We dream in our waking moments and walk in our sleep nathaniel hawthorne the scarlet letter
Welcome to Salem
the air is crisp and has a chilling bite to it as i stand in the heart of salem
we're standing in front of the salem uh witch museum and across the street
is roger the the colonists who started this town and it's this very town
that hysteria rose because girls had nightmares of possession and and curses civil by a witch's hand
it's very fascinating uh that accusations came and gone and and was thrown across the colony
and you never knew when you might be accused of being a witch not only was it women that were
accused of being a witch but it was also men who were also accused of being a witch
anyone could be accused of being a witch your dog your neighbor your friend your family even
and it all started because these girls had these night terrors in the middle of the night
and all they could blame it on was the hand of a witch it's interesting now 20 people died
during the witch trials during this witch hunt that started here and i'm thinking of them as i
stand in this kind of cold fall morning in front of this very building that was built in 1692.
accusations of witchcraft started to tear through the colony was it all a misunderstanding or were
the colonists experiencing a run-in with the devil at the doing of witches within the colony
this was minister paris's rhetoric as he preached in church and that was one of the causes
of the salem troubles harris was a man who echoed the hysteria first with
his fire and brimstone rhetoric of witchcraft to explain why his children were having trouble fits
into the night stand against the wiles of the devil for he waits beyond every corner repent
or your soul will burn in eternity
the paranoia spread like wildfire family members turned against each other
and violence spread throughout the town more girls claim to be overcome by the devil you're a witch
no i'm not a witch you're the witch it is as if love thy neighbor as thyself was
completely thrown out with the baby in the bathwater
here is the very spot of richard moore's grave site
who was one of the passengers on the mayflower a pilgrim of the new world
this is the only known gravesite of a mayflower passenger richard died at the age of 84.
so i'm here at the memorial for the 20 people who died for the claims of witchcraft
bridget bishop being the very first one to be hanged and it says june 10 1692 she was hanged
for the crimes of witchcraft and again the courts and the court hearings were very hysterical
uh the girls who were making the claims were fainting in court and making a huge show
with their claims of witchcraft and at the time
this type of accusation this type of fainting in a courtroom was
evidence that witchcraft was being made and so she was the first to hang because of this
look where the hawthorne hotel stands it once was bridget bishop's apple orchard
women were accused of witchcraft because of their unpopular status fueled by
property line disputes within the community
the tendency of her fate and fortune had been to set her free the scarlet
letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not to tread shame despair
solitude these had been her teachers stern and wild ones and they had made her strong
but taught her much amiss nathaniel hawthorne the scarlet letter
so throughout history there's been many witch hunts and uh we still have witch hunts today but
the thing is is that you know most of the people who are victims of these witch hunts are people
who are poor on the fringes of society or just plainly disliked in the community they live in
we're standing out front of the house of seven gables which was one of the homes that nathaniel
hawthorne grew up in around this area in salem and he wrote the scarlet letter and the house
of seven gables so the scarlet letter you know really stood out to me when i was growing up and
read it while i was in high school the fact that a woman who was on the fringes of society
really threatened the townspeople of the colony she lived in and you know it really goes back to
the salem witch trials and how the 20 people innocent people most likely
uh who who were victims to the witch hunt of the the new colony in the new world
i laughed in bitterness and agony of heart at the contrast between what i seem and what i am
the governor of the colonies sir william phillips started to actively cover up
the witch trials during the fall of 1692 banning any publication about the witch hunts
books were burned but recently historians found the exact location of where the
witches were publicly hanged execution fashion which was lost in time due to the cover-up the 14
of the 20 prosecuted for the crimes of witchcraft were women unfortunately innocent lives were taken
unrightfully throughout history thousands of women have been victims of witch hunts
so now we're standing in front of the john ward house this was built around 1684 somewhere around
there he was a leather worker and actually this isn't the original spot that the house
uh was built on they actually moved in in 1910 which is very odd but it's still intact and it's
such a gorgeous black painted house i think they painted it they keep it up to date with the paint
i guess but i love the door it's so cool and that old style and as you can see there's a chimney
stack right there chimney stack and two pitched roofs very typical for the architecture of the day
oh my god i think this place is haunted so uh i was looking at google images for this location
and there was totally a picture of a ghost if you looked in there in the window i highly recommend
if you come to salem look in the windows of these old houses you know there's no one living in them
they're completely vacant but if you just look in the window you might see a ghost
so right now we are standing outside of the house where hocus pocus was filmed and allison's
parents were having a big extravagant party for halloween and max crashes the party and
ropes her all in into this crazy witch hunt with sarah sarah jessica parker running around town
as a witch i loved that movie as a kid and it's so surreal to come to the location
where it was filmed now they're gearing up to shoot hocus pocus 2 and i'm so excited to see
what they do unfortunately this time around they're not shooting in salem
but they'll pretend like it's salem but unfortunately they're not shooting here this time
around salem is now a quaint little town with beautiful historical buildings of the past
but we will never understand the reasoning for these types of hasty actions taking
place of yesteryear i don't think that the young women who accused all of those folks
understood the magnitude of their actions or maybe they did in a grim way
the girls played their neighbors with a terrible game of witch hunting
that turned salem upside down for years we as humans tend to fear the unknown or the unseen
but to what ends will we take actions based on solely fear of the unknown are fear-based
decisions really helpful to society as we reflect on the decisions of the past we must never forget
the lives taken and which will forever stay in our hearts known as the salem witch trials
so
you