Tag Archives: Witch City

April 25, 2023

The Aesthetics of Ancestry

By daseger

I’m still simmering with anger and frustration over Salem’s “new” “Heritage” trail, confined to the downtown, anchored by commercial establishments presenting the sad tale of 1692 with pathetic mannequins which inspire laughter rather than learning, marked by a line of yellow paint applied in an egalitarian manner to both new concrete and old brick. All of my original objections are still standing, but they’ve had almost a year to fester. I’ve lost faith in so many people and institutions: city councillors, various public officials, even fellow historians and organizations which I thought were committed to the preservation and presentation of Salem’s rich heritage. I don’t see any understanding of what heritage tourism is in the realm of official or quasi-official Salem, much less any desire to follow its path. Indeed I wonder what heritage means to the people who have put together this heritage trail.

The words in the graphics above illustrate my concerns: a recent review of one of the two commercial institutions featured on the trail, the Salem Witch Museum, and some definitions of heritage by the Center for Heritage & Society at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I find the review to be very representative of those that the Salem Witch Museum has received, but of course, I am biased. There are certainly much better reviews, and there are also those which are substantive indictments: you can read them for yourself at the Tripadvisor site. But even many of the good reviews point out the dated nature of the presentation, the fact that the attraction is not a “Museum,” and its blatant commercialism. What is fascinating to me is that these reviews go back years (the Salem Witch Museum recently celebrated its 40th anniversary) and they are very repetitive, yet still the people keep coming and the dated dioramas endure: this is the most successful business in Salem, I believe, certainly the most successful attraction. There’s no attempt to update or improve the presentation, and why should there be? The people keep coming. But what does this institution have to do with Salem heritage and why does it have to be on the Salem Heritage Trail? The Witch Trials are certainly part of Salem’s heritage, though not, I would argue, as large a part as the City of Salem presents them to be—but that argument is certainly a lost cause! But is a dated diorama how we want to acknowlege this tragedy? Is there anything public or in any way reflective of the inclusion of the Salem Witch Museum on on the Salem Heritage Trail? The Salem Witch Museum will continue to be successful, no doubt, regardless of its inclusion on the Heritage Trail, so why can’t this one trail represent a more public and thoughtful presentation of Salem’s heritage in the fullest sense of the word? (I will never get an answer to this question)

I am not a tourism naysayer; I simply respect the past and want both Salem’s visitors and residents to experience its heritage in a layered and an engaging way. As I am writing this, I am looking up Chestnut Street as the Salem Trolley is making its way down, and I’m glad to see it. At least the tourists on board are exposed to more of Salem’s material heritage. It remains absolutely mystifying to me why the Salem Heritage Trail would not include the city’s oldest and largest Historic District, home to the Pickering House, the Phillips House, Hamilton Hall, the Salem Athenaeum, the Ropes Mansion, the Quaker Burying Ground, and streets of beautifully-preserved houses. There are no shops or restaurants or witch “attractions” over here: could that be the answer? Unfortunately the selection of paint in general, and that striking shade of yellow paint in particular, made the exclusion of residential historic districts a foregone conclusion: I know that most of my neighbors would welcome more walking tourists, but I doubt that many of them would like to see that yellow line run in front of their houses. The trolley is running past houses associated with a trio of brothers from a famous Salem family, the Bensons, and I’m wondering if the tourists on board are hearing anything about them, because I think their lives and works are representative of several important strands of Salem’s heritage. I’m sure Frank Weston Benson (residing at 14 Chestnut, 1862-1951) is getting a mention, as he was a pretty famous artist in his day, producing accessible paintings in a light-filled American Impressionist style as well as a succession of distinctive etchings primarily focused on wildfowl. His younger brother Henry (1866-1942) lived around the corner on Hamilton Street and served two terms as Salem’s mayor as well as the president of Salem’s largest business, the Naumkeag Steam Cotton Company. But I think it’s the brother between them, John Prentiss Benson (1865-1947), who is more evocative of an enduring Salem heritage, even though he seldom lived here in his adulthood (though he did design the massive and fantastic Colonial Revival mansion at 30 Chestnut Street).

A 1943 self-portrait by John Prentiss Benson and photograph of his younger self in Salem; Captain Samuel Benson of Salem as depicted by his grandson, John Prentiss Benson and Benson’s copy of “Reaper of Salem, S. Benson, Master, painted originally by Antoine Roux. All of the images and much of the text from this point on is taken from a lovely book entitled The Artistic Legacy of John Prentiss Benson, which was edited and published by the husband of Benson’s granddaughter in 2003. It’s really fabulous–with lots of family pictures and anecdotes.

I’ve never really appreciated maritime art, but I saw a painting that I really liked last week and looked at the signature: John P. Benson! I thought he was an architect by profession and an artist by hobby, but I was wrong: he had two careers, first architecture, then painting. This one painting took me down a rabbit hole of John P. Benson paintings, and I found some really lovely Salem ones, inspired by his birthplace and his heritage, primarily his descent from Captain Samuel Benson, of Reaper fame. All three Benson brothers plus their siblings grew up in an Italianate house which once faced the Common, on a site which is now the parking lot of the Hawthorne Hotel. Frank’s predisposition towards an artistic career was evident pretty early, as was John’s, but apparently there could only be one artist in the family so their father steered the latter towards the more practical architecture. He went to Paris for training, and returned to a job at the prestigious New York architectural firm McKim, Mead & White before setting up his own partnership. By all accounts, Benson had a successful architectural practice focused on the greater New York area, while living in Plainfield, New Jersey and later Flushing, New York with his wife Bessie and their four children. He retired from architecture in his later 50s and began painting full-time, primarily in his studio at a house called Willowbank in Kittery, Maine. He was prolific, and even though he had not lived in his native city since his departure for Paris, a notable number of his paintings are of Salem ships and harbor scenes.

Ship Eliza of Salem, Salem Coal Wharf, and Derby Wharf, John Prentiss Benson.

I particularly like a series of paintings which Benson produced as murals for his son Philip’s Cohasset home, entitled Salem Harbor memories. I trust that they still survive and I wish they could be on public view, because they are a perfect illustration of a family’s heritage and the endurance of a city’s heritage: it’s so interesting that these images were in the home of a man (Philip) who was not born in Salem, who never lived in Salem, but still saw Salem as part of his heritage. I’m not a fan of the witch trials vs. maritime history either/or debate as I believe that Salem’s heritage is both plus MUCH more but these maritime views are so poignant, especially in their invocation of memories which we can “enjoy, regret, and learn from” at the same time. Believe me, I know that the Benson brothers cannot compete with the suffering mannequins of the Salem Witch and Witch Dungeon Museums of the Heritage Trail. I think there are some other Chestnut Street stories that might be able to do so, but that’s not my point or my concern. If this trail was called the “Tourism Trail” or the “Witch City Trail,” I would have no concerns. But it isn’t: it’s called the Heritage Trail. So I ask my fellow Salem residents: does it represent your heritage?

A Memory of Salem Harbor, in Cohasset.

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February 8, 2023

Paint it Black

By daseger

There are more and more and more witch shops in Salem, or perhaps I better loosen up that description to goth shops or macabre markets? In any case, our local chronicler had to reassure his readers that there were, in fact, places downtown where socks could be purchased. But sneakers? I think not. It is concerning as many of these shops are only open “in season,” producing a deadening effect downtown in the “off-season.” [Somewhat off-topic tangent: I often think that Salem’s planners are going for a “15–minute city” but I don’t understand how that goal is compatible with Witch City—I’ll follow up in a later post] In the downtown, there is oversight for these shops’ signs and exteriors, and Salem is a constantly-evolving city, so I’m not inclined to get too perturbed about this darkening trend, unless said shops alter an historic interior radically, perhaps permanently: and that’s the case with the former Merchants National Bank, a much-heralded 1908 Little & Browne Colonial Revival structure on Essex Street now transformed into a local outlet of Blackcraft Cult, a Goth fast-fashion retailer based in California. The creative vision of this store is simple: paint it black, all black, walls and trim, ceiling and much of the floor. All is black except for a red witch descending from the center dome, replacing the gilded eagle that overlooked everything previously. Witch kitsch displaces classicism: I don’t think you can find a better visual metaphor for what’s happened to Salem over the last decade or so.

