Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Salem

This is the house where Nathaniel Hawthorne's future wife lived, and where they did their courting. It is adjacent to the cemetery, and I just love this tree! I couldn't have picked a better one to be living in an old cemetery!

There are lots of interesting people buried here... Nathaniel Hawthorne's relative who presided over the witch trials, a Mayflower pilgrim, Cotton Mather's brother... it's an amazing place.
Adjacent to the cemetery is this memorial to those who lost their lives in the witch hunt. The stone benches along the side are each engraved with the name of a victim. At one end are quotes from some of those killed, such as "I cannot plead guilty."


Lauren had told me Salem was very commercialized, but I was still surprised. Almost every store and restaurant name has something to do with witches. The sweatshirts all say something about witches. There is a witch museum and ghost tours and so on and so forth. They've taken a very serious, tragic historical event and exploited it in such trite ways. The city is full of wonderful history, but it is overshadowed by silly commercialism.

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