Danvers Travel Guide

In 1692, 19 people were hanged, one man was pressed to death, and many others died in jail during the Salem witch trials. 265 years later, in 1957, Massachusetts formally apologized. On the 300th anniversary of the trials in 1992, a memorial was erected in the neighborhood where it all happened, right across from the former site of the village meeting house where the accused were examined and tried.

Where the village meetinghouse, where those accused during the witch hysteria were generally examined, used to stand (it was abandoned for a new one in 1701) now stands the Darling Prince House, moved to the site from its original location, which I would guess was either on nearby Prince St. or else also-nearby Prince Pl. It's privately owned.

This house belonged to Deacon Nathaniel Ingersoll. Visitors to the village around the period of the witch trials were often lodged here, and those who worked at the trials took their recesses here. Some interrogations may have been performed at the ordinary, though most of them were at the meeting house down the road. The house is now privately owned.

Around 1689, Sarah Holten's pigs ran into the neighboring garden of Rebecca Nurse (I have the Nurse homestead is a separate tip) and uprooted it. Furious, Rebecca Nurse went to the Holten house and upbraided Sarah and Benjamin. Three years later, Rebecca Nurse was accused of witchcraft, and Sarah Holten came to testify against her, citing that Nurse seemed to be absolutely crazy when she was yelling about the pigs. Holten also testified that after Nurse left, Benjamin got a terrible stomachache, started to have fits of blindness, then took to "strange and violent" fits and later died.

Sarah and Benjamin's house still stands.

Samuel Parris was the parson (within two years of his arrival the villagers had vowed to drive him out, but to no avail), and it was at his house (the parsonage) that a bunch of girls, including Abigail Williams and Parris' own daughter Elizabeth, would sit around a fire and listen to the servant Tituba tell witch stories. The girls later began to behave "strangely" and a local physician, Dr. Griggs, suggested that they had been bewitched. Under tremendous pressure, the girls began naming women, and arrest warrants were immediately issued.

you simply have to go whale watching if you are in the area .they say Gloucester is the whale watching capital of the world .we went twice in two weeks .we chose capt bill on the front of gloucester harbour .the trip lasts about 4 hours please wrap up warm .it might be warm inland but when out on the water it gets very chilly .we saw plenty of whales both times humpback ,minke ,finback ,all in all a fantastic couple of days