to Salem to check out what we could about the 1620 witch trials of Salem.
Just walking from our parking spot into the main town it was soon apparent how the Harry Potter series was embraced by many retailers.
The Salem Witch Museum seemed to be a perfect stop on our afternoon field trip. Since admission to the Salem Witch Museum had to be purchased online, and for a specific time, we did that first. We loved the exterior of the museum. The inside museum experience was an historical presentation made via thirteen life-size static scenes around the perimeter of a single room. No pictures or videos were permitted inside the building. As a timed-group, we were ushered in a room with bench seating throughout the floor area. The lights were dimmed, and as each scenes lit up, we turned to it and listened to the accompanied narration. It was decent for an overview, but we thought there would be more to it as a museum. Admission was $15 each (senior discount).
Overview of the Witch Trials:
Nineteen people were hanged, five died in prison, one was crushed to death, and over 150 were accused. The fabrication and outright lying that occurred was quite disturbing. Friends turned against each other as they made totally bizarre accusations. I got chills with the connections to what we have been seeing in the US over these last few years. In the short area where you read as you walk through with your group, focused on the phenomenon of “witch-hunting”, and the fear and hysteria desired as the result. The following quotes jumped out to me as being still so relevant today! Scary that we haven’t seemed to learn from world history or our own US history.
“Fear + Target = Scapegoat. ”
“People called out “witch-hunt” and created mass hysteria as the belief in the preposterous accusations grew!“
The Crucible, The Salem Witch Trials, and Senator Joseph McCarthy
The tone and message of The Crucible are very close to the witch trials history. In addition, The Crucible provides parallels between the events in Salem in 1692 and Miller’s own experiences during the McCarthy era of the 1950’s. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller dramatizes the injustice of a witch hunt and celebrates the integrity of its victims.
I can’t help but see the similarities today with all the “witch hunt” cries made over and over the last 6 years, and how when a few Republicans stood up to Trump, not only the lives of those brave Republicans, but also that of their families were in danger.
The large statue in the middle of the street diagonally from the Salem Witch Museum is NOT depicting a witch or warlord from the witch trials. Nor is it a character from Harry Potter. It is a statue of the Puritan founder and first governor of Salem, Roger Conant! Ironically, Conant founded the town to get away from violence, but by the end of the century, violence became a defining part of Salem’s history. How ironic.
We began our walking tour “Salem & Witch Trials” from the Action Tour Guides app. This was our first time using a walking tour app. It was a positive experience. Not only did this one reinforce much of the information from the museum, but it also incorporated an additional landmark as we started the tour.
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The tour began at a square by the Salem Visitor Center. Here sits a bell that was created by the American Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere! A local reverend bought the bell from Revere for only $46.
Salem was experiencing tension between the poor farming families and the wealthy families who traded via the port. An influx of new arrivals added to the strain on resources, which further aggravated the division between rich and poor. Many of the Salem Puritan villagers started to suspect something supernatural was causing the wedge within the community. It had to be the devil, himself! Fear and accusations soon went off like a grenade.
Captain Jonathan Walcott’s daughter, Mary Walcott, was one of the girls who claimed to have been affected by witchcraft. She testified extensively throughout the trials, accusing close to 60 women of being witches.
Some of the first accused of being in with the devil were: Sarah Osborne, a poor elderly woman, Sarah Good a homeless beggar, and Tituba, an enslaved Caribbean woman in the Parris household. All three were poor and powerless. Two judges forced Tituba to confess she was working with the devil. This only fanned the fear. The rampant paranoia spurred accusations against good friends, and upstanding members of the church, and in one case, a 4-year old girl!
The Salem Witch Trials Memorial – from the script provided with the Action Tour Guide (ATG) app…
This is a collection of granite benches dedicated to each of the 20 victims of the trials. Each has the name of the victim along with the date and means of execution.