Once an Eagle……now the former Merchants National Bank building on Essex Street is home to Salem’s largest witch! In the vicinity are more seasonal shops, closed on this beautiful & sunny February afternoon.

This building was the fourth headquarters of the Merchants National Bank in Salem, founded in 1811. It received quite a bit of attention after it opened for business in 1908: in national architectural publications and local periodicals, as well as the Bank’s own centennial anniversary publication which tied its history and success to Salem’s history and success. There’s so much craftsmanship and detail and sheer abundance in Salem’s traditional architecture that we take it for granted: I wish I had spent more time in this building considering its now-darkened detail, and I wonder if Salem’s preservationist organization, Historic Salem, Inc., is considering a more agressive policy of seeking interior preservation restrictions and covenants. Perhaps it is time, before everything goes black.

Images of the Bank from 1911: in the Brickbuilder, its centennial anniversary booklet “In the Year 1811,” and an unsigned watercolor, Bull Run Auctions.

13 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Architecture, Salem

November 21, 2022

Daniel Low and the Art of Advertising

By daseger

Very often, one of Salem’s longest-running and best-known businesses, Daniel Low & Company, is reduced to a pioneering seller of witch wares with their souvenir witch spoons and other “memorabilia” issued before, during and well after the very important Bicentennial of the Witch Trials in 1892. It all started with a spoon, say the proponents of witchcraft tourism, long ago: we didn’t start it! And they are not wrong: the Company certainly sold its share of witch spoons, plates, dishes, thimbles, scissors, and more unusual items like “penwipers”. But Daniel Low & Co was also a Salem institution for over a century: evolving from its jewelry and silver foundations to a major purveyor of all manner of decorative accessories for the home over its long history (1867-1994). It “sold Salem” in more ways than one: if you visited its landmark store, situated in Salem’s most historic square in the former site of its First Church, you would see not only floors of display cases but also “unique antique rooms” featuring reproductions of Salem’s more traditional products; if you ordered from the annual Daniel Low year book you would receive a receipt bearing an illustration of an historic Salem structure as well as a copy of the company pamphlet The Salem Pilgrim. 

You could write a book entirely on Daniel Low’s advertising methods and campaigns: there’s just so much information and copy. The company advertised both locally and nationally: to support both its wondrous store and its annual year book, issued from the 1890s into the 1960s (I think—I can’t find the end date). But it’s not just the means by which Daniel Low reached out and reached in to homes across America, it’s the messaging. The store’s advertising philosophy was expressed in a number of speeches and articles by Robert R. Updegraff, its manager of publicity, from the teens into the thirties. Everything I read by Updegraff, who seems to have been a pioneering practicioner of the new “art” of advertising, reminded me of Don Draper’s Kodak carousel pitch in Mad Men: aim for the heart, and treat your customers like neighbors. Only a year into his job, Mr. Updegraff summarized his pitch and his profession in a serialized article entitled “The Story of the Year”:  One thing is sure, the advertising man who is to be the real power in the future will be the man who stops thinking in terms of type and borders and magazines and billboards and street car cards and printing presses and halftones. He will think in terms of neighborliness and life. He will write simple, sincere, friendly messages to these neighbors of his. He will think and write in terms of ideas, emotions, experiences, merely using words as vehicles to convey his message and printing presses to multiply it. He will use illustrations only when they tell the story better than the same amount of space used in words. His advertisements will be efficient because they are sincere and have the beauty of truth. And they will be effective. [Macleans magazine, September 1913]. Updegraff believed that Salem’s past could be utilized to emphasize sincerity and exemplify the “beauty of truth”: not its witch-trial past but rather a more hopeful, gilded, and gentle “old Salem.” In a 1914 article in Printers’ Ink he elaborates on how the imagery of truly Colonial Salem conveyed an atmospheric sincerity in the Daniel Low Year Books which began offering “glimpses of old Salem” from that time until the 1950s.

A half-century of Daniel Low & Co. Year Books: from Historic New England, Salem State University Archives and Special Collections Flickr photostream, Harvard University Digital Collections and my own collection.

Glimpses of Old Salem was a constant, but not Daniel Low’s exclusive pitch: it aimed to be a traditional-yet-modern “Treasure House” too, a phrase that was adopted by the Essex Institute and applied to all of Salem from the mid-century: before Witch City crowded out all other messaging at its close.

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October 18, 2022

Revenues and Reparations in the Witch City

By daseger

I often find that my profession and my residence are in conflict: it’s challenging to be an historian in Salem, especially at this time of year. More than one person has suggested that I move, and I think every one of my colleagues has done so when I come in all hot and bothered about one thing or another. But even though Salem is often frustrating, it is always engaging and has offered me many “teachable moments” throughout my career. The past few days, beautiful autumn days, have been a case in point. On Friday, we were considering the immediate and slightly longer-term aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials in my two freshmen seminars. I am not an American historian or an expert in the Trials, but the historian who is both of those things in my department, my colleague Emerson “Tad” Baker, has been working in the administration for the past few years so I have been pinch-hitting. Students come to Salem State with a certain degree of awareness and/or interest in the Trials and so we thought we should offer a freshman seminar focused on 1692 to introduce students to both college work and Salem. I put a lot of work into last year’s seminars so I thought I should repeat them this year, but never again: Tad is back and that is that! Anyway, on Friday we were reading about apologies, reversals, and restitution: several participants in the trials (Judge Samuel Sewall, the jurors, accuser Ann Putnam) issued apolgies after their conclusion, the General Court of Massachusetts reversed the attainders of witchcraft conviction for some (but not all) of the accused “witches” and also compensated their families for some (obviously not ALL) of their damages upon petition. Both my students and myself were very touched by the petition of Isaac Esty, Sr. for restitution following the execution of his wife Mary, one of the three former Towne sisters accused of witchcraft in 1692. Mary and her sister Rebecca Nurse were executed while their sister Sarah Cloyce escaped to Framingham. Here is Mr. Esty’s petition of September 8, 1710 and a transcription, from the University of Virginia’s Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive and Transcription Project:

Isaac Esty Sen of Topsfield in the county of Essex in N. E. having been sorely exercis’d through the holy & awful providence of God depriving him of his beloved wife Mary Esty who suffered death in the year 1692 & under the fearfull odium of one of the worst of crimes that can be laid to the charge of mankind, as if she had been guilty of witchcraft a piece of wickedness which I beleeve she did hate with perfect hatred & by all that ever I could see by her never could see any thing by her that should give me any reason in the lest to think her guilty of any thing of that nature but am firmly persuaded that she was as innocent of it as any to such a shameful death — Upon consideration of a notification from the Honored Generall Court desiring my self & others under like circumstances to give some account of what my Estate was damnify’d by reason of such a hellish molestation do hereby declare which may also be seen by comparing papers & records that my wife was near upon 5 months imprisoned all which time I provided maintenance for her at my own cost & charge, went constantly twice aweek to provide for her what she needed 3 weeks of this 5 months she was in prison at Boston & I was constrained to be at the charge of transporting her to & fro. So that I can not but think my charge in time and mony might amount to 20 pounds besides my trouble & sorrow of heart in being deprived of her after such a manner which this world can never make me any compensation for. Isak Esty sen’r.

