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Salem, As Observed by Samuel Drake
in 1875 and 1910.

Editors Note: Closer in time and history to the terrible event than we now with our slick media presentations and glitzy recreations, Drake's recounting of visits to the town seem to capture more intimately the shadowy ghosts and the elusive memories of this grim period of New England history.

Salem Village has a sorrowful celebrity.   It would seem as if an adverse spell still hung over it . . .

The village contains one central point of paramount interest.   It is an enclosed space of grass ground, a short distance from the principal and only street, reached by a well-trodden path.  Within this now naked field once stood a house, with a garden and orchard surrounding.  Of the house nothing remains except a slight depression in the soil; of the orchard and garden there is no trace; yet hard by I chanced on a bank of aromatic thyme once held of singular potency in witchcraft. 

The "Ministry House of Samuel Parish: It was here  that the circle of young girls met whose denunciations, equivalent to the death-warrant of the accused person, soon overspread the land with desolation and woe.  And it was in the orchard here that the alleged midnight convocations of witches met to celebrate the unholy sacraments, and to renew their solemn league and covenant with Satan, in draughts of blood, by partaking of the Devil's bread and by inscribing their names in his fatal book.

In this quiet, out-of-the-way little nook, Salem witchcraft had its beginning.  The sunken cavity is what remains of the Ministry House, so called, pulled down in 1785 (not a day too soon); the den of error in which the plague-spot first appeared. 

It makes one sick at heart to think of a child only eleven years old, such as Abigail Williams was, taking away the lives of men and women who had always borne unblemished reputations among their friends and neighbors. There were eight girls, the youngest was eleven, the oldest being not more than twenty years of age who can share claim to the sorry death of so many.

But let us walk on through Essex Street, until we approach an ancient Landmark at the corner of North Street, said to be the dwelling of Roger Williams, but more celebrated as the scene of examinations during the Reign of Terror in 1692.

The Old Witch House: Scene of the examinations during the Reign of Terror in 1692

In appearance the original house might have been transplanted out of old London.  It has long been divested of its antique English character, now appearing no more than a reminiscence of its former self.  However, from a recessed area at the back, its narrow casements and excrescent stairways are yet to be seen.   A massive frame, filled between with brick, plastered with clay, has stood immovable against the assaults of time.

Examinations also took place at Beadles Tavern

Whether Witch Hill be the first or last place visited, it is there Salem witchcraft culminates -- a bleak and rock eminence bestrewn with a little soil.  On the summit is a tolerably level area of several acres.  Not a tree was growing on it when I was there.   The bleak winds sweep over it without hindrance.  John Adams mentions a visit to this hill in 1766, then called Witchcraft Hill.  Somebody, he says, within a few years had planted a number of locust trees over the graves.  In 1793 Dr. Morse notes that the graves might still be traced.

Drake concludes saying "I felt no regret at their total disappearance.  Would that the bloody chapter might as easily disappear from history!."