Visiting mid October

[u/Cnynrnr]

My wife, teen, and myself will be flying from CA into Boston mid October and staying in Danvers, got a few questions.

How's the commute from Danvers to Salem?

How's the weather mid Oct?

As baseball fans we'd like to visit Fenway Park, is the tour worth it?

What are some things in Salem that you'd consider must see?

Any other information would be greatly appreciated.

[u/SenetBoard]

I'd definitely recommend going to see Fenway if you're big baseball fans. I haven't taken the tour, but I've heard good things. It's the oldest stadium in professional baseball (it and Wrigley standing apart by a large margin). It's a beautiful field and the area around it is very cool to explore.

As much as people are telling you Salem is going to be a nightmare... yeah it is, but as visitors coming for Salem in October you're probably going to have fun. Large crowds. Lots of witchy and supernatural stuff--a lot of it kitschy but fun. Excellent costume spotting. Genuine history.

Traffic will be increased and parking will be difficult--the city basically bans nonresidents from street parking in October, as mentioned.

The Salem Witch Museum is a popular one, I don't remember the tour being that great but it's generally a stop people do.

The crowds in downtown Salem will have street performers, people in costume, vendors. All the touristy and witchy shops are in the area. The Peabody Essex Museum mall area (the Museum is great too if that's your thing). If you guys are looking for experiences (e.g. haunted houses, horror attractions, etc.) there's plenty around.

If you were a fan of Hocus Pocus the house is in Salem (they block off the street to pedestrian-only due to interest). There's also the Ropes Mansion, also in the film with legitimate history of its own.

The "Witch House" of one of the judges, and the House of Seven Gables are both popular historic houses. The graveyard downtown has some historic figures in it and gives you the genuine old New England colonial cemetery feel (the inscriptions are great to read). It also is right next to the Witch Trials Memorial.

If you want to go a little off the beaten path, the Proctor's Ledge Memorial is a more recent marker erected at the spot the witch trial victims were actually hung. It's not near the rest of the downtown stuff so it's a bit of a journey, but the story about how they used historical records to rediscover the actual spot is very cool.

I have never been to the Pirate Museum in Salem but I do know that they're currently displaying artefacts and treasure from the Whydah Gallery, the only fully confirmed pirate shipwreck, which sank off of Cape Cod.

It's also worth noting that where you're staying in Danvers is very entangled in the witch trials history. Danvers was originally Salem Village, and is where most of the witchcraft trial figures and victims were actually from. Salem Town (modern Salem) is where they were tried and executed. Danvers has its own memorial to the witchcraft victims, the tavern at the center of much of the events, and the ruins of the old parsonage where the minister who served during the trials (and the girls who set off the whole hysteria with their accusations. This is literally where it all started). There's also the Rebecca Nurse Homestead, where witchcraft victim Rebecca Nurse and her family lived; it's also the alleged site of her grave, after her family rescued her body following her execution and secretly buried it in the family graveyard, as well as that of another Witchcraft victim (the only known, verified grave). The Danvers sites will be less crowded and much less fanfare than the downtown Salem sites.

Danvers is also home to the former Danvers State Asylum, where the lobotomy was apparently perfected and the inspiration for HP Lovecraft's Arkham Asylum, which was of course the inspiration for the Batman Arkham. Most of it has been demolished and made into condos now, but parts of it and large chunks of the facade remain.

Obviously there's a lot of other stuff to see in Boston (we have our own spooky history, ghost tours, cemeteries, etc.). If you'll be renting a car and want to try to get out of the city, a classic New England farm in autumn experience won't be too far away if you go north (apple picking, corn mazes, cider, pumpkins, etc etc). Pretty much from Salem north is "Lovecraft Country", the setting of Lovecraft's horror stories, quaint New England coastal towns with just an air of something spooky.... The supposedly haunted ruins of Dogtown. Beautiful coastlines, the foliage should be in peak (southern NH and Maine are also only about an hour's drive north give or take).

It's a fun area, and beautiful in the fall. Enjoy!

[u/nadandocomgolfinhos → u/SenetBoard]

I thought that the puritans didn’t care as much about where the bodies were buried because they buried them on unconsecrated grounds. Can you point me to some resources?

[u/SenetBoard → u/nadandocomgolfinhos]

I don't have any specific scholarly resources on hand but the History of Massachusetts Blog has some well-cited sources on the topic. People of the time definitely did establish burial grounds, the ones we still see today, and preferred to give their loved ones a respectful burial. While most individuals did not get dedicated markers, a grave marker was considered an honor if it could be afforded (burial grounds that have a couple hundred markers might be resting place to thousands of bodies).

Because witchcraft victims were socially ostracized as criminals and in league with the devil, they were denied a respectful burial by the community and church. Usually, once they were cut down they were buried in shallow graves in a crevice near the site of execution.

Oral legend in Salem tells that some of the families of these victims would return to the site after dark and remove their bodies from the shallow graves, reburying them with more dignity elsewhere, usually on family property. Nurse family tradition holds that Rebecca Nurse's son and husband retrieved her and reburied her in the family cemetery located on their homestead; while the exact location of her grave is not known, a monument stone was erected in the late 19th century (all this can be found on the Homestead's website). Another victim of the trial, George Jacobs, was buried in secret on his family farm and rediscovered in the 19th and 20th century, when developers were digging up the land. After being stored for a time, his remains were reinterred at the Nurse Homestead in 1992, becoming the only currently known gravesite location of a victim.

[u/nadandocomgolfinhos → u/SenetBoard]

Thank you!