He had lost his wife 18 years previously, but it sounds like it was yesterday. She hated witchcraft: her death and execution was a “hellish molestation” for which “this world can never make me any compensation for.” She was imprisoned for 5 months, including three weeks in Boston, and he was compelled to pay for all of the associated expenses, which might amount to £20, “besides my trouble & sorrow of heart.” I found the combination of profound emotional distress and relatively inconsequential damages moving; my students did too. So there we were, discussing this horrible event and a community’s attempts at reconciliation. Class dismissed, and I’m walking home through the streets of Salem, and when I get to downtown there are laughing witches, young witches, older witches, half-dressed witches, all sorts of witches—all so celebratory, and happy to be in Salem, the Witch City, where Mary Esty and her sister died with others, proclaiming fervently that they were not witches. Later vindicated, but forevermore witches, because Salem needs to be Halloweentown, and what would Halloweentown be without witches? Our present Mayor, and soon-to-be Lieutenant Governor, expressed the connection succinctly:

And she is expressing a majority opinion. Halloween is very popular in Salem: the crowds get bigger and bigger with each passing year, and apparently so do the revenues, for both private businesses and the City. According to several sources, Salem tourists spent 140 million in the Witch City in 2020, 35% of which was spent during October: and that was a Covid year. I’m sure revenues will be off the charts this year, as crowds certainly are. I had numbers on my brain as I walked home on Friday night and woke up the next morning with them still in my head. We had discovered that the Massachusetts General Court alloted £578 to the Salem victims’ families in 1710-1711: how much would that be now my students asked? We went over to my favorite past-to-present currency calculator at the UK National Archives and came up with around £60,648, which is about $79,000 in US dollars. $79,000, 19 executions, one crushing, five deaths in jail, a succession of reversals of attainder and apologies: this all adds up to the “legendary witch history” referenced by Mayor Driscoll above, the basis of Salem’s spectacularly successful witchcraft tourism. 140 million in a pandemic year, with 49 million generated just in October, compared to a mere $79,000! I wonder if a reconsideration of compensation is in order? That would be one way to justify the exploitative nature of Salem’s witchcraft tourism: acknowledge it for what it is, just business. Thanks to all of the genealogical research on those accused of witchcraft in seventeenth-century Salem we probably know who and where all of their descendants are: why shouldn’t they get a cut? I just kept thinking about these numbers when I was walking around Salem this past weekend, amongst HUGE crowds: people = profits.

Scenes from a Salem weekend, October 2022: light and dark and a very well-dressed witch; there’s a tour guide in there somewhere (no one could hear him, so no one was listening); the line for PEM’s Ropes Mansion which seems to be identified primarily as “Allison’s House” from Hocus Pocus by Salem tourists; Chestnut Street from my bedroom window (that line of cars went on all day long on Saturday)’ the Salem Witch Museum is very proud that this is the 50th anniversary of Haunted Happenings.

Am I really recommending reparations? Sadly, no. I just want to point out the inequities between past and present, and the exploitation of the former by the latter. It’s nothing new, but I don’t think you can call it out enough. While reparations are most commonly referenced in the disastrous imposition on Germany following World War I and the ongoing issue of compensation for enslavement here in the US, there have been more successful experiments, most notably the restitution initiatives extended to the families of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II. But a Salem reparations program would be impossible: so much time as passed, there would be so many claimants, and so much money involved!  Reparations would also run counter to Massachusetts state law, as politicians past protected witchcraft profiteering proactively. The legal exoneration of the persons convicted of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 came in three phases. In 1711 Chapter 80 of the Resolves reversed the attainder for the majority of victims, but excluded six women:  Ann Pudeator, Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd. Following World War II, relatives of Ann Pudeator started lobbying for her exoneration, which was finally achieved with Chapter 145 of the Resolves of 1957 . Finally, following the appeal of Salem State University graduate student Paula Keen and the concerned families, Chapter 122 of the Acts of 2001 included Bridget Bishop, Susannah Martin, Alice Parker, Margaret Scott and Wilmot Redd in the 1957 law, in which they were simple referred to as “others.” The 1957 Pudeator bill was debated for quite some time, particularly in the period 1954-1957, as legislators openly questioned the impact of the exoneration on tourism and the possibility that it might expose the Commonwealth to legal action. Consequently the language of the bill’s final passage specifically provides that descendants of the victims of 1692 may not sue for damages! No worries for Salem.

United Press National Headlines 1954 & 1957: not sure why Senator Evans of WAKEFIELD was so concerned but he gets the most quotes for sure!

The word “reparations” usually means money, but it also refers to repairing one’s reputation, image, or perception (and not simply replacing it with something new and shiny, as in Salem). I’ve been thinking about that process too, because of another witchcraft course I’m teaching this semester, Magic and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (yes, it’s a pretty intense semester). Unlike the situation in Massachusetts, there were no immediate attempts to rehabilitate the many victims of the succession of witch trials which occurred in much of Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; indeed, that process is happening now. This very year the provincial governments of Scotland, where witch-hunting was particularly intense, and Catalonia, where witch trials began relatively early, have apologized formally for their witch hunts. Both exoneration movements were clearly feminist in inspiration, highlighting the fact that the majority of the victims in both regions were women, but both also focused on the necessity of repairing the historical memory of the accused. I’ve been so struck by the Catalan discourse, triggered by the slogan/hashtag No Eren Bruixes/ They were not witches. I hope that that the apologies to those who were not witches paves the way for true historical understanding through reparation in both Catalonia and Scotland, rather than expedient exploitation once the slate has been wiped clean.

“They were not Witches,” (they were Women): a call to action in Catalonia. 

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October 3, 2022

The Most Magical Plants

By daseger

Well, October is upon us here in Salem, so that means I’m going to spend all my time inside or on the road. I’m just not a fan of Haunted Happenings, the City’s Halloween festival that starts earlier with each passing year: crowds are converging from at least mid-September now. On September 22, when eight convicted “witches” were hung at Proctor’s Ledge in 1692, you can see people dancing in the streets in Salem. Haunted Happenings is now in its 50th year and this is an anniversary worth celebrating for many, but for me, it’s just fifty years of turning tragedy into treasure. While I do not see or celebrate the connection between the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials and Halloween, I still find the customs and traditions associated with the latter holiday very interesting, and as I’m teaching my “Magic and Witchcraft in early Modern Europe” course this semester, I find myself subsumed in the source and secondary literature of these complex topics. I haven’t taught this course in 5 years so it definitely needs a refresh! I have learned so much teaching this course over my career at Salem State: at the beginning I offered it simply as a corrective to what I saw (and still see) as a simplistic understanding of witch trials here in Salem, but every time I taught it I learned more about Christian theology and European folklore: after about a decade of teaching it I felt that I needed to undertake more serious study of the former and and contemplated going to Divinity School and now I feel like I need an advanced degree in folklore! It’s all so interwoven, and the focus on both magic and witchcraft over the medieval and early modern eras enables one to see how and why pre-Christian beliefs were assimilated into Christianity—and/or demonized. This coming week we are going to look at some important high and later-medieval herbals and the “magic” that was contained therein, so I decided to make a list of the top ten magical plants. This was a more difficult task than I though it would be as so many plants have protective/proactive virtues associated with them, but this is my list. I’m leaving out Mandrake because we all know that’s the most magical plant of them all, and as many plants were seen to be powerful in both facilitating and dispelling magic I’m going with the most efficacious, by reputation.