Beginning on the far left:
This first bench memorializes Bridget Bishop, the first victim of the trials. Bishop racked up more accusations than any other defendant in the trials. She didn’t fit the Puritan idea of a lady. She had flamboyant and rowdy personality matched by her flashy clothing. Bishop married three times, argued loudly with her husbands, drank publicly, and entertained all manner of guest late into the night. This behavior was enough to land her on trial for witchcraft!
Bishop was one of the few Puritan women who was not dependent on a man for her livelihood. She owned an extensive apple orchard and made her money running three taverns in town. Most Puritans felt this occupation was not appropriate for a woman.
Even her clothing was used as evidence against her during the trial. Bishop was known for wearing a black cape, a black hat, and a striking red bodice with colored borders and loops. Her accusers insisted this was the outfit of a witch.
Bishop’s fate was sealed when Abigail Williams took the stand with four other girls and accused her of casting spells on them. The fact that Bishop had never even met the girls didn’t stop the court from finding her guilty! On June 10, 1692, she was taken to Proctor’s Ledge and hanged. Bishop proclaimed her innocence right up to the end.
The next bench is for Sarah Good who was one of the initial three women accused of witchcraft. Sarah’s low position in town made her a prime target for the trials, and was the first to be tried in Salem. She denied every charge against her, but Judge Hathorne wasn’t hearing it.
Sarah was pregnant at the time of her arrest. She delivered baby Mercy inn the dungeon, but Mercy died a few days later due to the deplorable conditions.
Sarah was convicted and sentenced to death. She was brought to Gallows Hill on July 19,1692. Rev. Noyes was there to greet Sarah and read her last rights. He begged Sarah to repent so at least her soul could be saved. Sarah responded by screaming:
“You’re a liar! I am no more a witch than you are a wizard and if you take my life, God will give you blood to drink!”
30 years later, Reverend Noyes suffered a brain aneurysm which caused blood to pool in his mouth, He choked on it and died.
Moving on to the bench for Rebecca Nurse. Unlike Bishop and Good, Rebecca was a well-respected member of the community. She was 71, had many children and grandchildren, and a reputation as an upright and pious woman. Unfortunately, Rebecca made the mistake of crossing Thomas Putnam.
Putnam, a Salem farmer, had plenty of rivalries in town, When the witch panic began, he took it as his opportunity for some revenge on those he believed had wronged him. Putnam accused a total of 43 people of witchcraft. Rebecca had had several property disputes with Putnam, and found herself on his list of targets. The accusation sent shockwaves through town, and many people came to court to speak on her behalf during the trial. Nearly 40 of Salem’s most upstanding citizens signed a petition proclaiming her innocence, and even Judge Hathorne himself had doubts of her guilt.
Seeing that they might be at risk of losing the case, Rebecca’s accuser went to extremes to sway the jury, They broke spontaneously into fits during the trial and claimed that she was actively cursing them. This was called “spectral evidence”. It was allowed in the trial. Despite these fits, the jury initially found Rebecca not guilty. But her accusers wouldn’t have it. They demanded a second deliberation, which was a common legal practice at that time. The second time, she wasn’t as lucky.
Rebecca was executed the same day as Sarah Good on Gallows Hill.
Continuing to the next bench: George Burroughs. Burroughs, a former pastor in Salem, is the only minister in American history to be convicted of witchcraft.
Burroughs arrived in Salem in 1680 and served as the reverend for a short time. He quickly became frustrated that the residents only rarely paid taxes and wouldn’t pay his salary. When his wife died in 1681, Burroughs had no money to pay for the funeral, so he resorted to borrowing money from the Putnam family.
Burroughs was never able to pay back his debt, so he resigned in 1683 and moved to Maine. Nearly ten years later, men arrived at his door to arrest him. The Putnams had accused him of witchcraft, and he was to be brought back to Salem to stand trial.
