Salem: More than Just Witches! (No, Really!)

I took a weekend daytrip to Salem, which was lovely -- after some trainage negotiation (apparently the MBTA decided some of its trains were overtired and couldn't make it aaaalll the way out to my usual stop), I found myself wandering along sunny wharfs and down charming brick alleyways.

I also learned things.
For instance, the Essex County history video presentation at the tourist center was quite informative. It covered the maritime aspects of Salem's past, along with trade and industrialization. A Summary:

• **Native Americans were totally here first (for like, 10,000 years). Then the white people showed up as fishermen. The encounter ran along these familiar lines:

White People: Hey, nice to meet you! Wanna trade? We have pelts and shiny weird objects.
Native Americans: Um, we've been doing fine on our own, but sure, okay.
White People: Oh yeah, by the way, we're actually planning to settle here and take 'our' land and let our animals run free and eat all your crops and we'll throw our nasty horrible diseases into the bargain, kay?
Native Americans: WAY NOT COOL

• **The soil was actually awful, so most of the early settlers got their living from the sea, which was just bursting with fish. The sea brought wealth! Nets of slimy, scaly wealth!

• **The Puritans really were trying to set up a colony of religious purity, free from corruption. Ironically, they fled from intolerance and then set about with the witch-burning, a now-classic historical prototype of narrow-mindedness and...intolerance.

Video Narrator: But, you know, they really did believe in witches! For real! So, like, cut them some slack, okay? And can we just drop the whole witch thing?
Audience: NO. WE WANT WITCHES.
Video Narrator: Dammit.

• **Slaves in Essex County could actually get a measure of 'freedom' by serving on the ships -- there was a moving account from one man who recalled his own father's servitude on a plantation, and how his life on the sea at least allowed for some sense of pride and autonomy, despite the back-breaking labor and general sacrifice (his wife, meanwhile, was 'taking in washing' and presumably seeing her husband maybe once a year).

So, another reason archives and libraries are awesome - they save these stories for us.

• **When the fish ran low, industry turned to shoes! Fish to boots...makes perfect sense.

• **Industrialization was hell, of course -- one in three millworkers died before their 10 years of service were up.

I also got to visit Hawthorne's house, in which I learned:

• **Emerton, the enterprising 'founder' of the landmark, actually set up tours of the House of Seven Gables to mirror the book, instead of reality -- to the point of adding in Hepzibah's 'shop' (which did not actually exist; Hawthorne made it up).

• **Hawthorne himself was insecure about his writing and got lots of encouragement and support from his cousin, Susanna.

• **The kettles that women used in the kitchen weighed 25 pounds when they were empty. Note to self: never challenge a 17th-century housewife to an arm-wrestling match.

Besides the educational fun, I got to wander and find all sorts of delights, including the Derby Square Bookstore, which looks like this outside:

And this on the inside:

It made the librarian in me sob a little, even as the book-lover had a massive heart-attack of joy at the fifty percent off...

I asked the owner about his 'organizational strategy,' and he basically said 'photographic memory.' It was true; ask him any title and he'd track it down with the unerring instinct of a homing pigeon (good luck trying to navigate on your own).

All in all, a lovely day!