Vervain: actually might be more powerful than mandrake. It was known as both an “enchanter’s plant” and an antidote against witchcraft. Gathering vervain seems to have been somewhat of a sacred ritual and there doesn’t seem to be anything that this plant could not do: protect, predict, heal, preserve chasteness and procure love. Snakes are often included in illustrations of vervain: both slithering varieties in the marginalia and more threatening serpents at center stage. Clearly it was percieved as an effective weapon against both.

British Library MSS Sloane 1975 and Egerton 747.

St. John’s Wort: a powerful demon-repellent as you can see by this retreating demon in the fifteenth-century Italian Tractatus de Herbis (British Library Codex Sloane 4016). Referred to as a “devil-chaser” on the Continent, St. John’s Wort was also worn as a protective amulet and used as decoration for doorways and windows on St. John’s Eve at midsummer, when its yellow flowers bloom. Its association with St. John the Baptist also bequeathed it medical virtues, and it was used to staunch bleeding, especially from the thrusts of poisoned weapons, and treat wounds.

British Library Codex Sloane 4016 and MS Egerton 747.

Rue: one of my very favorite herbs, and the sole survivor of my garden of plague cures from twenty years ago! The “herb of grace” was prized for its potency against the plague, infections, and also poison, signalled by its bitterness. It was also believed to be a preserver of eyesight, but it’s best to focus on the general rather than the particulars with this very efficacious herb, which could ward off witchcraft and was used in masses and exorcisms as well as an abortifacient. I just think its gray-green leaves are beautiful, and it adds structure to the garden all season long.

Plantae Utiliores; or Illustrations of useful plants, employed in the Arts and Medicine, M.A.Burnett,1842. 

Scabiosa: was far more interesting in the medieval period than its profile as a perfect cottage garden plant now. It was known as “Devil’s Bit” because of the appearance of its root, which looks like someone took a bite out of it. According to John Gerard, who was known to “borrow” information rather indiscriminately, “the great part of the root seems to be bitten away; old fantastic charmers do report that the Devil did bite it for envy, because it is an herb that has so many good virtues, and is so beneficial to mankind.” It was perceived as particularly beneficial to the skin, hence its name, a far cry from “pincushion flower.”

British Library MS Egerton 747; William Catto, 1915, Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museums.

Garlic: also has a devilish nickname, the “Devil’s Posy,” and cure-all connotations, so that it was also known as the “Poor Man’s Treacle.” (Treacle is an English sweet now, but in the late medieval and early modern eras it was an anglicization for “theriac,” the universal panacea.) There’s an interesting old tale that when Satan stepped out of the Garden of Eden after his great triumph, garlic sprang from the spot where his left foot lay, and onions from where he had placed his right foot. Like so much folklore, I’m not entirely sure what to do with this information. The key attribute of garlic was its pungent odor: like the bitter taste of rue, this signalled strength: enough to ward off witches, plague, and I guess vampires (though medieval people do not mention the latter).

Garlic (right) and a coiled snake, British Library MS Egerton 747.

Foxglove: a plant with more folkloric pseudonyms than any other! Foxglove: gloves for foxes or fairies or witches? Fairy fingers, ladies’ thimbles, rabbit flowers, throatwort, flapdock, cow-flop, lusmore, lionsmouth, Scotch mercury, dead man’s bells, witches’ gloves, witches’ bells: these are just some of its variant nicknames. Dead man’s bells indicates some knowledge of its potentially poisonous effects, but its cardiac attributes were not known until the eighteenth century. What a tangle with all these names! It’s so interesting to me that a plant can be associated with both witches and the Virgin Mary, as digitalis apparently was. Some of its names also testify to belief in the “doctrine of signatures” by which the appearance of herbs signals their use: foxglove flowers were said to look like an open mouth, and their freckles symbolic of inflamation of the throat: hence, throatwort.

Woodblock trial proof for textiles, 1790-1810, Cooper Hewitt Museum.

Holly: was perceived as very holy, of course. Very little nuance or contradiction with this plant, which Pliny, who seems very accepted by the medievals even though he was a Pagan, credited with the powers to protect and defend against withcraft, lightening, and poison. Its red berries became associated with the blood of Christ over the medieval era, along with its thorny leaves, which made it even more potent. Plant it close to the house, all the traditional authorities say (I feel fortunate that someone did that for my house long ago).

Elizabeth Blackwell’s Curious Herbal, 1737-39.

Moonwort: a little lesser known, but worthy of inclusion if only because it supposedly possesses the ability to open locks and guard silver, as well as unshoe any horses that happen to tread upon it or even near. Ben Jonson referred to it as one of the ingredients of “witches’ broth,” but by his time I think they were throwing everything into that brew. It’s a tiny, tight-fisted, flowering fern (Botrychium lunaria) that just looks like it must have magical qualities, but was also used to heal wounds.

George William Johnson, The British ferns popularly described, and illus. by engravings of every species (1857).

Henbane: is perhaps the most powerful of the bane plants, indicating death by poison, and another plant with both harming and healing virtues, demanding skillful use. It is always mentioned in reference to witchcraft in the late medieval and early modern eras, specifically as an ingredient in ointments (and salves which enabled witches to stick to their brooms!) This might be why it was referred to as the “Devil’s eye” in some regions. But it was also a powerful sedative, known to take away pain, and a hallucinogenic which could take away sense.

Henbane (on the right) in BL MS Egerton 747; Patrick Symons, Still Life with Henbane, 1960, Royal Academy.

Deadly Nightshade: related to henbane, but even more potent. Every bit of this plant was known to be poisonous, and early modern botanical authors urged their readers to banish it from their gardens. With knowledge and caution, henbane was a plant one could work with, but hands off deadly nightshade! Only the Devil tended it; in fact it was difficult to lure him away from this menacing crop of  “devil’s berries” and of course it was yet another ingredient in the strange brews of witches. Its botanical name, Atropa belladonna, indicates its use:  The eldest of the Three Fates of classical Greek mythology, the “inflexible” Atropos cut off the thread of life, and the “beautiful ladies” of Renaissance Venice used it in tincture form for wide-open, sparkling eyes. The English adopted the term belladonna in the later sixteenth century, but they also referred to deadly nightshade simply as “dwale,” a stupefying or soporific drink.

William Catto, Aberdeen Archives, Gallery & Museum.

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July 20, 2022

The Golden Goose

By daseger

Last week Salem’s new Heritage Trail, or at least the foundation thereof, was revealed with a report to the Salem Redevelopment Authority (SRA) and the launch of a new website. The outgoing “Red Line” has long been the object of derision, as it was a play-to-play route which made no meaningful distinction between the Salem Maritime National Historical Site and the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum. Concerns about the sign pollution which plagues downtown Salem and the now-common understanding that “redlining” refers to housing segregation apparently inspired the city’s tourism agency, Destination Salem, to put together a working group comprised of “stakeholders” representing Salem’s organizations, institutions, businesses and local government (but not, notably, neighborhood groups) to reconfigure the existing trail as something “new.” The end result will be a gold line running through downtown Salem, and very nice signs which will mark the stops along the way, including……………….the Salem Maritime National Historic Site and the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum.