While no real evidence was presented, the Putnams’ vengeful arguments were apparently sufficient. Burroughs was found guilty and brought to the gallows on August 19, 1692. As he stood on the ladder, awaiting his fate, he recited the Lord’s Prayer, shocking the crowd. They believed it was impossible for a witch to do this. Still, it wasn’t enough to stop the hanging.
Giles Corey is another scary example of the power of hysteria and gang mentally. His wife, Martha was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft. Corey got caught up in the town’s hysteria, and initially testified against his wife! He quickly changed his mind and tried to recant his testimony. This proved to be a fatal decision. Giles Corey is the one person who was executed without being convicted! Because Corey refused to answer how he wanted to be tried with the required words “by my God and my peers”, the trial could not begin. Instead he was executed via “pressing”, which is basically adding boards and boulders to crush him into submission or death. On the third day Corey died. He was the oldest person accused, at 81.
These were all innocent victims caught up in the violence of mass hysteria. When this memorial was dedicated in 1992 which was the 300th anniversary of the trials, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel spoke at the ceremony stating, “If I can’t stop all of the hate all over the world in all people, I can stop it in one place – within me.”
A favorite TV witch from the 70’s: Samantha from Bewitched, played by Elizabeth Montgomery is one of the most photographed spots in Salem. The show came to Salem after a devastating fire on a Hollywood studio lot left the show without a place to film. An 8-episode run called “The Salem Saga” had the TV show characters visiting Salem for a witchcraft convention while their Hollywood sets were rebuilt.
Lyceum Hall is where you will find Turner’s Seafood Restaurant, but in 1877, Lyceum Hall was the first stop on Alexander Graham Bell’ international tour to promote the new telephone throughout the US and Europe.
Salem Jail
The first Salem jailhouse that was used during the witch trials is long gone. It had tiny, damp, dark cells, some of which were too small to even sit down! Prisoners were frequently denied water, and had to pay jailers for food and bedding. They even had to pay for the use of handcuff, chains, and their own execution!
Sarah Osborne died in that horrid jailhouse while waiting trial. When Ann Foster, another innocently accused victim, died there, her son had to pay $500 in today’s money to claim his mother’s body.
The old jail was demolished in the early 1800’s.
The “new” jail was built in 1813 with an addition added in 1844. This replacement jail was the site of 50 hangings throughout the years, and was known for its harsh conditions and escape attempts. The “Boston Strangler”, Albert DeSalvo, confessed to strangling 13 women between summer of 1962 and winter of 1964, and was killed in jail in 1974.
Prisoners in the 80s reported sharing their cells with long-dead inmates or “residents” as they called them. Shortly after this jail was abandoned, people swore they saw lights flickering inside and heard screams emanating from within the building. Even today, after dark, people report shadowy figures fleeing across the front lawn and hearing the rattle of chains behind them. This building, along with the cemetery behind it, the Howard Street Cemetery where Giles Corey was pressed to death, and additional stops are part of the evening ghost tours of Salem. However, in 2012 the deteriorating jail buildings were transformed into luxury apartments and a restaurant! I don’t think I’d want to live there.
The Hawthorne Hotel was built on land that was formerly Bridget Bishop’s apple orchard. The most haunted spot within the hotel is supposedly room 612.
Nathaniel Hawthorne who is the American author best known for writing The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables was born in a house near the Hawthorne Hotel. The house itself was moved to the property of the House of the Seven Gables so that it would be preserved and be available for people to visit. Our time was short, so we did not go there.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was the great-great grandson of Judge Hathorne, who played a major role in the outcomes of the witch trials. To separate himself from this deplorable legacy, Nathaniel added the “w” to his last name. One of Nathaniel’s famous short stories, is based directly from the Salem witch trials. “Young Goodman Brown” tells of a Salem man who becomes increasingly paranoid that his wife and fellow villagers are in with the devil.
We were impressed with the app, and look forward to the one we have for the Freedom Trail in Boston.
Loved the blog. Thanks for the post. Jerry & Belinda.
Glad you enjoyed it- and let me knnnow. 🙂 (See you soon!)