Travel Guide: Salem

I’ve been to Salem, Massachusetts twice—once in August and once in October. I’m positive that Salem is charming all year-round, but for obvious reasons it becomes a destination in October, especially weekends close to Halloween. My advice is to go on a weekday if at all possible, so you’ll still be able to enjoy the Halloween spirit without the crushing crowds. This is also a great book to read before you go.

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GETTING THERE:

Like a lot of places in the US, unfortunately, it’s best to get to Salem by car. But, the good news is that once you’re there, the city is small and walkable. Taking a bus or train to Boston and then another bus or ferry to Salem is an option, but renting a car will give you more freedom to stop along the way (just outside of town you can see the Hocus Pocus house and Old Burial Hill, or the Lizzie Borden house in Fall River and her gravesite, if you’re coming from the south). If you really plan ahead, you can book a hotel that guarantees parking so you can dump your car as soon as you arrive and you don’t have to compete with the day visitors who fill the expensive garages.

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WHAT TO DO:

The House of the Seven Gables

Tour the house that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous book (and pick up a copy in the gift shop, it’s not an easy read but it’s worth tackling). Hawthorne is a descendent of John Hathorne, the only judge involved in the Salem witch trials who never repented of his actions (the ‘w’ was added to the surname later to distance the family from the trials). This is a popular place and tickets are limited, so get here right when it opens to secure your spot and enjoy the secret staircase!

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The Jonathan Corwin (Witch) House

The Witch House is the only structure still standing in Salem with direct ties to the witchcraft trials. Corwin was a local magistrate and he served on the court which ultimately sent nineteen people to the gallows. Corwin lived in the house, an excellent example of seventeenth-century architecture (and my dream home), for more than forty years and it remained in the Corwin family until the mid-1800s. You can take a guided or self-guided tour, and they have extended hours in October (but again, the house is small so get there early).

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Salem Witch Museum

The Salem Witch Museum was the thing I was most disappointed by on my first visit, but I still went back on my return trip. You can’t really go to Salem without visiting this museum, but while it starts out promising—with an animatronic retelling of the witchcraft trials—it is seriously lacking in artifacts or anything else you might expect to find in a traditional museum. The gift shop is worth a visit, though, if only for their floaty pens.

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Cemeteries

Even if you don’t normally spend hours wandering cemeteries like I do, a visit to Salem isn’t complete without at least seeing the first cemetery established in Salem in 1637, the Old Burying Point (also called the Charter Street Cemetery). Adjacent to the cemetery is a memorial to the victims of the witchcraft trials and the whole area gets very crowded during October. Since our last visit they’ve taken measures to limit visitors to the cemetery, but it’s definitely worth the wait. There are a few other less famous cemeteries within walking limits—like the Howard Street Cemetery or the Broad Street Cemetery—which are just as historic and interesting without the annoying crowds.

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Salem Wax Museum

You know how much I love a good, crumbling, creepy wax museum and the one in Salem does not disappoint. There were long lines for almost every October pop-up attraction in the area around the Old Burying Point, but one of the shortest was for this wax museum—which was good for us but it also makes me concerned for the future of this dusty relic.

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Hocus Pocus Filming Locations (Allison’s House, Old Town Hall)

I did an entire blog post on the filming locations around Salem from this 1993 classic, but Allison’s House (aka the Ropes Mansion) is located right next to the Witch House, and both aren’t far from the Old Town Hall where Bette Midler sings "I Put A Spell on You" while doing just that.

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Ghost Tour

There are a hundred ghost tours to choose from, but the one we took was fantastic (“not recommended for children” will seal the deal for me every time). Our guide pushed around an old-timey baby carriage containing a creepy doll named Myrna, and bought our entire tour Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I just heard that he may not be doing nighttime tours anymore but it’s still worth inquiring about (and if he’s not available, I still recommend doing a ghost tour—I think every single person that came to Salem when we did was out at night on a tour).

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Hauswitch

There are tons of cheesy, witchy stores in Salem, but for something a little more refined, check out Hauswitch. They have beautiful (if expensive) things, and for a brief second we all felt like we’d found a portal back to Brooklyn.

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WHERE TO EAT:

Witches Brew Cafe

We didn’t actually eat here, but their window was painted with a Hocus Pocus theme, so how can it be bad?

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Mercy Tavern

We ended up at the Mercy Tavern somewhat randomly, but they ended up having delicious nachos and a great local cider selection (you can buy this glass here). I don’t eat seafood so I’m not at all qualified to write recommendations for New England eateries, but I’ve heard good things about Turner’s Seafood.

