SALEM, Mass. - At the end of a plain suburban street, lined with neat little houses and flower beds and cars, is a windswept farmhouse with dark, blank windows.
Spooky Salem's Haunted Heritage
Vines hang like collapsed waifs against the old walls. In the fading light past sunset, an old barn looks like it is crying black, rusted tears.
Surrounding this Rebecca Nurse Homestead is a wooden fence, with criss-crossed, rough-hewn ends pointing menacingly in all directions.
The place seems to want to be left alone. Just as its owner, 70-year-old Rebecca Nurse, had wanted to be left alone during that terrible March day in 1692, when the constables of Salem, Mass., came and took her away from her beloved homestead, accusing her of witchcraft.
I had visited her homestead several times before. Each time it was the same. Although the homestead was open for tours, I'd never seen anyone around. It was hard to find, after all. Even the locals of Salem didn't know quite where it was, five miles out of town.
It's better this way, really. To be here, alone, with the wind sighing and the dead leaves rustling.
At the edge of the homestead, a cemetery huddles under old, proud trees. I walk across the wide field of tangled weeds to pay my respects.
The marble monument in its center stands as a silent remembrance to those days in 1692 when, before the hysteria subsided, 19 people were hanged, one man was pressed to death, and two dogs were hanged for giving young girls the "evil eye."
And as October crescendos into Halloween, the biggest day of the year for witches, Salem becomes a vortex of haunted happenings. The town has a 24-day schedule of activities, from now until Oct.31 this year, called . . . Haunted Happenings.
Despite its capitalizing on tourism, Salem, about 45 minutes northeast of Boston, is a fine destination. It has managed to combine good-natured thrills with a solemn reminder of an ignominious time in human history.
Along with places like The Crypt restaurant and the Tangled Web bookstore (specializing in murder mysteries) plus the stereotypical witch logos - in Salem a witch on a broomstick is the symbol of the fire department, YMCA, and sports teams - Salem has actual practicing witches who take their "religion" very seriously. Many also work hard to dispel the eye-of-newt and broomstick-flying myths.
"If witches could fly, I'd be in Hawaii right now," said Justin Melanson, a self-defined witch and tour guide at the Witch Village attraction.
Justin and other witches you'll run into in town, including Laurie Cabot, the official witch of Salem, will tell you that witchcraft is not evil, that witches do not worship Satan, but simply live in harmony with the earth and its energies.
The witches I met seemed to have developed a good-natured tolerance for the misconceptions. They're used to questions, the most recent waves coming after the release of "The Blair Witch Project" and the TV show "Charmed."
Some visitors to Salem are in search of more on the ways of witches. But the majority - a million come every year now, from all over the world - are simply out for a little bit of the creeps.
The brooding, gothic Witch Museum, at Washington Square in the center of Salem, is a good first stop.
It provides a clear grounding on how the town of Salem was caught up in witch hysteria.
In a darkened room, lights come up on various scenarios built into coves in the wall. You learn how the boredom and the repression of a puritanical society made the time just right for the imaginations of several young girls to run wild, how they fell, consumed in fits, and convinced a terrified town that the devil was at work.
You will learn about Rebecca Nurse, a woman with an impeccable Christian reputation, accused by the girls of witchcraft. She was actually found innocent in court, but after an outburst from her accusers the decision was reversed.
Saved for the end is one of the most gruesome stories - and the one that some say had the biggest effect on the public conscience.
Giles Corey was an octogenarian who refused to plead one way or the other. (Those who pled guilty were set free, since nobody wanted to find out what would happen if you killed a real witch.)
To wring a confession, Corey's inquisitors literally piled stones on top of him. But he would not confess, instead, saying "more weight" until the stones crushed him.
Recently opened is the exhibit "Witches," which traces the evolution of the stereotypical witch (everything from The Wicked Witch of the West to Samantha and Endora on "Bewitched"). It leaves visitors with the thought that witches are merely one of many groups persecuted out of a sense of fear.
Another popular attraction on the circuit is the Witch Dungeon, a reconstruction of the long-gone original.
After watching a scene from the trial of Sarah Goode, visitors are taken into the very sobering dungeon, lined with tiny, barred rooms carved into the musty walls.
Visitors can only imagine the conditions there in 1692, with no light and no heat. Prisoners were expected to pay for their board and lodging - and their chains - in jails. And so the poorer the prisoner, the tinier his or her cell: some couldn't even sit down in their cells. They even were expected to pay for their own hangings - although the townspeople would take up a collection rather than be disappointed.
Several members of the witchcraft court are interred at the bleak Burying Point cemetery on Charter Street, one of the oldest burial grounds in the country.