Believe me, I’m pretty tired of screaming into the void about how Salem values (or doesn’t) its long and notable history. I also realize that the people who have transformed a small subsection of this history into a valuable commodity have clearly won the day, as many of Salem’s heritage organizations, including Historic Salem, Inc., the Salem Historical Society, the Essex Heritage National Commission, and even the Salem Maritime National Historic Site had representative members in this working group, so are clearly supportive of this new trail. But this is a really important time for Salem, with its 400th anniversary only a few years away and so many of its historic houses shuttered, including the entire Essex Street Block campus of the Peabody Essex Museum. So I have a few things to say, of course! I’ll try to be as succinct and straightforward as possible: after some consternation I have limited and organized my thoughts (which might take the form of pleas) into three main points:

      1. For–profit sites cannot be “heritage“. Salem’s heritage is a public good, not a private commodity. Packaging an historical event into a dramatic presentation creates an “attraction,” not a museum. Packaging a tragic historical event into an attraction is troubling if not enacted with great care, and the dated figures employed by the The Salem Witch Dungeon Museum and the Salem Witch Museum evoke more mockery than empathy. These attractions have no place on an officially-sanctioned “Heritage Trail”; I don’t think any for-profit site does. Call the trail something else: my friend Joe suggested the “Tourism Trail.” I would have no problem with that: it’s the equivalency of an actual historic site like the House of the Seven Gables or the Charter Street Cemetery or the East India Marine Hall (all sites on the trail) with a manufactured attraction that troubles me, especially as the latter are so obviously exploitative. The creators and consultants of the new Heritage Trail realize that there is an issue here, so they have come up with criteria that Salem sites which hope to be listed on the trail as it expands must meet. Here they are, included as Appendix B in the “Salem Heritage Trail Recommendation and Project Recap” report prepared by the consultant company MuseumTastic for Destination Salem and presented to the SRA:So, much of this seems fine, certainly the themes are great (more on them below), and the criteria professional. I’m having some difficulty envisioning the logistics of the vetting process, but will leave that to the experts. What does concern me, however, is the disassociation of “site” and “building” as referenced in #3 on. As you see in my graphic above, the Salem Witch Museum, the most profitable of the for-profits, is referred to as the former East Church, which is presumably how it made the cut. Why the East Church is deemed “historic” is beyond me, aside from its imposing Gothic Revival style: certainly it is no more historic than the nearby houses of ultra-philanthropist George Peabody and Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story, or the birthplace of the illustrious Benson brothers across the Common. When I asked why and how the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum, also located in a former church (built by the Christian Scientists and not the East Church parishioners), was included on the trail, I got this response from the Executive Director of Destination Salem: The Witch Dungeon Museum and Lynde Street are the site of early fortifications. English settlers knew that their presence in Salem immersed them in a web of global conflicts. Fearing reprisals from the indigenous people they were displacing and attacks from other colonial powers, the colony of Massachusetts erected a fort near this spot in 1629. Samuel Sharpe came from London with cannons to assume command of the militia. The first fort was probably made of tall wooden palisades, with extensions jutting out to prevent flanking. In the following decades, further fortifications were built along the Salem coast and a palisade was built along the western end of town. The early, feared attacks never happened. The East Church built a chapel on Lynde Street in 1897 and The Witch Dungeon Museum opened in the building in 1979. Visitors can watch a live-action reenactment of a witch trial and tour a recreation of the grim prison where the accused were kept. So basically: because a long-gone fort was once on the site of the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum, it qualifies for the trail? I don’t think I need to spend too long discussing the implications of this “standard.” In a city as old as Salem, every structure downtown was built on the site of something else: there are layers and layers and layers. The Witch Dungeon Museum’s storefront sister “museum” on venerable Essex Street, the Salem Witch History Museum, could claim that it sits on the site of Salem’s first printing house or any number of historic structures and thus qualify for the new Heritage Trail. Perhaps the cumulative criteria above could mitigate against this, but it does not appear to have done so with the Salem Witch Dungeon Museum: I think we need to be honest about where we are leading people—and why.

        Mannequin City: mid-20th century interpretive “technology” reigns in Salem’s for-profit witch “museums” which have no incentive to innovate, as the City delivers visitors right to their doors; Witch Dungeon Museum hanging mannequins.

      2. The Trail is too restricted geographically. Salem has been a tourist destination for over a century, and there are previous incarnations of the Red Line, which was stamped on the City in the 1980s. (People seem to think that the big turning point in Salem’s tourism history is the filming of the television show Bewitched in 1970s, or at least that’s the story the rationalizes the placement of the Samantha statue in Salem’s most historic town square. But that’s clearly not true: it was the Haunted Happenings festival, initiated by the Salem Witch Museum in the early 1980s, that created our modern Witch City). All the pre-1980 trails were much longer, and included more Salem neighborhods and sites, including the entire McIntire District showcasing architecture, South Salem showcasing Pioneer Village and many more sites in the Downtown and Derby Street districts. If it really is going to tell Salem’s story in a comprehensive and authentic way (and accomodate all those themes!) the Trail has to branch out considerably. One of the reasons I find it so objectionable to direct people to a witch business on the basis of a seventeenth-century fort that is no longer there is the fact that Salem has a seventeenth-century fort that has been left to rot on Winter Island.
      3.  Salem tourism brochures from the 1950s through the 1980s: not until the last decade was the Heritage Trail restricted to downtown and the “story” increasingly restricted to witches. Love the sentiment of “traveling through history in Salem.”
      1. 3. A Plea for Authenticity & Creativity: I don’t really have enough to go on to speak to technology or  interpretive issues, but from what I can read I am struck by the relative conservatism in terms of the conceptualization of the entire trail: I expect more from a process of “strategic revisioning;” I don’t see any revisioning at all actually. Maybe that’s coming? This trail could have been recast as a “walking museum” as some cities have done (Memphis!), and thus accomodate both heritage and for-profit sites (in a pop culture category: the history of witchcraft tourism in Salem IS part of our heritage unfortunately) as well as the Peabody Essex Museum’s shuttered sites which are outfitted with “PEM Walks” interpretive audio “postcards“: why not integrate this ready-made interpretation into the Trail? Salem doesn’t have a history museum so a thoughtfully-constructed walking museum could really compensate for this deficiency: this approach could also add some chonological development to the trail, which is completely missing. Authenticity is everything in this digital, virtual age, which is why it is imperative to emphasize the unique geography and history of Salem with real places rather than artifical ones: besides the for-profit sites, I am also troubled by the selection of the new Charlotte Forten Park on Derby Street as a location to highlight Salem’s African-American history: African-Americans (including Charlotte Forten) did not live or work anywhere near it! And as I’ve written about before, the park has been “colonized” effectively by the Real Pirates Museum, which tells the story of pirates (some real, some not) from Cape Cod. More appropriate places to tell the stories of Salem’s African-Americans are Derby Square (which is on the Trail) where a variety of vibrant black businesses were located, and Hamilton Hall, where Salem’s Remond family lived and worked. Actually, a wonderful interpretive location for interpreting African-American history would be Higginson Square, which runs parallel to Derby Square: to tell the truth, the Remonds spent at least as much time at 5 Higginson Square as Hamilton Hall, and Charlotte spent considerable time there too. There could be some kind of creative installation there, which brings to my last point/question: why is Salem’s very dynamic creative community so absent from this revisioning project? My very favorite urban heritage trail is actually that of Asheville, NC, in which stories of the city’s past residents, both well-noted and not-so well-known, are woven together through public art, including commissioned sculptures and pre-existing artifacts. Lke all the best heritage trails, Asheville’s was a process of considerable community engagement: it is a work in process that is still engaging the community. That could happen here too, but only with the realization that all of Salem’s residents are “stakeholders” in our city’s Heritage Trail.
      2.  Higginson Square, 1893, Nelson Dionne History Collection, Salem State Archives and Special Collections. A big flatiron to highlight Asheville’s Flatiron building. It begs the question: no Parker Brothers site for Salem’s new Heritage Trail?

