On the trip down to Boston from Portland we dropped off into Salem for a couple of hours. Salem is that town in which the witch trials took place in the 1690s.  Some of us at school in the 70s would have studied ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller. This play dramatized the Salem story.  Those who recall the play will remember the trumped-up witch accusations and the subsequent hangings of numerous citizens of the town. There is a commemorative area to the various people who were hanged, some of the names came back to me ……John Proctor, Martha Corey and Sarah Good all hanged and Giles Corey who was ‘pressed’ to death.

Friendship of Salem replica of the 1797 original

The weather was kind so we had a short wander around the town and historic waterfront area looking at some of the ‘witch’ memorabilia and other landmarks, even Elizabeth Montgomery who played Samantha in the TV series Bewitched gets a memorial statue for her efforts. She was a good witch.

Samantha from ‘Bewitched’

These sorts of operations are all over Salem

One interesting piece of trivia Allthego spotted was the street name ‘Kosciuszko’, a stuffed witch was leaning nearby the street pole. See picture below. Some of my readers are students of this sort of stuff but you will all be delighted to know that this street is named after the very same chap whose name is attached to Australia’s highest mountain . Yes Mt Kosciuszko is also named after General Tadeusz Kosciuszko a Polish National hero and a hero of the American Revolutionary war against the British. Small world. Interesting value judgement as well, backstreet in Salem versus highest mountain in Australia!

Some witches on Kosciuszko Street

After Salem we scooted off down to Boston. I’m running a couple of days behind and will catch up with where we now are in the next post!