Halloween Experts

During the dark months of February though September, 1692, hysteria swept through New England, centered around the increasingly unbelievable accusations of witchcraft in Salem Village, Massachusetts. Even Puritan ministers, Cotton Mather, whose writings on witchcraft had helped to fuel the flames, and his father, Increase Mather, became skeptical of the kinds of evidence the Salem court was using to convict accused witches. The testimony of afflicted young people, who claimed to have been visited by the spirits of the accused, and by the ghosts of their victims was referred to as “spectral evidence”. They questioned the credibility of the afflicted girls, the forced confessions of witches, and the court’s reliance on spectral evidence. When heads began to clear a little from the initial hysteria, some people began to question the veracity of the afflicted. The girls, then accused anyone who voiced doubt in their testimony. In all, about 200 people faced accusations of witchcraft. Nineteen men and women were hanged on Gallows Hill that summer. An 81 year old man was pressed to death for not entering a plea in his case. As many as 17 people died in prison, awaiting trial. The nightmare ended when powerful people, including the wife of the governor of Massachusetts, publicly denounced the proceedings, and were then accused of witchcraft themselves. Governor Phipps ordered the Salem court dissolved.

Salem was not through the dark times yet, however. Because the area was so consumed with the witch hunt, trials and executions, fields lay fallow. Very little harvest was reaped that year, leaving the town facing a long hard winter. Some relief came from the generosity of a wealthy villager who had fled Salem after being accused of witchcraft. Upon hearing of the town’s plight, he sent a shipload of corn to ease their suffering. The feud between the farming community and townspeople that contributed to the unrest had taken its toll, when people finally recognized that many of the accused were rivals or enemies of the powerful Putnam family, whose daughter, Ann, was the most dramatic of the afflicted. In 1697, it was Ann who became the only one of the afflicted girls to ever offer an apology or admit any culpability in the horror that gripped the area. She stood before her church while her apology was read, which stated: “ I desire to be humbled before God. It was a great delusion of Satan that deceived me in that sad time.” It is believed that Ann may have been as much a victim as those she accused, being manipulated by her parents and elders to achieve their own goals.

Salem, Massachusetts has had over 300 years to recover from the scars of these infamous injustices. How have they fared? Salem became one of the most significant seaports of early American history. It was given the very first to designation by Congress as a National Historic Site. Today, Salem is a thriving community of about 40,000 people, whose major industry is tourism. The city is a mixture of important historic sites, New Age and Wiccan boutiques, and Halloween and witch-themed attractions. In October, they host a month long Halloween festival. Touted as the “Ultimate Halloween Experience”, it will include, this year, a psychic fair, tours of haunted places in the city, featuring the “Witch House” and the House of Seven Gables, a Haunted Happenings Parade, a street fair, and the annual Halloween Ball. The popularity of the festival, and the history of the area, have inspired Salem to boast that they are the “Halloween Capital of the World”.