So those are my three main points but I do want to say a bit about the “future” of Salem’s heritage, which is kind of a funny phrase: isn’t heritage about the past and how can it have a future? Well, heritage has a past, a present and a future: we’re dealing with the present now. After the Executive Director of Destination Salem gave her presentation to the SRA last week, there were a few questions from the board (which only has authority over signage downtown, not content, so I was suprised to see this engagement), including, “why so much witch stuff?” (I am paraphrasing). She answered: (I’m still paraphrasing but this is very close) “well, 85% or our visitors come for the witch trials so we have to give them what they want.” I have no doubt that this is true, because we don’t have a heritage trail that showcases our Samuel McIntire mansions or our Revolutionary resistance or our 445 Revolutionary privateers or our industrious inventors or our treasure- (and history-) hunting Mormons or our dashing Civil War officers or our zealous abolitionists and suffragists or our amazing artists and craftsmen or our brave warriors on both the battle and home fronts or any of our immigrant communities as far as I can see. Maybe all that is coming, but it is clear to me that witchcraft-based tourism is only going to become even more pervasive in Salem if some sort of structural change does not occur because it is self-perpetuating. Destination Salem has always been a thoroughly professional, accessible and effective tourism office, but I’ve never understood how it came to be in charge of heritage, because for me, tourism and heritage are not necessarily the same thing. But in Salem, I guess they are. I suspect that the same old scenario which governed the creation of the first Heritage Trail was present here: the City did not invest enough effort or money, and so left it to the business owners, who quite logically advanced their own interests. So let’s just call it the Tourist Trail, or take advantage of this (golden) opportunity to do something more—and better.

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May 3, 2022

Skirting Witches and Pirates in Salem

By daseger

Walking is my preferred form of transportation in Salem, but I tread carefully: I want my path to be lined with beautiful old houses, colorful shops and lovely green (or white) spaces. Attractions exploiting the terrible tragedy of 1692 and out-of-town-yet-territorial pirates cloud my view and dampen my day. I’m happy to meet real witches and pirates on my walkabouts, but kitschy parodies annoy me. If you are of like mind, there are many routes you can take in Salem on which you will not cross paths with anything remotely touristy, but if you are venturing downtown you must tread carefully too. Avoid the red line at all costs and follow my route below, which I have superimposed on an old map of the so-called “Heritage Trail”: I’m starting at my house on lower Chestnut Street and making a witch-less circle.

Across from my house is Chestnut Street Park: this is not a public park but a private space, owned by all the homeowners of Chestnut Street. It was once the site of two churches in succession: a majestic Samuel McIntire creation which lasted for almost exactly a century and was destroyed by fire in 1903 and a stone replacement which was rather less majestic and lasted about half as long. The gate is usually open to everyone, but not for reseeding time as you can see by the sign. I walk down Cambridge Street by the park and across Essex into the Ropes Mansion Garden, not looking great now but an amazing high summer garden. Then I walk down Federal Court and across Federal Street to the Peirce-Nichols House which is owned, like the Ropes Mansion, by the Peabody Essex Museum. Unlike the Ropes, I can’t remember when the Peirce-Nichols was last opened to the public: it’s been decades. It has a lovely garden in back which was always open, and my favorite place to go at this time of year because of its preponderance of Bleeding Hearts. The gate to the back of the house has been closed for a couple of years now, but it is latched and not locked, so I entered and went into the rear courtyard, passing the memorial stone dedicated to the memory of Anne Farnam, the last director of the Essex Institute before it was absorbed into the Peabody Essex Museum on my right. I never knew Anne but I’ve learned a lot from her articles in the Essex Institute Historical Collections so I always pay tribute. The gate to the garden in back was latched and locked, so I presume the museum does not want us to venture in there. I hope it was ok to go that far! While I am grateful for these pem.org/walks recordings I’m always wondering why these houses are never open.

Continue down Federal Street past the courthouses: you must avoid Lynde Street and Essex Street where witch “attractions” abound. I take a left after Washington street onto a street that no longer exists: Rust Street. I like the juxtaposition of the newish condominiums and the old Church and Bessie Monroe’s brick house on Ash Street on the right: a symbol of the opposition to urban renewal in Salem. Then it’s on to St. Peter Street, past the Old Jail and the Jailkeepers’s House (below), right on Bridge, and then right again, onto Winter Street.

Winter Street

As you approach Salem Common, you must bear left and head for the east side, as the west side is the territory of the Salem Witch “Museum.” There are some side streets with wonderful houses between the Common and Bridge Street which might be a bit more pleasant to traverse than the latter but you will be cutting close to the “Museum”: that’s why I always go with Winter. Once there, go straight by the Common on Washington Square East : you will pass the newly-renovated Silsbee Mansion, which long served as the party palace Knights of Columbus and has been converted into residential units with a substantive addtion and exterior restoration, and one of my favorite houses on the Common, the Baldwin Lyman House.

On Washington Square East.

Washington Square East will take you right to Essex Street: cross and go down the walkway adjacent to the first-period Narbonne House into the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. No witches or pirates here: you’re safe! I love the garden behind the Derby House: I think it is probably at its best in June when the peonies are popping but it’s a great place to go all spring and summer and even in the fall. On Derby Street, you can turn left and go down to the House of the Seven Gables or go straight down Derby Wharf: I went to the end of the wharf on this particular walk. The Salem Arts Association is right here too, but beware: there is a particularly ugly witch on its right so shade your view lest your zen walk be disturbed.

Salem Maritime National Historic Site and the Salem Arts Association.

Back on Derby. Adjacent to the Custom House is a wonderful institution: the Brookhouse Home for Women, established in 1861! The Home is located in the former Benjamin Crowninshield Mansion, and it is very generous with its lovely grounds, which provide my favorite view of Derby Wharf. I always stop in here, and then I work my way back up to Essex Street on one side street or another. Essex Street east and west are wonderful places to walk, but the pedestrian-mall center is witch-central: a particularly dangerous corner is Essex and Hawthorne Boulevard, where the Peabody Essex’s historic houses face some of the ugliest signs in town. It’s a real aesthetic clash: gaze at the beautiful Gardner-Pingree House, but don’t turn around! If you want to go to the main PEM buildings or the Visitors’ Center further down Essex, approach from Charter Street north on another “street” that no longer exists: Liberty Street.

From the Brookhouse Home to the PEM’s row of historic houses on Essex Street. Memorial stone in the Brookwood garden: Miss Amy Nurse, RN, an Army Nurse (1916-2013).

Charter Street is the location of Salem’s oldest cemetery, the Old Burying Point, recently restored and equipped with an orientation center located in the first-period Pickman House, which overlooks the Witch Trials Memorial. So this is a wonderful, meaningful place to visit, but beware: just beyond is the “Haunted Neighborhood” or “Haunted Witch Village” (whatever it is called)  situated on the southern end of the former Liberty Street, abutting the cemetery. This is a cruel juxtaposition during Haunted Happenings, when you literally have a party right next to sacred places, but not too noticeable during the rest of the year, because for the most part witchcraft “attractions” create dead zones. But the tacky signage can still spoil your walk so avert your gaze as much as possible. Charter Street feeds into Front Street, Salem’s main shopping street, and from there you can find the path of least (traffic) resistance back to the McIntire Historic District, which is very safe territory. Broad, Chestnut, upper Essex and Federal Streets are lined with beautiful buildings, as are their connecting side streets, so take your pick. I usually just walk around until I get in my 10,000 steps: on this particular walk I ended up on Essex.

Charter, Front & upper Essex Streets.

