Salem Quicky Witchy Tour

06/16/2024

My advice to tourists always is to get out of the downtown area and see the real Salem. Seventeenth century houses are scattered about, eighteenth century houses are pretty common on Federal St., along with many many early nineteenth century houses on the beautiful Chestnut St.! And don't forget the historic Salem Common. More details in the comments.

06/05/2024

The Pickman House became the Charter St. Cemetery Welcome Center only a couple of years ago after decades of being used for storage by the Peabody Essex Museum.

05/27/2024

Johnny Cash alert. He's descended from an early Salem settler.

The “lightning tree” tonight, with the Mother Tree in the background. The stone in the middle with the light on it in the center is William Cash, Johnny Cash is his direct descendent, Johnny had that stone made for him!
Old Burial Point, Salem, Ma.

05/10/2024

05/02/2024

The exhibit returns on July 6 with a large number of original arifacts from the era.
Once and for all the Witchcraft Trials were not caused by moldy bread!
"Many inventive theories circulate about the Salem Witch Trials, but the crisis was not caused by poisoning from rotten bread, property disputes or an outbreak of encephalitis. The panic grew from a society threatened by nearby fighting between the British and the French over occupying Maine, as well as a malfunctioning political and judicial system in a setting rife with religious conflict and intolerance."

Learn more about Salem Witch Trials, including a comprehensive history, today’s impact, and how you can explore the crisis at Peabody Essex Museum.

04/28/2024

In the 1890s!

Regarded as one of the first souvenir items to reference the Salem witch trials, these sterling silver spoons were first sold in downtown Salem by Daniel Low & Company in the 1890s. In addition to being the first of its kind in Salem, Daniel Low’s “witch spoon” is also credited as the first design to spark the souvenir spoon craze in America!

As the story goes, the idea to produce souvenir spoons came to Low after witnessing the growing trade of commemorative silver spoons in Europe. Upon returning home, he took a gamble and commissioned the design of a souvenir spoon along with three “witch” pins. These spoons were decorated with the simple design of a witch astride a broomstick alongside the word “Salem.”

With the massive success of the first spoon, Low went on to commission a second, more ornate design the following year. This spoon consisted of a more intricate design, including a black cat, broomstick, the place and date of the trials, and a witch flying in front of the moon. This design was an instant success and considerably overshadowed the first pattern.

Several years ago we were fortune to receive a donation of Daniel Low spoons, which are now on display in our museum store. This micro exhibit includes two tea spoons with both the first and second designs, an orange spoon and berry fork decorated with the first design, and a limited edition pewter plate.

Which is your favorite design?

04/18/2024

Among the 20 victims in 1692 was this distinguished and elderly lady who seemingly was accused by fallout from a family feud, tho 115 community members wrote letters in her defense. She was mother to 11 children! (Though condemned to the gallows she escaped jail with the help of her many friends but had to hide out till the hysteria passed.)
"Among Mary Bradbury’s descendants are two distinguished literary figures: Ralph Waldo Emerson (a fourth great-grandson) and Ray Bradbury (a seventh great-grandson) [The GREAT sci fi writer, so influential amongst baby boomers and the author of many short stories and Farenheit 451 and Something Wicked This Way Comes, among others.] Also among her descendants are Mercury and Apollo astronaut Alan Shepard, Superman actor Christopher Reeve, and President Ulysses S. Grant."
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/8s1hAbDJeaohPFc1/?mibextid=oFDknk

The elderly Mary Bradbury, loved and respected by most of the members of her community, was convicted of witchcraft in September of 1692.

This week's feature takes us to the home of Mary and Thomas Bradbury in Salisbury, Massachusetts.

The witchcraft panic had been growing for several months when 75-year-old Mary (Perkins) Bradbury was first accused. This action was disturbing to many of her neighbors and a surge of support gathered on her behalf over the coming weeks.

By the summer, 115 friends and neighbors had signed a petition in an effort to save Mary's life. It read, in part, “… [she has] a courteous and peaceable disposition and carriage. Neither did any of us (some of whom have lived in the town with her above fifty years) ever hear or ever know that she ever had any differences or falling-out with any of her neighbors – man, woman, or child, – but was always ready and willing to do for them what lay in her power night and day …”

Among her supporters were town luminary, Major Robert Pike, and Salisbury’s pastor, James Allen. Mistress Bradbury herself wrote to the judges, insisting she had led a good and upright life. Her husband added that she had been a good neighbor and a good mother to their eleven children and four grandchildren.

