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My New Hampshire Vacation
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May, 2001
The third weekend of May, 2001, I was blessed with the invitation to visit my friend, Nancy, at her home in Concord, New Hampshire. Though I was only there for three days we crammed an unbelievable amount of stuff into the time we had.
Please note: I purposely uploaded larger images to retain detail and quality, maximizing the essence of my trip. Please allow time for all images to download, and ENJOY!
My vacation began when my plane landed at 8:10 a.m. in Boston, where we spent most of the day. We visited the Old North Church, where the lights were hung in the steeple on the night of Paul Revere's ride; we visited Paul Revere's Boston home, and drove through nearly all sections of Boston, most notably Beacon Street, and the entire North and South districts. Travel in the city was interesting, as Boston was undergoing major construction (the Big Dig) - moving all major arteries through the city underground. If you have been to Boston you can understand why - the streets are narrow, winding, and most of them one-way. There is simply no room for more than one vehicle to pass! We drove by Fenway Park and the Boston Gardens, and walked through Faneuil Hall Marketplace - a host of sights and smells, filled with a wide array of ethnic eateries. Unfortunately, neither of us thought about it, so we had no camera with us in Boston :-(.
On Saturday we went to Salem, and then drove up through Gloucester, Massachusetts, and on Sunday we went up the New Hampshire coast and into York Beach, Maine.
MANY thanks to Nancy and her family, without whom none of this would have been possible. It was certainly one of my vacations of a lifetime!
The Witch's Dungeon
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The Witch's Dungeon and Museum included a wonderful gift shop, a re-enactment of the Salem Witch Trials, and exhibits depicting the Witch Hysteria of 1692, with re-created dungeon cells. |
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I browsed the gift shop at the Witch's Dungeon and came out with a Witch's Ball (below, right), which is a beautiful blown glass globe about 8-9" in diameter. You hang the ball in an east window to ward off evil spirits and capture witches before they can enter your home. It is said that, witches being curious creatures, they become entrapped by the beautiful strands of glass within the ball itself. Neat, huh. |
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This next image at left is a re-enactment of a witch trial. There are two live persons on stage, both of them modern-day practicing witches. This was the accusation and trial of Goody Proctor (seated in blue, just left of center). |
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At right is one of the re-created cells. Actual records were destroyed after the trials, but during an excavation for building in the early 20th century the original dungeon was discovered. Though the historical society was not allowed to photograph or remove any portion of the dungeon, they did observe and take careful measurements of the different cells, and recorded these in detail so the cells depicted at the Witch Museum are accurately re-created. One of these cells was barely large enough for a person to stand tall, arms shackled above the head. |
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Our hostess (live person in the right side of the photo at left) for the tour of exhibits at the Witch's Dungeon. She, too, was a modern-day practicing witch. |
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Though many witches in Europe were, no witches in North America have ever been burned at the stake. Not all of the Salem witches were women - some were men - and they were all hanged save one, who was crushed to death using huge rocks and small boulders that were piled on top of him as he lay prone in a small shallow on the ground. |
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The Witch's Museum
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The entrance to the Witch's Museum was located in a beautiful pedestrian mall. It, too, hosted a lovely and unique gift shop where I came away with gifts for my family members, as well as a great hammered brass wind chime for myself. THIS guy (left) was just fantastical! Inside the gift shop of the Witch's Museum, he meets and greets you as you walk in the door. All I could think when I first saw him was, "Ooooh, I'd like to take THAT home with me!" Of course, all these gift shops were filled with mystical and spiritual items, trinkets and "witchy" souvenirs. |
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The exhibits at the Witch's Museum were great. Here is a depiction of the young girls who started the witch hysteria when they were found dancing, singing and playing in the woods. These people were Puritans, who believed an underage girl was permitted to do only two things: her chores and pray, so dancing in the woods was strictly forbidden. Surely the thinking went, these children must have been bewitched and forced to carry on in this heathenistic way. |
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Another exhibition of possession- It was explained that, apparently, one of the older girls involved in this madness had fallen in love with one of the married men in town, and her accusation of witchery against the man's wife was to clear the way for her to move in on the husband. Her plan backfired, though, since the wife was apparently pregnant when she was imprisoned, which soon made itself apparent to one and all. It was illegal to harm an unborn life, so the wife's life was spared until the birth of her child, by which time the hysteria had passed and she was simply released from prison. The husband, having also been accused of witchery was not so fortunate. He was among those who were executed. |
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The black woman sitting in the rocking chair in the image at right is Tituba, a slave woman from Barbados, who, it is thought, was part of the cause behind the hysteria, since she practiced chants, spells, and etc. Tituba was blamed for the girls dancing in the woods, and many other things. |
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At left they are carting off the accused. No settlement or town in the country was immune to the witch hysteria. At its peak (it ran about 13 months) over 150 people were accused and imprisoned on the face of the accusations. The Witch's Dungeon was quite full. To be imprisoned, however, you had to pay. You paid for room and board and any amenities you required, including hay to lie upon, blankets, anything. If you were condemned to hang, you paid for the rope to hang you. You paid for your transportation to the hanging tree, and you paid the hangman himself. The Sheriff of the Town of Salem, who collected these fees, made himself a very rich man, indeed. |
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At right is an accused man being chained and hauled away to prison, to await trial. |
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A trial depiction - Goody Proctor's. At far left Tituba is holding a "poppett" - a kind of doll - which had been found in the possession of Goody Proctor. Apparently, they considered the doll as evidence of Goody Proctor's alliance with the devil because a sewing needle was found tucked into the doll's body for "safekeeping." |
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One of the doctors involved in initially diagnosing the children as possessed is seen here, at right. It was believed that if you were a witch, the size of your skull was larger than normal. He was fascinated with skulls. When one of the men who had previously escaped imprisonment returned after the hysteria had run its course, he was beheaded and the good doctor boiled his skull. When the clean bone was removed from the water and measured, it was found to be much larger than a normal human skull, proof to the doctor that the man was also a witch after all. Today we know if a skull is boiled, the bone expands considerably and was no such proof at all. |
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