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April 22, 2022

Salem as Historyland

By daseger

For the most part, this blog has been an academic release for me rather than academic engagement: I consider most of the history I’ve offered up here more pop-up than professional. But there is one academic field with which I have been engaging (mostly in the form of learning) continuously: the history of tourism. This is a relatively new field, emerging in the 1990s, but also a very interdisciplinary and important one, involving social, cultural, and economic factors interacting at local, regional, and global levels. There’s a Journal of Tourism History, several academic book series, and an emerging taxonomy: the general category of Heritage Tourism, for example, can be broken down into more specialized endeavors: literary tourism, thanatourism (also called Dark Tourism, focused on visitation to sites of death and suffering), legacy (genealogical) tourism. Salem became a tourist designation in the later nineteenth century, and from that time its projections have included all of these pursuits. With the bicentennial of the Salem Witch Trials in 1892, witches started appearing everywhere, but Nathaniel Hawthorne represented stiff competition in the opening decades of the twentieth century, particularly after the centennial commemoration of his birth in 1904 and the opening of the House of the Seven Gables in 1910. Over the twentieth century Hawthorne waned and the witches ultimately triumphed, but at mid-century there was a relatively brief span when Salem and its history were both perceived and presented more broadly, as an essential “historyland” which one must visit in order to understand the foundations of American civilization. The major periodicals of the 1940s and 1950s, including Time, Life, American Heritage and National Geographic, presented Salem not only as a Puritan settlement, but also as an “incubator” of both democracy and capitalism with the events of 1692 subsumed by those larger themes.

I think I need to explain and qualify my use of the term “historyland” before I continue, as I’m not using it in the perjorative way that it has come to be used in recent decades: idealized history theme park where one can escape the present and have fun! The “American Way of History” in the words of David Lowenthal. Its meaning evolves, but I am using it first (more later) as it was initially applied: to a region in which much happened and much remained as material legacy to what happened. It emerges in the 1930s as a very specific reference to the area encompassing Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia: I believe a section of Virginia’s Route 3 is still called the “Historyland Highway.” Virginia was so great at marketing itself as Historyland (an example is upper left in the above graphic—some chutzpah to claim that the “nation was preserved” in Virginia!) that other states, like nearby Maryland and North Carolina, started using the term as well. I’m sure that every state on the eastern seaboard was jealous, and the term was extended geographically, chronologically, and conceptually when a Historyland living history park focused on the logging industry opened in Wisconsin in 1954. In the next decade, National Geographic started using the term more generally in reference to national landmarks, in the succession volumes to its popular Wonderlands guides. I don’t want to romanticize the word or its meaning too much: the history that characterized these historylands was overwhelmingly European, narrative, and a bit too focused on colonial costumes for my taste, but at least it was place-based. I can imagine that the civic authorities would have been just a bit wary about the impact of for-profit attractions peddling a story that was not Salem’s in the 1950s and 1960s, especially with the presence of so many non-profit local history museums like the Essex Institute, the Peabody Museum, Pioneer Village, and the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. Clearly that is not a concern now. In characteristic fashion, National Geographic focused on the site-specific aspects of Salem’s past and present in its September 1945 issue, focused on the Northeast. Its industrial base has created some “drabness,” but “this prosaic, utilitarian present is more than matched by an extraordinarily insistent and romantic past. Salem is literally a treasure house of early American landmarks, relics, articles, and documents of historic interest, all easily accessible and within a small area. The little city is fairly haunted by these still-visible evidences of its illustrious position, first as progenitor of the great Massachusetts Bay Colony, and later as a mistress of the seas. Unlike some larger cities of venerable age, in which population grew apace, it was unnecessary for Salem to tear down and rebuild: thus a larger proportion of memorable objects remains undisturbed.” Wow: a city which retains its treasures, was focused on preservation, and haunted by its still visible-past rather than made-up ghosts! What we have lost.

Photographs of Salem from the September 1945 issue of National Geographic, obove, and from America’s Historylands: Landmarks of Liberty (1962) below: the Witch House, secret staircase at the House of the Seven Gables, and Pioneer Village.

This total package, “treasure house” characterization continued to define Salem’s representation in national periodicals over the next two decades, during which Life, Time, and even Ladies Home Journal came to the city to take it all in: the Custom House and Derby Wharf, the House of the Seven Gables, Pioneer Village, the Essex Institute and the Peabody Museum, the Court House with its pins, the YMCA with its small Alexander Graham Bell display (see above), the recently-restored Witch House, and Chestnut Street. (And everything was open all the time! Peirce-Nichols, Derby, all those houses we can seldom enter today).  But change was coming, to they ways and means by which we interpreted the past as well as to Salem. From the late 1960s, the meaning of “historyland” took on a more negative meaning and associated “living history” attractions began to fall out of fashion, a trend that culminated with Disney’s disastrous Virginia pitch in the early 1990s. And then Samantha and her Bewitched crew came to Salem, allegedly showing it the way forward: tell one story rather than many and focus on private profits rather than civic pride. The Salem Witch Museum demonstrated that that path could be very successful, and so everybody else jumped on board: the public sanction of “Haunted Happenings” eventually transformed Salem into a full-time Witch City and undermined those institutions which were trying to tell other, or more complicated stories. Many of Salem’s textual treasures have been transferred to Rowley, but I guess we are compensated by the real pirate’s treasure from the Whydah? In recent years, the city’s tourism agency, Destination Salem, has attempted to broaden its appeal by taking advantage of the popularity of genealogical research/travel with its Ancestry Days (next week: see schedule of events here) but I wonder how far that initiative can go when most of Salem’s genealogical assets are in Rowley. Perhaps no structure represents Salem’s transition into a modern historyland, with all of its current connotations, better than the Peabody Essex Museum’s Ropes Mansion, once merely an “early home on an old street” and now the Hocus Pocus house. If I were a true historian of tourism, I could explain this transition in social, cultural, and economic terms, but I’m not there yet. Nevertheless, Salem is the perfect subject for this dynamic field: we’ve already seen some great studies, and I’m sure we’ll see more.

The Ropes Mansion in the May 16, 1958 issue of Life Magazine, and October 2021.

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April 15, 2022

Pirates were Pirates

By daseger

So I’ve been preoccupied with pirates for about a week, ever since the new Real Pirates Museum opened up in Salem adjacent to Charlotte Forten Park on Derby Street. My preoccupation was fostered by initial outrage at the apparent pirate takeover of this relatively new park dedicated to a prominent abolitionist and educator: colorful murals of the pirates within rise about the very minimalist park in a manner which I found dissonant and even offensive. I saw red: this was another Samantha statue moment for me. It wasn’t just the murals: the Real Pirates sign and entryway is centered on the park and there is obvious intent to integrate the attraction with the park. What could be the rationale? I looked through the meeting minutes of the two boards which were charged with approving the walkway, signage, and murals, the Salem Redevelopment Authority and the Public Art Commission, and found some interesting statements from the project manager for Real Pirates to the latter. He connected piracy and abolitionism (and past and present) through an effusive focus on piratical egalitarianism: “the concept of the murals is to portray the values of maritime history honored in Salem today as represented by the jolly roger, a symbol once condemned by nations that enslaved and exploited human beings and now seen as a symbol of what may have been the most democratic and egalitarian society of its time and by five portraits of historic individuals who sought freedom from the oppression and intolerance of their time.” The Commission approved the murals with one condition: that the pirates be disarmed.

