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Salem's Ghosts
By Lee Holloway
FATE :: January 2006
The Salem witch hysteria began not in Salem, but in nearby Salem Village (now Danvers, Massachusetts), a community of scattered farms facing the great wilderness. The winter of 1691–92 was harsh. Ponds, lakes, and wells were frozen thick; ever-deepening snow blanketed the landscape as far as the eye could see; and icy winds penetrated even the thickest woolen cloaks. Days were short, nights long and dark. It was in this setting of abject isolation that several girls started gathering in the cozy kitchen of the village parsonage, where they were entertained by Tituba, a West Indian slave belonging to the Rev. Samuel Parris. Tituba, reveling in her suddenly exalted position, regaled her listeners with tales of ghosts, witches, and island magic.
There have been many theories concerning what sparked the insanity that followed this seemingly innocent pastime. Some scholars claim the girls became frightened while attempting to ascertain the occupations of the men they were destined to marry, but this is doubtful because various forms of divination, though forbidden by the Puritan Church, were fairly common in 17th-century New England. Regardless of what transpired during those fireside assemblies of three centuries past, it culminated in the Salem Witch Trials.
The hysteria lasted only a few months, but this very short period of time in which the devil reigned supreme in Massachusetts has captured the imaginations of Americans like no other single event in the history of our country. And even after the passage of more than three centuries, thousands of people flock to Salem to walk where the witches walked and learn more about this shameful blot on U.S. history. Is it any wonder some of those convicted witches refuse to rest in peace? ...
Read the rest of this article in the January 2006 issue of FATE
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