Even with this public support, the Bradburys were soon forced to confront the deadly situation at hand. Though Mary was convicted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer, she was one of the fortune few who were able to escape the hangman's noose. With the help of her many friends, and her wealth, Mary Bradbury escaped from jail and lived as a fugitive. She remained in hiding into 1693, finally returning to her family in May of that year.

Memorial stones were placed for Mary and Thomas Bradbury in the Salisbury Colonial Burying ground in June of last year. Though we do not know the precise location of their burial plots, it is believed this cemetery is where they were laid to rest.

Head over to our website to read more about the case of Mary Bradbury and see the site where she lived with her husband Thomas in 1692.

https://salemwitchmuseum.com/locations/mary-and-thomas-bradbury-home-site-of/

04/08/2024

Eerie eclipse shadows in Salem!

04/02/2024

I always think that Mercy Lewis, although she was one of the accusers (the oldest), was a tragic figure in the Witch Trials; she obviously suffered from PTSD! Her parents were killed by Native Americans in Maine, leaving her an orphan. Her grandparents then took her in, and she subsequently saw them and other family members also killed by Natives. Unpredictable armed Natives could show up any time at a remote New England farm. A visit from them might be calmed by a meal, but settlers were also killed or abducted as slaves.
From Wikipedia: The Lewis family next settled in Salem. Mercy Lewis's uncle, Thomas Skilling, died from an injury brought on by the Indian attack. In 1683, the Lewis family traveled back to the island in Casco Bay. The second attack of the Native Americans in 1689 resulted in the death of Mercy's parents and made her an orphan.[1]
On September 30, 1689, an attack by Native Americans killed her grandparents, aunts, uncles and most of her cousins. As a result, the 14-year-old Mercy was placed as a servant in the household of Rev. Burroughs. By 1691, she had moved back to Salem, where a married sister was living; she became a servant in Thomas Putnam's household.[2]

On April 1, 1692, Mercy Lewis had a vision of a dazzling man, who scared the witches who had been assaulting her. Soon, the room disappeared and she was in a brightly illuminated place, where she heard voices singing psalms and songs about Christ and the book of life.

03/19/2024

The Pickman house, one of the oldest in Salem, hid for decades in plain sight under a Victorian mansard facade after being identified by a sharp eyed passerby who was taking a course from Abbott Lowell Cummings (bio in comments), the leading expert on seventeen century architecture. Now it serves as the Welcome Center for the adjacent Charter St. Cemetery, one of the oldest known in the country, after years serving as storage rooms for the Peabody Essex Museum.

03/12/2024

Samantha statue is out of sight just to the right.

02/26/2024

We've heard soooooo many variations on this tale of the "witch cake" from soooooo many toir guides. Nice to get a definitive version from a trusted Salem source.

On this day, in the year 1692, the witch cake experiment was conducted in the Salem Village parsonage.

What is a witch cake? This was an English folk magic recipe, an old method for attempting to discern a witch hiding in the community. Urine was taken from the bewitched, mixed with rye meal, and baked on hot ashes. This concoction was then fed to a dog. The hope was this would harm the witch or force them to reveal themselves.

By this time, the illness of Betty Parris and Abigail Williams had persisted for more than a month. With no solution in sight, witchcraft was feared.

On a day when the Reverend and his wife were away, Mary Sibley, a close neighbor, arrived with a solution. Why not try folk magic? While magic was frowned upon, considered a dangerous invitation to the devil, these old traditions persisted in colonial New England. It was not uncommon to draw on these beliefs from a bygone time, particularly when bewitchment was feared. In light of the continuing torments of the young girls, Goodwife Sibley came forward with instructions for Tituba and John Indian, an enslaved married couple owned by Reverend Parris, and the odious mixture was created.

The experiment was a failure. Reverend Parris was enraged to find folk magic had been attempted in his home. Far from alleviating the sickness, two more girls soon began to show signs of bewitchment.

It is important to note the repercussions for those involved in this experiment. Tituba, who followed the instructions of her neighbor, was soon accused of witchcraft and arrested. She would spend more than a year in prison. Mary Sibley, who openly admitted to suggesting the cake, was never accused of witchcraft. Though she was publicly reprimanded by Reverend Parris, her fate was markedly different from the enslaved woman who followed her directions.

This fateful day marks an important escalation in the witchcraft panic. The Salem witch hunt was about to begin.

02/16/2024

A couple of weeks ago.

Eerie cold nights at The Old Burial Point!
Established in 1637, Salem, Massachusetts.

02/10/2024

"Hot" weather today. :(
Dunno what will be left tomorrow! :(

02/08/2024

Salem So Sweet this weekend.
Ice and chocolate.

