I thought it might be fun to blog about my trip to Salem, Massachusetts not only to share the experience with you all, but so I could remember it myself later on!
First off, I flew up to Hartford, CT on Wednesday night & drove straight to the hotel in Springfield, MA. Thursday I spent the whole day helping Chad at Equine Affaire, which basically meant I spent nearly 12 hours straight standing or walking. After it was over, I crashed for the night. Friday morning I left Springfield at about 9:30 & wound up taking mostly 2-lane roads the whole way to Salem to avoid the toll roads.
Let me say this – sight-seeing alone is not for the faint of heart. If you can’t handle going to dinner or a movie alone, you probably won’t be able to handle vacations or day-trips by yourself. This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this, but going to New England in the fall has always been something I’ve wanted to do and I’ve been fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials for some time. And as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I made my way to downtown Salem and immediately headed for the water. I had to see it before I did anything else. I parked kind of out of the way down near the harbor a block or so down from the House of the Seven Gables. There was a tour starting later so regrettably I left without seeing much of the property.
I walked a couple of blocks more to the Derby Warf. Now, I don’t know how long the wharf really is, but it felt like it was half a mile and with the Atlantic on either side, it was frigid! I wish the lighthouse had been bigger, more like what you traditionally imagine a lighthouse to be, but it was very neat to see something that had been built in 1871 & is still in use today. On the walk back to the shore, I noticed many of the houses facing the harbor had balconies and widow’s walks. I could imagine the women of the town looking fervently at the water waiting for the ships to bring their loved ones home.
I crossed Derby Street through Orange Street and the houses were so closely set to one another. You could literally sit in your house and peer through your neighbor’s windows without binoculars. They could probably pass you a cup of sugar from house to house without having to go outside!
I turned off of Orange Street onto Essex and passed the Hawthorne Hotel. It wasn’t as cold away from the waterfront but it was not warm by any stretch of the imagination. I passed Crow Haven Corner, a witch shop and Remember Salem which is a shop dedicated to Harry Potter. Had I not been to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter earlier this year, I probably would have spent a fortune in there!
I turned back around and walked to Washington Square and passed a wedding that was starting in the park. I went on up to Brown Street where an imposing statue of Roger Conant stood outside of the Salem Witch Museum. There was another tour starting in just a few minutes so I bought my ticket and got in line behind a bunch of tenth graders from Maine that had just read The Crucible. The museum was actually a little trippy and full of wax figures. Had I know that, I would’ve been a little less gung-ho to check it out.
If you don’t know much about the Witch Trials then I’ll give you a brief run-down. Back in 1692 in Puritanical Salem, 150 townspeople were accused of witchcraft. Of those 150, 19 were put to death by hanging and one man was pressed to death. It started out by young girls who were bored and not allowed to have any fun. Once they started accusing people, other people hopped on board the witchcraft train. The people that were convicted actually did not practice witchcraft, but it was a way for people to get back at those who had wronged them. Giles Corey even testified against his own wife as the result of a marital spat. Also, anyone who entered a plea (guilty or not guilty) had his or her property confiscated, so even if you claimed you were not guilty, the village took control of anything you owned. So, say your neighbor had more than you and you were envious by claiming he was a witch was the easiest way to take away all he had amassed. Finally the state stepped in and put an end to the hysteria and eventually the young girls that started the whole thing admitted to making the accusations for no real reason.
The Salem Witch Museum tells the more in-depth history of the trials and then goes into the evolution of witches from Pagan women who were proficient at using herbs for cures and midwives to the witches seen in pop culture and Wiccans that practice today. I found it interesting that Satan and evil have no place in their religion.
Once I left that tour, I went back down to Essex and up a few more blocks to some souvenir shops and even went into Hex, a witch shop. It was a little freaky at first, but there weren’t any dead bats or jars of eyeballs so I thought that was a positive sign. Hey, when you’re in Salem, you’ve got to have a look around, right?
I did a little more shopping when I was done at Crow Haven Corner but I had been out in the cold for nearly 5 hours, walking constantly again. I was tired, cold and hungry and the car was several blocks away still. So, I slowly made my way back to the waterfront and past the House of the Seven Gables again.
I was so surprised at how courteous the drivers in Salem were. The pedestrians ALWAYS had the right-of-way and even when I was waiting for the light to turn so I could cross, more than once drivers stopped and waved me to go on. The town was very clean and welcoming. Also, I thought the town would be small, sort of preserved in its Puritanical state but that’s not the case at all. It’s not hokey or fake, the town has grown around it’s gruesome past yet still preserved the history and memory of the witch hysteria.
I’m very glad I had the chance to go check out Salem and would love to go back another time!
