Salem

Johann and I went a journeying to Salem today. Salem as in witches of. A friend of Johann's, Carly, and her two dogs, Tucker and Lilly, gave us a tour of the town. Carly does the wardrobe for the cirque de soleil, and she grew up near Salem so has the whole history in her head.

Anyway, Salem is fascinating. There were 19 people hanged for witchery in 1692, over 200 were accused, one was pressed to death with stones for refusing to recognise the authority of the court, four died in prison and the youngest person imprisoned was four years old, she was released at the old age of six, but spent the rest of her life in institutions as she went mad as a hatter from the experience. The trials stopped because someone accused the Governor's wife of being a witch. The governor allowed the trial, however no spectral evidence (hearsay and "I had a dream and it was the devil" style stuff) was allowed so of course there were no more hangings due to there being no evidence. Interestingly, after that the governor passed a law ensuring the separation of church and state and the disallowment of spectral evidence in trials - this was later used in writing the bill of rights when the USA was created. All so very interesting. Sorry, I really enjoyed the history of Salem.

It was also a major shipping port without a navy, so there were numerous pirates. The third famous thing about Salem is the author Nathaniel Hawthorne (the direct descendent of the hanging judge in the witch trials - neat hey?) who wrote "the scarlett letter" and "the house of seven gables". So, witches, pirates and literature. Oh yeah, I loved Salem.

We went past a few of the more famous sites, including the harbour where there are tunnels that used to be used for smuggling, the old cemetary with graves from the 17th century, and the old prison which was only shut down in the 1980's due to crimes against humanity. That place was seriously creepy, you wouldn't have been able to convince me to go inside that building for love or money.

Yes, so Salem. Most cool - go there.

Sarah