Salem Witch Trials

Jill's Journal: The history courses offered at the junior high and high school I attended were anything but compelling. Yet, in spite of the bland textbook presentation, I do remember finding two things really interesting: ancient Egypt and the Salem witch trials in Puritan Massachusetts.

Probably because of this, I was so excited to go to Salem. My expectations must have been too high, however, because I'm sad to say I found it to be the most disappointing stop on our entire trip thus far! I must have expected a quaint little seaport town still smarting from the hysteria of 1692 when several teenage girls accused many women (and men) of witchcraft. Well over a hundred people were imprisoned and 20 were put to death. Years after the hysteria, one of the girls involved, then a grown woman, issued an apology and confession, claiming to have made up the whole thing for sport.

What I found was something very different from my expectations: Salem today feels more like a big, busy city, not the quaint little town I envisioned. It has a very large modern-day Wiccan (witch) and New Age community and very few mementos from the past. Gallows Hill, for instance, where the accused were executed (19 were hung and one was pressed to death), is now a skateboard park.

What Salem does have, however, is one kooky and macabre museum and show after another, most capitalizing on the witch thing. There’s a wax museum, umpteen witchcraft museums, and even a Lizzie Borden museum (called 40 Whacks!). Absolutely none were appropriate for little ones. Salem milks the sensationalism and one local said the month leading up to Halloween is their busiest time of the year.

I did take the girls to the official “Salem Witch Museum,” which told the basic story in a theatre-type presentation without adding in extra gore. It also had precisely one artifact: the beam which hung over the doorway of the Salem jail (which was razed in 1956).





The dead were not allowed to be buried on consecrated ground (in a cemetery), but there is a Witch Trials Memorial in town. It’s almost like a stone garden, with the name of each of the condemned, their date of execution, and method of death on individual benches jutting out from the wall. The entrance bears the words of the condemned and their pleas of innocence. I heard a woman next to us call it the “Wailing Wall” for witches. Many people still pay respects and leave gifts.

The girls did get a kick out of the “Bewitched” statue. They have no idea who Samantha is, but they loved that she was hovering over the moon on a broomstick. This picture is from the back of the statue because the girls thought it was absolutely wonderful I let them sit on the moon!




Nathaniel Hawthorne (celebrated author of “The Scarlet Letter”) was born in Salem and one of his most popular books was “The House of the Seven Gables.” That actual home which inspired his tale still exists, but the girls were far more interested in something across the street: Ye Olde Pepper Companie. It is the oldest candy store (1806) in America and still makes some of its candy the old-fashioned way. It is best known for Salem Gibralters, the first commercially-sold candy in the U.S. and apparently known the world over. Hawthorne himself mentioned the delicacy in more than one of his books!