Witch Central

Salem in Massachusetts earned its supremely spooky reputation more than 300 years ago when mass hysteria broke out over accusations of witchery.

At the Salem Witch Museum you're enclosed in a dark room before a multimedia presentation unfolds around you.

It paints a picture of the restrictive puritanical life of the girls of the time, the events as they unfolded and the terrible end-result of the series of trials now known as the Salem Witch Trials (1692 - 1693).

Here's my take on what happened...

The girls were going out of their minds because they were so incredibly bored. They got one of their slaves, a woman named Tituba, to share some of her beliefs with them. The girls started acting strangely (either for giggles or because they'd actually gone mad from being so bored). When the doctor said he couldn't find anything wrong with them (and they didn't have psychiatrists in those days) he suggested it was the work of the devil. When they were interrogated around the clock by priests they started yelling out peoples' names.

When those people were then put on trial the girls claimed they'd seen their spirits flying around and up to no good. This 'spectral evidence' was taken on board as fact. If the accused people confessed then they just lost their lands. If they refused to confess, they were hanged. Nineteen people went to the gallows and one other was pressed to death while many others were held long-term in prisons.

Much later on, the girl who'd made the first accusation said 'Oops, I guess I made a bit of trouble. Sorry. My bad.'

An additional room at the museum described Wicca, the modern witchcraft religion based on pagan beliefs, and examined different perceptions of witchcraft such as the Halloween-version created by Hollywood.

The first presentation really affected Indy and he was asking questions for most of the day trying to figure it all out.

I tried to simplify and said that some girls told some lies and people believed them. The people they'd told lies about were killed. It was terrible and not fair at all. Bad things happen when people tell lies.

Dash, who at three is not quite as 'deep', thought it was all great fun and ran around outside saying "You're a witch! You're a witch!"

We had camped the van at Winter Park, a former fort and lighthouse turned coast guard station turned recreational area.

To make our lives easy, we caught the Salem Trolley which stops at Winter Park, the Witch Museum and other sights in downtown Salem with commentary along the way.

After the Museum, we stopped in at the waterfront for some chowder and checked out the maritime exhibits along the old wharves.

Indy got the attention of a parks ranger on board the "Friendship of Salem", a ship that is moored there as part of the National Historic Site.

It was closed to tours that day but sure enough the ranger allowed us on board and answered all of Indy's questions.

After the boys had a spin of the wheel and a play with the tender and rigging, we left and hopped back on the trolley to Winter Park.

We were glad we'd visited Salem in August and not in October.

Apparently, on Halloween night, the population swells to two and a half times its normal size, earning Salem the title of "Halloween Capital of the World".