In 1891, a jeweler named Daniel Lews began crafting intricate witch-themed silver spoons, selling thousands and sparking a nationwide decorative-spoon trend. But even as the city’s purposes shifted, the witches stuck around.

It’s the birthplace of Nathaniel Hawthorne, the National Guard, and Monopoly. In the centuries following the trials, it was a Revolutionary War ground, a bustling maritime port, and a manufacturing hub, full of tanneries and steam cotton factories. “For some reason, this one stuck with everybody.”Īs Ocker details in his book, Salem has had plenty of opportunities to shake this association.

Ocker, author of A Season With the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts. “Witch tourism goes back to almost the second the bodies were taken down,” says J.W. For some reason, though, everyone has always wanted to learn about theirs in particular. Between the 13th and 18th centuries, tens of thousands of accused witches were killed in Europe, and hundreds more in the American colonies. If you take a long view of history, Salem’s witch trials were far from unique. “Examination of a Witch,” currently held at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. How did this city bewitch itself? And what does it mean for those of us who find ourselves there? Somehow, between the 17th century and now, Salem and its fans conjured up a new meaning for a historic tragedy, transforming it into an infinite set of tourism opportunities. They file in and out of witch-themed tchotchke shops, get their cards read by local psychics, and grab cones at the local ice cream parlor, the Dairy Witch. On a rainy October Friday in 2016, Salem is filled, once again, with supposed witches-this time in the form of tourists, their pointed hats catching on their umbrellas. Over the course of nine paranoid months, 19 of them were executed. In 1692, 185 people were accused of witchcraft in Salem.

A Season with the Witch by J.W. Ocker