Dali took a trip to Salem to check out the haunted happenings, and grabbed a few photos, too!
Earlier this month I had the opportunity to head to Salem, MA for the annual “Haunted Happenings” event, which is a sort of celebration of the town’s witchy history. The Salem Witch Trials of the late 1690s were horrendous, leading to at least 19 people being killed and hundreds imprisoned and actually starting in nearby Danvers, MA, then Salem Village. For a long while the residents of Salem wanted to forget about the ordeals, but time (and Hollywood) had different ideas, and now the area is a hub for travelers and tourism.
Anyhoo, I made my way there and took in some of the sights in possibly the busiest Saturday of the season (back on the 24th of October) and decided, hey, I should share this for Spooky Week! Here are a few photos of what we saw there, and some lite descriptions of each!
The Salem Witch Museum is possibly the biggest draw in the town, at least the biggest modern one. It’s designed to look and feel like an old fortress, sticking out like a sore thumb next to the normal houses next door. During this time of year it’s incredibly busy, with tickets selling out at 10PM the night before. It’s decorated with all sorts of witchy artefacts (those pumpkins were pretty neat). Inside the tour is divided into three sections. The main atrium is a circular room, with pivotal scenes from the Witch Trials depicted around the walls through lights and figures and props. It all encircles the center of the room, which is a glowing red circle with the names of all 19 that were wrongfully tried and killed.
Once this part of the tour is done, attendees are ushered into a sort of “history of witches” hallway display and a neat book store.
Here’s a photo of Roger Conant, the founder of Salem, Danvers, and other towns and villages in the area.
The Merchant Hotel is located right downtown in Salem, and is said to be tremendously haunted. The story goes that previous owners of the property held a Christmas party there one year, and while the merriment was taking place in the lower levels a loud sound was heard upstairs. The employees of the company throwing the party ran upstairs to find one of their coworkers being held up against a wall by an invisible hand around their neck. Needless to say they booked out of there, sold the place to a hotel management company, and here we are!
The House of the Seven Gables is the very same that served as the inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous novel. It’s gray/black because back in 1668 heating and cooling wasn’t easy year round, so to help conserve heat the homes of the time were painted black.
Listen, I’m a fan of LEGO, so seeing the town (and the Hocus Pocus locales) recreated in the medium is always a positive for me. These are found in the downtown windows of a museum.
The town is PACKED this time of year, obviously, and while the streets were packed and festive it was actually a down year, with nearly 100,000 fewer visitors than normal.
Of course a trip to the Boston area wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Dunkin Donuts, and the main building in Salem celebrated the festivities with neat purple slime decor.
And that’s Salem! There’s obviously plenty more to see and do, but even this small taste is a lot of fun to experience.
This piece is a part of SideQuesting’s Spooky Theme Week! Join us and see what scares us!
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