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Ye Olde Pepper Candy Companie

I loved this store—America’s oldest candy company—so much that I used it as the inspiration for a college branding project. They have all sorts of old-timey candies, including Gibralters, the first commercially-made candy in the US (they have a similar consistency to a really hard dinner mint). It’s located right across from The House of the Seven Gables, so after your tour grab some fudge or a Salem blackjack, still made by hand with the original 1800s recipe.

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Ziggy's & Sons Donuts

When you walk into Ziggy’s, you might think you’ve made a mistake and accidentally walked into someone’s private kitchen. Located outside of the main tourist area, the tiny Ziggy’s (there are a few stools, if you want to eat in) feels like a local secret, which is amazing considering that the donuts and coffee were cheap, delicious and served with a smile (and a heavy dose of curiosity about where we were from and what we were doing in Salem).

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Traveling to Massachusetts? See all of my individual posts from the state here.

Charter Street Cemetery

Also called the Old Burying Point, or sometimes just the Burying Point, the Charter Street Cemetery was established in 1637 as the first cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts. We went to Salem one year ago (argh why does time go by so quickly!) but I never got around to sharing my photos from the Charter Street Cemetery.

Salem in October is quite the experience—sometimes great, sometimes horrible—but the next time I go back it will probably be in the off-season. We expected crowds, of course, but what we didn't expect was that those crowds would be unruly—particularly in the cemetery. We saw children running around unattended, couples sitting on stones for selfies and families eating funnel cakes while perched on the markers of the Salem Witch Trials Memorial.

Overcrowding should not be seen as an open invitation to drop your sense of decency and respect for the deceased (not to mention the historic significance of the second oldest cemetery in America). Not everyone was horrible, of course, but we saw enough bad behavior that it still leaves an impression, even a year after the fact. That really is a shame, because the cemetery has some pretty famous residents and many wonderful tombstones.

It's the final resting place of Judge John Hathorne, the great-great-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne and a prominent judge in the witch trials. Richard More is the only passenger of the Mayflower with a known gravesite—he died the same year as the witch trials, and he's buried here beneath a stone labeling him as a Mayflower Pilgrim.

Much like the Old Burial Hill to the south of Salem, the Charter Street Cemetery is filled with beautifully carved winged skulls, crossbones and cherubs. These will always be my favorite of the tombstone motifs—known as "memento mori," or "remember you must die." Some stones even spell this out, which I much prefer to the more passive and less challenging, Rest in Peace.

I don't want to discourage anyone from visiting Salem during October—if you love fall and Halloween, it's a must—but I do recommend trying to avoid the weekends closest to Halloween. The difference between a Sunday and a Monday was noticeable and we were able to do everything that was sold out and packed on the weekend on a Monday with relative ease. 

Old Burial Hill

On Halloween I posted about the proliferation of skull- (and crossbones) adorned stones at Old Burial Hill Cemetery in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Despite being small and having the largest concentration of skull imagery I've seen in any cemetery, Old Burial Hill was also full of a wide variety of wonderful non-bone-related tombstones.

The cemetery was established on the site of a meeting-house and is, very literally, on top of a hill. The views of the harbor are breathtaking and there is a gazebo on the top of a rock outcropping that I could just sit in for days. In fact, the entire town of Marblehead was painfully cute—we drove through it on our way in and out of the cemetery, but its winding streets definitely deserve a closer look.

Although, in my opinion, there is nothing better than a skull motif, Old Burial Hill contains some really lovely winged cherubs, suns, portraits and tombstone lettering. It's the first place that I can recall seeing the words "Memento Mori" on an actual headstone (several, actually) and the carvings are all so remarkably preserved despite being hundreds of years old.

Salem Wax Museum

The Salem Wax Museum of Witches & Seafarers features 50 London-made wax figures depicting scenes from Salem's history, from the notorious 1692 witch hysteria to its days as a bustling seaport. When we visited Salem in October, we had to be choosy about which attractions we visited because the lines were prohibitively long, especially in the "Haunted Neighborhood." I had wanted to see the wax museum even if it has pretty terrible reviews on Trip Advisor and Yelp—I've never met a creepy, dusty, glassy-eyed wax figure that I didn't love.

The Salem Wax Museum is full of figures that will make you look twice—crossed eyes, missing fingers and questionable wardrobe choices abound. The museum has been in operation for more than 20 years, and attractions like this just don't get made anymore. Wax museums feel so analog in our world of screens and graphics, but no amount of digital effects will ever be able to recreate the feeling you get standing before a dimly-lit scene set with life-size and life-like wax figures.