The earliest stone still standing is marked 1673, but the cemetery was in use in the 1630s; the only known gravestone of a passenger on the Mayflower is here.
Among the members of the court are Justice John Hathorne - related to author Nathaniel Hawthorne, (who added a "w" to his name as if to drive some space between himself and his relative).
Nathaniel Hawthorne worked at the imposing Custom House on Salem's Derby Street. He was a frequent visitor at the home of his second cousin, Susannah Ingersoll, at what's known as the House of Seven Gables. A candlelit tour of this rambling home, with its secret rooms and eyes-following-you portraits, is definitely recommended for any itinerary focusing on creepiness.
On the Liberty Street side of the cemetery is the new Witch Trials Memorial, a solemn, rock-slabbed area with 19 bench-like stones commemorating the 19 people hanged.
Inscribed at the entrance are the victims' final words, proclaiming their innocence as they went to the gallows.
A few paces farther down Liberty is the Witch Village, which has an odd mix of hokey and illuminating displays.
Outside the building is one of those cutout figures (in this case, of course, it's a witch) with a place to put your own face and take a photo. Within is a gift shop stuffed with potions, books, T-shirts and moon rings. The "village" is actually just a series of rooms with semi-cheesy tableaux about witches. But the tour is led by a practicing witch, which is how I met Justin, a Gen-X witch if ever there was one, with one ring in his nose and another in his lip.
Though his tone was over-the-top spooky, his words imparted a great deal of knowledge about witch lore. Justin said he had a degree in theology.
Figuring most of the people who'd migrated to Salem were serious about their spirituality, I visited Angelica of the Angels, a store jammed with angel-related items with a psychic in a little room in the back.
With so many spiritual people to choose from, it was hard to decide which psychic to visit, but I knew this was the town for a reading.
Angelica of the Angels was recommended to me and, liking the smell of the incense on the stand outside the store, I went in and paid my $35 for a half-hour reading.
The psychic, sporting a velour sweatsuit, had a variety of tools of the trade on her table, but chose to read "the stones."
I put one hand on the stones, one hand on my thigh, and thought about what I wanted to know. Then I chose eight stones from the pile and she began her journey into my soul.
As the minutes ticked down (she pointed the quartz clock toward me), she sat, eyes closed, and relayed the advice being given to her by the spirits.
Sometimes she interrupted herself to talk to the spirits, saying "Yes, yes, I know," to quiet them down.
I figured I could agree with her when she said my mother was a strong individual and I ought to keep my distance.
But she lost me with the rock saying I should to go back to school to be able to get to that supervisory-level position I wanted at my job. (The very word "supervisor" makes my lips curl.)
I began losing faith entirely when she commented, "You're not married, correct?" I mean, any good psychic ought to at least take note of the wedding band on the finger, right?
When I said I was married, I thought she might open her eyes but she kept her cool and said simply, "You are? Oh, that's all right," and told me my husband should not get in a car with any drunk drivers.
I had already paid the $2 extra for the tape of the session. Well, at least I can record over it.
Still, Salem boasts some impressively scary places, including one of the four most haunted buildings in the United States, and the remains of what was apparently a rather nightmarish old prison dating from the early 1800s.
We stood in front of the dark, empty prison grounds, where 300 inmates were once held without heat or indoor plumbing. The prison was used until the early 1980s with conditions, at least according to Megan, not getting much better in all that time. Maybe I was projecting, but the air felt palpably sorrowful.
I walked expectantly behind the tour group down Howard Street, which Megan pronounced the most haunted street in Salem (it helped that it ran right next to the Howard Street cemetery).
She said many people on the tours had either felt a presence behind them or felt a hand on their shoulder; some, apparently, had even seen the ghost said to haunt the place. I waited for the terror of strange fingers on my arm, or a cold, icy presence, but to no avail.
I decided I ought to take one more pass at Howard Street before heading home. Maybe the ghost hadn't wanted a large audience. Maybe if I left myself open and vulnerable, I might finally be rewarded with my own ghost experience.
It was raining as I got out of my car and walked along the quiet street, peering into the outcroppings of pale gravestones, waiting to be shocked or at least startled by chimerical visions. I saw nothing but the hulking outline of the prison as it slowly emerged in the pre-dawn light.
The rain made little tap tap taps on the leaves overhead. A street lamp cast a stark white wash over the wet, muddy street.
It seemed perfect. Just right. I wondered if I needed an incantation, but had none. Justin would have known what to do. I snapped a few pictures at nothing in particular, hoping maybe to catch some of those "orbs" Megan had talked about, and climbed back into the car.
It was getting too light now for ghosts. Still, I kept one eye on the rear-view mirror as I drove slowly away.
[Source published - October 17 1999]
