Notwithstanding our previously mentioned intention of eating breakfast in our room, this day - after sleeping late - we went out for brunch. We had heard a radio ad for a local eatery called Persy's, and decided to try it.
We then drove up to Salem, a little ways north of Boston. Terry has always been fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials (w). I also have an interest in the topic, because my first experience as an actor was playing Francis Nurse in a high school production of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible."
In Salem, we went to the Salem Witch Museum:
...where we watched a multimedia presentation about the Witch Trials. It was somewhat cheesy, but basically historically accurate, as far as I could tell. We sat in a large room, surrounded by a series of recreated scenes, which lit up sequentially, following the recorded narration. The figures didn't move - this wasn't Disneyland - but they were reasonably lifelike. Photography was prohibited, of course, but I snuck a picture anyway. Here's the courtroom scene:
One thing struck me about the narration. It stressed the role that fear played in the witch trial hysteria. Life in the late 1600's was hard, the colonists faced many hardships, and fear was a constant factor in their lives - fear of starvation, fear of crop failure, fear of Indian attack, etc., etc. I couldn't help thinking that things haven't changed so much. The things we fear have changed, but fear still plays a significant - and insidious - role in our social and political lives. And of course, there's never a shortage of unscrupulous types who will play on that fear for their own ends. I can think of several examples, and I expect you can, too. End of rant.
One of the more fascinating figures in the witch trials was Giles Corey. He was accused of witchcraft, but unlike the others, he wasn't hung (convicted witches were hung, not burned). He refused to plead either guilty or not guilty, and so was "pressed" in an effort to force him to plead. He was laid on a board, another board was placed on top of him, and heavy stones were piled on the boards, until he eventually suffocated. The story is - and if it isn't true, it ought to be - that all he said was "More weight!" He did this because, if he had been hung as a witch, his estate would have been forfeited to the state. But since he died without pleading, his estate went to his heirs.
The point of all this is that just around the corner from the museum is a cemetery, which is said to be on the site of the field where Corey was pressed. I walked around the cemetery, thinking that there would be some kind of marker, or memorial, but there wasn't. I discovered later that there is a memorial plaque at another cemetery a few blocks away. Alas, another of life's missed opportunities. However - on an entirely unrelated note - while walking, I took this picture of some houses adjoining the cemetery, illustrating the clapboard construction which is very prevalent in New England.
Here's a map:
