Hanging Out in Witch City

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SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS — Every day is Halloween here in Witch City — as this town of 45,000 on the North Shore, about 25 miles northeast of Boston, proudly proclaims itself at practically every commercial corner of town. The Witch City Mall is located downtown. The local high school athletic teams are named the Witches. Folks dressed as witches, both young and grown up, wandered the city’s streets, which are filled with shops banking on the theme. There is Witch City Wicks, a candle shop; Witch Tee’s, selling T-shirts; HausWitch Home + Healing; Blackcraft Salem; and Wicked Good Books, to name a few.

Salem is also home to a bevy of museums and historic homes. One of the most popular is the House of the Seven Gables, made famous by writer Nathaniel Hawthorne in his 1851 novel by that name. The house was built in 1668, eventually expanding to 17 rooms and more than 8,000 square feet. Hawthorne was related to its 19^th-century owners and attended occasional social events there, though he was reportedly somewhat of a recluse. I bought a copy of The Scarlet Letter in the gift shop, a nicely bound volume to which I hope to add a few more classics down the road. Just what I need: More books.

We picked Salem not because of a particular affinity for witches, though the history of what occurred here in 1692 fascinates me. More on that in a moment. My Beautiful Mystery Companion, daughter Abbie, and I are staying just off Salem Common in a third-floor condo that cost a fraction of a similarly sized place in Boston. We rented a car in Boston and have a few daytrips planned, so Salem seemed a logical choice.

Our first full day was spent exploring Witch City, starting with the Old Burial Point Cemetery. Here, on Sept. 19, 1692, Giles Corey was “pressed to death” because he refused to stand trial for being a witch. It is unclear where the executed were ultimately buried, but many of the victims are memorialized at this cemetery with bench markers along the cemetery’s periphery.

Between February 1692 and May 1693, more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. A total of 30 were found guilty, with 14 women and five men executed by hanging. One posting describes that period around Salem as a “brief period of hysteria in the New World.”  That brief period has led now to a city that celebrates witches in a light-hearted way. It is likely hard to find a place to stay in Salem around Halloween.

John Proctor is both a real-life figure and the fictional protagonist of The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller that dramatized the Salem witch trials. Proctor, a well-to-do landowner and tavern owner, was convicted along with his wife, Elizabeth, for witchcraft. Proctor was hanged, but his wife received a reprieve because she was pregnant. Proctor’s house, a few miles out of town and now privately owned, was featured in Farmhouse Fixers, a television series about restoring New England houses and barns that features Jon Knight, front man for the once-boy-now-middle-aged band, New Kids on the Block — now known as NKOTB.

My BMC and I greatly enjoy this show, which for part of one season featured work that Knight and his coworkers did on the John Proctor house. We drove up to the house, which is just a few dozen feet off a busy highway at a sharp curve. I got out of the rental, walked up to the house, careful not to trespass on private property, and took photos. Like many old houses in Salem, the Proctor House is painted charcoal black — brighter hues not being easily available in the 17^th century. The darker color is also heat-absorbent, important in frigid New England.

Witches aside, Salem reflects the political preferences of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, very liberal and welcoming to all types of folks, a decent sampling of whom we encountered during our time there. That tolerance might explain the biker-looking fellow wearing heavy lace-up boots and walking a black cat on a leash downtown. The cat was pretty well trained. (I don’t plan to try to leash walk Tater, our 16-pound patriarch of critters.) Sitting on the steps of the Peabody Essex Museum, another fellow has a python, or maybe a boa constrictor, wrapped around his body, as he holds the snake’s head away from his face. I declined to get close enough for either a photo or snake identification.

The weather was chamber-of-commerce perfect for our trip, abundant sunshine combined with temperate temperatures — great weather to walk a black cat on the brick-lined streets of downtown Salem.

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