Centuries after hunt, Salem draws crowds

SALEM, Mass. – Stands selling Salem memorabilia, novelty items, costume accessories and… SALEM, Mass. – Stands selling Salem memorabilia, novelty items, costume accessories and light-up toys and trinkets filled every street. Local shops opened their door and welcomed in the many tourists.

Sight-seeing tours of the witch dungeon, villages, the original mansion, the jails and the museums are offered daily from April until November with the Haunted Happenings feature around Halloween.

Thousands of people each year flock to Salem, Mass., to watch local townspeople re-create the many historical urban legends that exist within Salem’s city limits. This Halloween did not prove to be an exception.

“This time of the year is great. As soon as one Halloween season ends, we begin planning for the next,” said Janet Middleton, a lifelong resident of Salem.

A spooky surprise seemed to wait at every turn – some part of the tourist atmosphere, others planted by someone just wanting to get a good scare out of someone. Either way, there was no escaping the goose bumps and jumps that the atmosphere had to offer.

Vibrant red, green and blue strobe lights reflected off of the “memorable gothic revival building” that is now the home of the Salem Witch Museum in Washington Square in the heart of Salem.

Ghostly moans wafted through the crowds of people coming to check out the legends of the town. Some dressed as witches, devils and angels, while others donned costumes to resemble popular horror film characters. Other people wore no costume at all and just checked out the sights.

Salem was more than the site of the infamous witch trials of the 17th century. According to some locals and tourists, ghosts wander the area on a daily basis because of the bad omens that trouble the area.

One sheriff of Salem was rumored to try to strangle the truth out of people. After Sheriff Corwin’s death, he was buried in the foundation of the Joshua Ward House on Federal Street in Salem.

The Ward House is still said to be haunted by Corwin and an unknown woman with frizzy, black hair and a stark white complexion.

After Corwin, Salem was never able to keep a sheriff for an extended period of time. The sheriffs died, disappeared or were forced to leave because of illness.

The last sheriff Salem had came three years after the witch trials. He began to have severe heart problems, so he decided to retire and leave Salem. Once he left, he was perfectly healthy.

Salem decided to do away with the position of sheriff, and they’ve been getting along fine without one since then.

Salem is best known, however, for the witch trials that took place there in 1692.

Many women were accused of practicing witchcraft and working for the Devil.

Supposedly, some women tried to pass these practices on to younger girls in the town. Once word got out, the people of Salem wanted to put the women to death.

“At first, the girls would not answer. They simply screamed and writhed or did blasphemous things, such as dashing a bible against the wall. Gradually, they began to give name [to the accused],” according to original transcripts from the court proceedings.

According to the account of the trials, 19 innocent people were hanged in Salem in 1692 because the judge and townspeople claimed that the Devil was at work through them.

The Witch hysteria not only enveloped Salem, but all 34 towns and villages of Essex County.

“Hundreds of accused witches filled the jails, awaiting trials, and many went insane while they waited. Some died of captivity, 19 were hanged, and one old man was crushed to death near downtown Salem,” according to the transcripts. “A Salem minister, accused by teen-age girls of being the Devil, was captured in Maine, hanged here and had his head removed later that year by another minister. Salem’s leading merchant and his wife escaped the hangman, but returned a year later to plot revenge on the accusers and the lawmen who tormented the witch victims.”

The type of cell each person got was based on the amount of money the person had. No money meant a tiny cell, and some were so cramped that the prisoners could not even sit down, let alone lie down.

In the Witch Dungeon Museum, tourists got to see a re-creation of what these dungeons looked like.

These stories, along with many others, shine some light into the haunted past of Salem.

On each of the tours offered to Salem visitors, all the participants were asked to take pictures. Many of the creepy pictures that the town has on record in Salem were sent in by tourists, who were taking pictures in the town and discovered when they got the pictures developed that ghosts, fuzzy images of distant people, smoke or ghostly figments could be seen.

Whether or not ghosts exist, Salem has built its reputation on ghouls and tales of witchcraft.