Pirate values? That’s the connection? Motley crews in the Golden Age of Piracy shared the same values as Charlotte Forten in the nineteenth century and even Salem today? This seemed a little over the top and brought me into the realm of the Real Pirates Museum, a place I didn’t really want to go: it’s a private business and who am I to tell them what they should or should not be doing? But still, this is a lot of public projection, literally and metaphorically. I’m very familiar (especially after doing a deep dive over this past week) with the historiography of Atlantic piracy in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which historians like Marcus Rediker, Peter Linebaugh, and others have emphasized the socio-economic structures which churned up so much piracy and cast pirates themselves as working-class heroes challenging the various hierarchies of the British Empire during its most craven period, when it was armed with the asiento granting monopoly privileges to supply the Spanish Empire with enslaved labor. Pirates were clearly challenging this evil empire, and doing so with diverse and meritorious crews, but pirates were also pirates: practical, opportunistic, violent. Pirates were not roving abolitionists. While it is true that the large crews of Edward Thatch or Thache, the notorious Blackbeard, might have been as much as thirty percent African at one time, it is also true that when he captured the French slaver La Concorde in November of 1717 with 455 enslaved Africans in its hold he returned the vast majority to its deposed captain for transport back to the slave market in Martinque. La Concorde became his flagship briefly, renamed The Queen Anne’s Revenge: slave ships were popular among pirates as their architecture suited piratical purposes perfectly, but liberating human cargoes was not their business. In the words of David Cordingly, “pirates shared the same prejudices as other white men in the Western world. They regarded black slaves as commodities to be bought and sold, and they used them as slaves onboard their ships for the hard and menial jobs: working pumps, going ashore for food and water, washing and cleaning…” (Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates, 34). They were also disarmed, just like the Real Pirates mural figures.

Anchor from the Queen Anne’s Revenge, whose wreck was discovered in 1996. The Queen Anne’s Revenge Project is an absolutely wonderful site, where discoveries, treasures, and topics are discussed regularly relative to the ship in particular and piracy in general.

So that brings us, and me, to the Real Pirates Museum in Salem. Real Pirates is the sister museum of the Whydah Pirate Museum on Cape Cod: both are based on the sensational underwater archeological discovery of the wreck of the Whydah, another slaver turned pirate flagship, off the eastern coast of the Cape in 1984 by Barry Clifford. I’ve always heard that the Whydah is the only authenticated pirate shipwreck, but I believe that the Queen Anne’s Revenge has since been authenticated as well? In any case, the Whydah Gally was captured in the Caribbean by Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy and his crew on her maiden voyage in 1716 and utilized to capture a succession of prizes until she ran aground off Wellfleet in the following year. Bellamy perished along with most of his crew, a young, dashing, democratic Robin Hood who seems to have acquired the most romantic reputation of any Golden Age pirate because of his storied relationship with a Cape girl, Maria/Mary/Mehitable Hallett, who may or may not have existed (If she did exist, she was certainly not named Maria, a very Catholic name in very Protestant Massachusetts). Here is how the project manager of Real Pirates described these two in his submissions to the Salem Public Art Commission, as their murals were going to be, and are, very prominent:

Sam Bellamy, known as the “Robin Hood” of pirates, who had suffered as a common sailor, and was determined to assert his inherent human right to organize with others of similar conviction to form his own nation that would oppose by force other nations that had derived their wealth from the sale of human beings and from the murder and exploitation of the common person.

Maria Hallett, who as a single mother was thrown out of her home, banished from civilization and then accused of being a witch and yet never gave up her dignity or her dream of true love and salvation.

Much of these characterizations seem to be made up of whole cloth, and when I read them, I really didn’t want to visit a museum pushing romance over reality: even if “Maria Hallett” existed, or is a composite of several women who existed, how in the world can one know that she never gave up her dignity or her dream of true love and salvation (salvation?)? But I’m really upset about the park, so I knew I was going to write more, and if I was going to write more I knew I might end up criticizing the museum because of these over-the-top, thoroughly anachronistic statements of egalitarianism, dignity and love rather than its own exhibits, which is not fair. So off I went to see the Real Pirates. Before I left, I wanted to check the photography policy, so I went to the website, and there I saw something very interesting: I was not headed for merely a pirate experience, but a pirate and witch experience!

This is not the pitch on Cape Cod, I can assure you: this is a special Salem pitch. And obviously this is why there’s so much emphasis on Maria Hallett, who became known as the “Witch of Eastham” over her long legendary career. I quickly became more fixated on this than the “Pirates as Social Justice Warriors” claim, especially as I did not see over-reach in that area in the exhibit’s interpretation. It was disappointing, because my experience there was primarily positive: the staff was friendly and informative, it’s a very well-designed space, there’s a good introduction to the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and there are authentic artifacts from the Whydah. When you have Real Pirates and real treasure why feature a fake witch? I think this focus is a mistake, although to its credit, the exhibition does present all the Maria theories rather than the “fact” of her existence. I shook that fictional witch off, because I was enjoying my conversation with one of Real Pirates’ managers, who is a graduate of our MA program at Salem State where she wrote her thesis on pirates! She was full of plans and ideas, for both interpretation within the museum and engagement outside: she seemed to have put more substantive thought into how to feature and honor Charlotte Forten than most people associated with the City of Salem, even though that is not her job. (I still think it’s a stretch, and an uncomfortable one at that, but go for it) And then I got distracted by the nautical instruments displayed, as there’s a whole chapter on them in my book: I thought they were rather boring to write about actually but now I don’t seem to be able to get enough navigational dividers! That’s the key: the authentic objects. Historical authenticity is sadly at a premium in touristy Salem, and the Real Pirates Museum can distinguish itself by keeping it real.

A REAL Anchor.

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October 16, 2021

The Rebecca Nurse Homestead

By daseger

As I write this on a sunny warm Saturday afternoon, there’s a line of cars extending down my entire street which has been continuous since about 10:00 this morning; I’m sure every other entry road into Salem is the same. My windows are open so I can hear and smell the exhaust as well as booming radio music; the situation has been much the same over the past three weekends and it will be the same for the next two. Salem in October! Of course we’re all supposed to grin and bear it because it’s good for local businesses, and we do. Generally I make plans to get away but that hasn’t been the case this year for some reason: a big mistake. Last week I didn’t even provision properly before the weekend: an even bigger mistake! This week, I provisioned properly and went on a lovely twilight tour of the Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers, a town which approaches its Witch Trial history with far more reverence than Salem. So today I am not only better-provisioned but also considerably calmer than a week ago: the cars are annoying but really I just feel sorry for their passengers.

A Tale of Two October “Salems”: Salem Town and Salem Village, part of what is now Danvers.

I’ve been to the Nurse Homestead before, but I wanted to return this year as I’ve been teaching a course on the trials, and Rebecca’s experience has been the most impactful on my somewhat jaded freshmen, who are taking a required “first year seminar” rather than a course (and a subject) of their particular interest. They are cool customers, all majoring in business or criminal justice or nursing or something “practical”, and I’m not sure they know what to think of hyper-historical me, perpetually indulging my curiosity! But I’m making them read all sort of primary sources, and I can tell that Rebecca’s trial moved them: this well-respected grandmother, supported by her Salem Village neighbors and exonerated first by a jury, only to indict herself because she couldn’t hear a second round of questions clearly, one of three Towne sisters to be accused in 1692 and two to die. This year marks the 500th anniversary of her birth, in Yarmouth, England. Rebecca and her husband Francis spent most of their married life in Salem town, citizens of good standing, but moved out to the Village when they were in their fifties along with their married children, creating a family compound, in the center of which was and is the c. 1678 house now under the stewardship of the Danvers Alarm List Company. Not far from the house is a family graveyard, where Rebecca is supposedly buried, along with another accused and executed “witch”, George Jacobs. In its midst is the very first memorial to a victim of 1692, erected by her descendants in 1885.

I was among descendants on the tour, making a regular pilgrimage to this sacred site, happy to be on familiar and familial territory on such a beautiful October evening. The young guide was great, eager and happy to answer as many questions as we could direct her way. Not a single reference to ghosts! The only discordant element of the entire evening was a woman wearing a frilly witch hat, the only one among us so adorned, of course. How odd to see someone snapping a photo of a memorial to someone who was falsely accused of witchcraft, a martyr, in that hat, a party hat, from the other Salem.

No flash allowed inside, and as you can see it was quite dark, but this is believed to be the very “great” room in which Rebecca Nurse was arrested in the spring of 1692.

15 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Culture, Salem