The line was long, but moved quickly and while I'm sure the other attractions are fun, I don't at all regret our choice. Our experience at the Salem Wax Museum was similar to the one we had at Niagara's Wax Museum of History—most people were not impressed, a bit confused and hurried through the exhibit, while I loved every weird minute of it.

Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast

We had been planning to visit the Lizzie Borden house for a few years, and we finally made it happen as a stop on the way to Salem in October. Fall River, Massachusetts is about an hour and a half south of Salem, and about three hours northeast of New York City. The Bordens—Andrew and his second wife Abby, along with Andrew's daughters, Emma and Lizzie—lived at 92 Second Street in downtown Fall River from 1872 to 1892. The house has operated as a bed and breakfast since 1996, although we opted to just take a tour instead of staying overnight.

On Thursday, August 4, 1892, Abby and Andrew Borden were murdered with a hatchet in separate rooms of the house—Abby in an upstairs bedroom, and Andrew in the sitting room. Lizzie was tried and acquitted of the crime nearly a year later, and the murders remain unsolved. Lizzie and Emma moved out of the Second Street house but didn't go very far, moving to "The Hill" neighborhood, where Lizzie started going by Lisbeth. 

The house tour was really thorough and our tour guide was great. My only complaint is that our group was much too large, but we weren't surprised that it's a popular late-October destination. Almost none of the furnishings are original, but they're period-specific to what the Bordens may have had. There are a few artifacts scattered throughout the house, including replicas of Andrew and Abby's skulls (the originals were reburied after being exhumed for the trial), the dress Elizabeth Montgomery wore in "The Legend of Lizzie Borden," family photographs and a book once owned (and initialed) by Lizzie.

I knew the basics of the story before the tour and had my own theories, but after actually seeing the house I'm even more convinced that Lizzie did it. The trial itself was the first to be reported on a national level, and one of the first to use photographic evidence—it was basically the OJ Simpson case of the 1890s. The all-male jury couldn't accept that a woman was capable of such savagery, and in the absence of any real physical evidence, moved to acquit. Too much time has passed to ever really know if it was the right decision, but if you're curious, you could stay overnight and see if the Ouija board has any answers.

See also: Lizzie Borden's Grave

Old Burial Hill: Skulls

 It wasn't long after we had started exploring Old Burial Hill cemetery in Marblehead, Massachusetts, that I declared it to be my favorite cemetery. Of course this is a bit like choosing a favorite child—for those of you who are into the kid thing—but Old Burial Hill is that good. I initially put it on our itinerary due to its Hocus Pocus cred, and while it was fun to see for that reason, it definitely doesn't need a movie connection to be considered a destination.

Old Burial Hill was established in 1638—54 years before the Salem Witch Trials and 138 years before the US officially became a country—which makes it the one of the oldest (maybe the oldest?) cemeteries I've ever visited. Located about five miles southwest of Salem, Old Burial Hill contains an estimated 600 Revolutionary War soldiers and one victim of the Salem Witch Trials—although I'm not sure if the cemetery actually contains the remains of Wilmont Redd, or just a memorial marker.

The first thing I noticed (with glee) was the high concentration of skull-and-crossbones imagery, which is my very favorite thing to see on a tombstone. This memento mori motif was popular with the Puritans, and the newer the cemetery the less likely you are to see this type of stone. Old Burial Hill was positively lousy with them and I was completely overwhelmed by all of the variations.. Usually I'll find one or two in my cemetery adventures, but every one I saw was better than the last and wejust kept finding them. Like cemeteries, it's impossible to pick a favorite stone, but Mrs. Susana Jayne's stone is pretty much perfect, containing not only a skeleton, but an hourglass, bones, winged cherubs and bats.

The "hill" part of Old Burial Hill offers beautiful views of Marblehead Harbor and Salem Sound and I found myself wishing that I could visit the cemetery whenever I wanted a quiet moment. Despite being so near Salem on a beautifully sunny Sunday, the cemetery was nearly empty. I knew that the Salem cemeteries were going to be packed with funnel-cake eating and selfie-taking tourists (I was right, unfortunately), so having an hour to really explore such a beautiful and historic cemetery on our own felt like the ultimate luxury.

👻  🎃  Happy Halloween!!

Salem, Massachusetts

After successfully Halloween-ing in Sleepy Hollow for the past three years, my friends and I (the Halloween All-Star Team) decided that we were ready to tackle Salem. I'd been to Salem once, in August of 2007, but I was eager to go back. We stopped along the way to pay our respects to Lizzie Borden, and visit some Hocus Pocus filming locations, and in the end we spent about one and a half days exploring Salem.