02/07/2024

02/04/2024

Interesting discussion of the Samantha statue. Eric Jay Dolin IS a "trusted" source, unlike Bill O'Reilly. Eric has spent a lot of time in libraries, has written several scholarly but fun books and lives in the next town from Salem. This page will always try to present news from only from real historians who've been around for a while. And as long as we're on the topic of authenticity, if you come from afar for October in Salem, PLEASE try to tour with an established company and not one that breezes into town just for the month and might tell you that a horse was hung for witchcraft on the post in front of the Witch House (only one of the outlandish stories actually overheard by a legit tour guide), which BTW wasn't there in 1692 or anytime before the Witch House was opened to tourists in 1945. Check their page and see how far they go back. Or if they only post in October. I live next to the Merchant Hotel and constantly hear the one about the Witch of the Ward House, which has been debunked over and over. Soooooo annoying. There's a lot of real spooky stories associated with that house, but the Witch of the Ward House is one that they have a picture they can hold up. Just ARGHHH! End of rant.

I find this statue of Samantha from bewitched to be fascinating. It is in Salem, Massachusetts, and it represents an actor and a character that I would argue most people under the age of 40 know nothing about. It’ll be fascinating to see in another 40 or 50 years whether this statue is still here, since hardly anybody who walks by it will know what it’s supposed to represent. 

01/29/2024

On this day in 1692, Tituba, the enslaved servant for Rev. Samuel Parris of Salem Village, said a hog or a great black dog would leap from the shadows and say "Serve me!" before assuming the shape of a man. Sometimes, she said, he had a little yellow bird or a pair of cats - one red and one black - that were the size of a small dog.
The Devil continued to say "Serve me!" until she signed his book in her own blood, making the mark of a crescent. She said she saw nine marks in the Devil's book and identified two of them as Sarah Good and Sarah Osborn.
The 1692 Salem Witchcraft Trials were off and running.

01/17/2024

Nice view of a Victorian house among the mostly Federal houses that ring Salem Common. It's for sale now. You can Google your favorite real estate website for 25 Washington Sq. for a look at the interior. We can only hope the new owners will continue to decorate for Halloween!

Today was the first real snow storm of the season and I was out there for a few hours taking pictures. But this is the only pic that I took in landscape so it gets its own post. 😁 I’d like to apologize to this couple who are now stuck in my picture. Normally I would have waited for them to walk by but my phone had like 3% battery at that moment, so this is how it had to be. 🤷‍♂️😬

01/06/2024

Crowds are gone but the Witch House is open all winter from 12 to 4 Thursdays through Sundays.

12/26/2023

Merry Christmas from Salem!
Only 311 days until Halloween!

11/18/2023

A 1949 story published in Life Magazine, tremendously popular in the mid twentieth century.
Note: There is NO evidence that Tituba ever told "the girls" stories, taght them magic or danced in the woods. No story has been more embellished upon by fanciful authors than the Salem Witch Trials! All we have is the courtroom testimony! AND this is the home of a Witch Trials judge, Jonathan Corwin, not to be confused with his nephew, George Corwin, who rounded up and imprisoned the accused witches.

LIFE Photographer Nina Leen’s wide breadth of work ranged from fashion to documentary to animal portraiture. With an expansive portfolio, it comes as no surprise that she did not shy away from the macabre. For example, Leen had some of this work featured in a spread for an October 1957 issue of LI...

11/02/2023

https://patch.com/massachusetts/salem/salem-halloween-2023-record-1-2-million-visitors-invade-witch-city?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_term=seasonal+%26+holidays&utm_campaign=autopost&utm_content=salem-ma&fbclid=IwAR3_li2QVJZCoB2ZsnNgzlC3ocgYrj2jL7ZVsAYDRSRdgapiIh5JfCGSxGA

The numbers top the estimated 950,000 visitors in 2022 and included 21,000 via the Commuter Rail on Halloween Day alone.

10/31/2023

From City Councillor and photographer extraordinaire Ty Hapworth. Happy Halloween!

10/30/2023

10/30/2023

10/24/2023

The actors who played the three kids visited here visited last weekend! Allison, who shot all her scenes in Hollywood, had never been here before, was moved to tears!

SALEM — How do you give the Hocus Pocus cast a Hocus Pocus tour hitting all the Hocus Pocus filming scenes, without random Hocus Pocus tours full of fans noticing

10/22/2023

If I had a dime for every Hocus Pocus T-shirt I've seen over the past few days in Salem...
https://www.facebook.com/100064580058209/posts/717155380447124/?mibextid=CDWPTG

10/19/2023

From PurelySalem