Salem -- witches' brew

November 14, 2004|Diane E. Foulds, Globe Correspondent

SALEM -- For better or worse, thousands of Americans can trace their ancestry to one of the 19 men and women who were hanged for witchcraft in Colonial Salem. Some embrace the distinction, others reject it. But for sheer human drama, few episodes in American history can match the witch-hunt, making Salem the destination for a special class of visitors who arrive not to browse the shops or admire the architecture, but to surrender themselves to the dark magnetism that this coastal city continues to exert on the national conscience.

My own Salem connection is Martha Carrier, an outspoken goodwife whom Cotton Mather immortalized with the damning epithet ''Queen of Hell." She and four others met their end on Gallows Hill in the third of four public executions held in 1692. Deemed unworthy for burial in consecrated ground, their bodies were dumped into a rocky ditch and scattered with dirt.

For me, that was the definitive detail. With each successive year, I felt a stronger pull to make the trip to Salem.

What I needed was a personal artifact -- a shoe, a hairpin, some ordinary, everyday object that would lend a sense of reality to the fictionalized image of the trials created by books and films. I wanted physical proof that the whole thing really happened.

I started by looking for guides, but all I found were directions to graves and plaques, which reveal little about the fabric of people's lives.

I skipped the burial grounds and headed straight for the 17th-century houses. For a city so rich in historic architecture, it seems odd that only about five structures date to the witchcraft era. For me, the two most important were the House of the Seven Gables, a Colonial mansion where the magistrates hobnobbed at selectmen's meetings, and the Jonathan Corwin residence, known locally as the Witch House. Corwin was one of the judicial elite who cross-examined the accused witches at public hearings. His 26-year-old nephew, George, became Essex County's high sheriff, then made it his business to seize whatever property he could from those who had landed in prison.