Salem is known best as "Witch City," because of the notorious happenings in Salem Village (present-day Danvers) circa 1692. 19 people were hanged after refusing to confess to charges of witchcraft, and one man—Giles Corey—was pressed to death. It's a little strange for a town to embrace a shameful past to the point of celebrating the very thing that caused the panic—witchcraft and witches—but most of the witch hoopla feels so far removed from the historical event.

The Witch House is the only surviving structure with any real ties to the Witch Trials—Judge Corwin lived and worked out of the house—and it was definitely a solid marketing move to name it such. Even without the witch connection, I would have loved the house—I have never seen a black house that I didn't love. In fact, Salem is full of the most adorable colonial-era homes with dark siding and colorful trim, and I defy you to find a more perfectly spooky style of house.

 If the Salem Witch Trials had never happened or things had turned out differently, maybe Salem would be known as "Hawthorne City" after its most famous literary resident. After c

onquering

The House of the Seven Gables

, I was excited to tour its namesake house, which also includes a tour of Hawthorne's birth house, which was moved onto the property to save it from demolition.

Salem on any October weekend is a bit of a madhouse, and we eschewed any ticketed tour until Monday, when things emptied out slightly. There are definitely parallels to Roswell in that both towns' identities are based around events in their pasts that have morphed over time into cheesy tourist destinations. I actually thought that Salem was a bit light on witch-themed things, even if we saw witch patches on policemen, witch emblems on firetrucks and every year the high school graduates a whole new class of "Salem Witches."

Oak Grove Cemetery + Lizzie Borden Grave

On our recent roadtrip to Salem, our first stop was the Lizzie Borden house in Fall River, Massachusetts. After touring the house we headed over to Oak Grove Cemetery to pay our respects to the entire Borden family, including, Lizbeth Andrews aka Lizzie. After being acquitted of murdering her step-mother and father, Lizzie remained in Fall River for the rest of her life and was buried at Oak Grove in June of 1927—her sister Emma died just nine days later and was buried beside her.

Oak Grove cemetery was established in 1855, and is a beautiful cemetery with many wonderful (and wonderfully-preserved) tombstones. The weather was full-on fall on Saturday—chilly, windy and rainy, although the rain was nice enough to hold off long enough for us to explore a little. The foliage in Massachusetts is definitely ahead of ours here in New York, and it was the perfect setting for a late October cemetery stroll.

The Borden plot has a main monument surrounded by smaller stones for each person in the family. As we were walking into the cemetery, a couple was walking out. The guy saw us with our cameras and without hesitation gave us directions to the Lizzie's grave (she changed her name to Lizbeth later in life hoping to distance herself from her notorious past). It was helpful, but it's also sort of a shame that most people only visit Oak Grove for its most famous resident—of course that's why we were there, but we spent most of our time in other parts of the cemetery.

 So many of the headstones that we found were so beautifully preserved, with intricate gothic lettering and symbols. Bundles of wheat, leaves, flowers, fruit, hands and other cemetery symbolism was everywhere we looked, thrust into sharp relief by the contrast of the weathering stone. There are so many different kinds of headstones in the world, and they're all fascinating to me, but this type of Victorian decoration is one of my very favorites.

 It did eventually start pouring (we briefly took refuge in the doorway of a mausoleum), otherwise I could have spent so much more time exploring Oak Grove. The cemetery is FULL of other Bordens—it must have been a popular name in Fall River—and we even found a few other Lizzies, who I'm sure have confused less-informed tourists throughout the years. I'm not against cemetery tourism for a specific grave, obviously, since that's usually how I pick specific cemeteries, but the real joy comes in discovering the things beyond the star stone.

Salem: Hocus Pocus

Unlike a lot of people my age, I don't recall seeing Hocus Pocus until I was solidly an adult. My childhood Halloween go-to was another 1993 classic, Double Double, Toil and Trouble starring the Olsen twins (fun fact: Nightmare Before Christmas was also released in '93, completing the Holy Trinity of Halloween films). But once I saw Hocus Pocus it immediately became a fall tradition, and I love it more and more with each viewing. A lot of movies don't actually film in the cities in which they are supposed to take place, and while not every scene was filmed on location (and certainly not in October), the major sites are easily accessible.

Our first stop was Old Burial Hill Cemetery, located just south of Salem in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Old Burial Hill is the location of Max's after-school run-in with the 90s personified, Jay and Ernie Ice. We found some of the tombstones glimpsed in the movie, but even if you're not a fan, Old Burial Hill is definitely worth a stop. It's one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen, and it's so full of wonderful tombstones that it deserves a full post. There are other cemetery scenes in the movie, but those took place on a soundstage, which can't possibly compete with the real beauty of Old Burial Hill.

Not far from the cemetery, just after you cross into Salem is Max and Dani's house. Located at 10 Ocean Avenue, the house is instantly recognizable by it's cupola and looks pretty much exactly the same today. It's in a good location to stop and take a quick photo, and we weren't the only millennials fans doing so. It's also pretty much my dream house—despite the tourist traffic—and I can't think of anything better than tying some cornstalks to the porch and nestling into the cupola with a good book.

Speaking of houses, Allison's house is right in Salem proper, next to the Witch House. The Ropes Mansion—the house's proper name—is currently owned by the Peabody Essex Museum. It was only a slightly less popular selfie-stick spot than Max and Dani's house, and you can tour the inside, although only the exterior was used in the movie.

The Old Town Hall is the site of the epic Halloween party in which Better Midler sings "I Put A Spell on You" while doing just that. While there were no parties happening while we were there, it has public restrooms which is a big deal when you're a tourist (and even when you're not).

The only other major filming location that we weren't able to visit was the Sanderson's sisters' cottage, located in Salem Pioneer Village. The village doesn't hold regular hours in October, and all of their events were sold out when we checked—I suppose this means another Salem trip is in the cards.

See also: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Fall Field Trip

Since the beginning of August, I've worked at W. W. Norton, a 90-year-old book publisher here in New York. A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail asking if I would be interested in attending a tour of paper mills in New England, on a trip sponsored by the Book Guild of NY. I was initially hesitant until I read the details: two weekdays off work, a bus trip through Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts in the middle of fall, an overnight stay, open bar and all meals for FREE. I'm so incredibly glad that I ignored my knee-jerk shut-in response of saying no to a trip with strangers because I ended up having a great time.

There were two fellow Nortonians (yes, that's what we call ourselves) on the trip, along with people from a variety of other publishing houses in New York. We left on Tuesday morning, and our first stop was lunch in Rhode Island. I was nervous that I wouldn't be able to keep up my every-ten-minutes feeding schedule so I brought road trip snacks, but I never actually needed to break into my stash. We were so well fed that I actually began declining free snacks toward the end of the trip, and if you know me that might be hard to fathom.

We toured two Ecological Fibers facilities on Tuesday, one in Rhode Island and one in Massachusetts. They're actually a really interesting company, both in what they do (specialty paper manufacturing, embossing and finishing) and how they run their business (they have zero carbon footprint, use all water-based materials and have found ways to recycle everything). As a design and book nerd I found it all really fascinating, from the specialty colors that they produce (Tiffany, Cartier, Mont Blanc) to the variety of embossing patterns they have in their collection (nearly 200).

After the tours we checked into the super cute and New Englandy Wachusett Inn, where we all had our own rooms. Mine had an enormous bed, two TVs, two sinks, a kitchenette, fully stocked cabinets and a separate sitting room. It actually may have been one of the nicest rooms I've ever stayed in, and I felt as if I couldn't possibly do it justice by myself.

There was an open bar before dinner, where I stuck to Woodchuck cider because it felt like the fall thing to do. In the morning, I had a make-your-own waffle (which was actually made for me by a staff member?), which is really the best part of any hotel stay, in my fat opinion.

We boarded the bus again and headed to one more tour, at Dunn & Co., who introduced themselves as a the only "book hospital" in the world (their url is booktrauma.com). They're located in an amazing old factory building, and they do some pretty cool things with damaged or misprinted books. They do hardcover to paperback conversions, take weird smells out of books, de-warp covers, tip-in new pages and swap out bindings. Basically if you ever have a problem with a large quantity of books, you can send them to Dunn & Co. instead of scrapping them and starting all over again.

They shared some really innovative solutions to some crazy problems and it was really interesting to see it all in action. We saw hardcovers being ripped off books, additional pages being glued in and paperback covers being placed over the guts of excess hardcovers. I had no idea that a place like this existed, and the whole trip really gave me a greater appreciation for how much work and planning goes into the creation and production of a single book.

The fall scenery along I-95 was spectacular and we passed a lot of cute little towns that I'd love to go explore one day. I adore New York City, but I can imagine a time in the (distant) future when I'll welcome a move to New England, where I'll plant some mums, tie cornstalks to my porch columns and live happily ever after. Until then, I certainly won't consider passing up any free trips that way (or any way) ever again.