October 25, 2025 • 16 mins
The stories of the deadly Salem Witch Trials are well known, with the hysteria sweeping through for months in the 1690's. If you visit Salem, you'll find museums and memorials dedicated to the incident, but what many don't know is that down the road, in what we now call Danvers, is where the real beginning of America's witch panic took place. Daniel Gagnon, a life-long Danvers resident, author, and historian, joins Nichole to explain the history of Salem Village, how the witch hunt played out there, and why the village decided to take on a new identity.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each and every week right here, we come together, we
talk about all the topics important to you and the
place where you live. It is great to have you
back with us this week. I'm Nicole Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The city of Salem this time of year, especially downtown
is completely packed. People come from all over the globe
to learn about and take in all things spooky for
Halloween happenings and a major angle of this is a
piece of American history that stands out for its cruelty
and for what we learned. This is the Salem which Trials.
We're talking about the tragedy which played out in the
(00:42):
sixteen nineties. There is a memorial dedicated to the trials
in Salem, a which museum exhibits over at the Pbdessex.
So much more, but not too far away in Denvers,
just over the line, that is where the hysteria actually
began in what was then known as Salem Village. This
was a part of that was trying to break away
and become independent. There was a lot of internal conflict,
(01:05):
social and economic struggle, much more. This is quite the story.
Let's talk about it. Dan Gagnan is here. He is
a lifelong Danvers resident. He's a historian and author of
a book called a Salem Witch The Trial, Execution and
Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. Dan, thanks so much for being here,
and I want to start by talking about this split
(01:25):
involving Salem village. How long had this been going on?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Tough feelings on the village wanting to become independent had
been around for a while. They don't really come to
a head before the witch hunt. The village had made
moves to separate really like thirty years prior, so it
wasn't a new event. It wasn't something that had really
bubbled up at that moment, and the village was fairly
(01:49):
united in uniform and w wanting more independence. There had
been some books written decades ago that claimed Salem Village
was split in two over the issue of whether or
not to be come independent, but the facts and the
documents don't really bear out that sort of a conflict.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So you've got the two separate Salems and things are
like relatively copasetic at this point. But then we get
into the early sixteen nineties and tell us how the
whole idea of witches came into the conversation here.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, the Puritan view of witchcraft is very different from
our own, and of course even today in the twenty
first century, if you asked several different people what do
you mean by a witch, you would get many different answers.
But to the Puritans, their one view of witchcraft was
it was an ordinary person, human being who decided to
(02:41):
not work for the Puritan church, but instead they signed
up to work for the devil himself. That they literally,
the devil appeared in their house one day, handed them
an employment contract.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
They signed it promising.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
To do evil, wicked, bad things, and in return, the
devil gave them special powers to do so.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Where did the whole hysteria then start? When it came
to the whole he's a witch, and she's a witch,
and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Right, So that starts out in Salem Village. The first
two young girls who are so called afflicted, meaning thought
to be harmed by witchcraft, were living in the minister's home,
Reverend Samuel Parris's home. It was his daughter Betty his
adopted niece Abigail Williams, and the two of them started
(03:33):
to act really strangely look like they're having seizures, that
they were seeing ghostly shapes. And it's one of the
local doctors that says it's witchcraft. And after the doctor,
who was a trusted, respected member of the community says that,
then the hunt for who is doing this supposed witchcraft begins.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And just how extensive did this get? If I remember correctly,
at least twenty or thirty people were put on trial,
if not more.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yes, So in total, if we take the witch hunt
as lasting about eight months in sixteen ninety two, you
have almost two hundred people accused. You have nineteen hanged,
one is pressed to death, and at least five die
in the really awful jails.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh my god. And you know, from what I've seen,
most of the residents who were executed were from Salem Village, right.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So those executed, we have a large proportion from Salem Village,
and the accusations and those executed, it's spread to all
surrounding towns.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
There's many from andover.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It goes as far north as Maine, which was then
still Massachusetts, as far south as Charlestown, and as far
west as the area around bill Ricca.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
It really seems to me like there's records of accusers
just calling out members of families that their families didn't lie,
or that people weren't getting along with or somebody just
seemed like they were acting a little off. I mean,
it feels to me like this was at times really personal.
Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yes, Yes, every accusation is unique, and some reveal right
dark bad sordid histories between individuals. And then on the
other hand, you have some accusations that almost seem random
that it's not even clear if those two people had
ever met before. It's just amazing how each case is
(05:30):
so varied.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Well, there's clearly a lot of shame in the aftermath
of all of this, and for obviously good reason. This
was just a horrendous incident that happened. So then let's
talk about how Salem Village moved forward from this happening.
How did this further contribute to the division of Salem
(05:54):
Town and Salem Village.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, the village is where most of the accusers lived.
It continued to be the epy center of the witch
hunt even once they started the trials, which took place
in downtown Salem, the city of Salem, because that's where
the court usually met just like today, and that's where
the county courthouse is. And with that after the whole
(06:18):
witch hunt ends. It ends because people did realize it
was wrong, and they spoke out and got the government
to stop because they thought it was wrong. But these
people in Salem Village go back to their farms. You
might go back to your farm and the guy next
door is the one who accused your mother or grandmother
of witchcraft. How do you ever try to go back
(06:39):
to normal when a community had been so split.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I don't think you do. Frankly, I think that at
that point I would just want to leave. I'd want
to start again somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, we'll have some descendants of the accused who do
move out west. Back then out West was Framingham compared
to you know today, many do remain. Though many do remain,
they can't afford to move that the only thing they
have of value is their farm, the land, and so
(07:13):
a lot of people really are just stuck in that place.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So seventeen fifty two is.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
When Danvers becomes its own independent community. And the name
Danvers was not at all a choice of the local people.
It was assumed that they would be probably just keep
the name Salem Village, and the legislature told them, nah,
you cannot have two places next to each other with
basically the same name. Of course, today we have places
(07:41):
like Andover and North Andover. But back then they were
told no, and someone in Boston picked the name. It
was probably the governor and the name was just assigned
to them. It was thought it may have been a
political favor, the royal governor naming it after Danvers Osborne,
who had been a Lieutenant Governor of New York and
(08:03):
had been politically connected to his family.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
That's the best hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Well, let's fast forward now to the current times and
Salem even as we talk, you know, it is packed
with people. It is Halloween season, and of course with
all that heavy, heavy focus on the witch trials, you've
got the Witch Museum and everything else. Danvers, though, is
pretty quiet. So why do you think that Danvers has
been essentially not left behind in the conversation? But it's
(08:33):
not as much of a spotlight on Danvers.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So you are very right that the disparity is quite real,
especially this month October with all of the Salem tourism.
The reason for this disparity is in part because the
city of Salem had more of a commercial base in
the early nineteen hundreds it transitioned to more embracing tourism,
(08:58):
whereas agricultural and then suburban residential later on, Danvers never
really had the business to boost tourism, the business infrastructure,
and the other part is for generations and generations. So
many people in Danvers were still connected to someone from
(09:22):
the witch trial days on whichever side, accusers or defendants.
But in the city of Salem you had such a
shift of new people moving into the city, factories opening
it attracting people from across New England to move there,
that in the early nineteen hundreds many of them had
less of a personal connection to the witch hunt, or
(09:45):
perhaps no family connection.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
That makes sense, And the fact that you know the
name change. When you hear Salem witch trials, you don't
hear talking about Danvers witch trials, right, So I'm sure
that just in the public sye, it's a little bit
of a disconnect for that reason alone.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You're right, the name is the brand, and of course
Salem has its original name, and so that connection is there.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
What's left behind in Denverse To remind people of these atrocities.
I mean you said that a lot of the accusers
stayed behind in Salem Village. Surely their homes and their
farms are still there too.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yes, we have several buildings that are connected to people
involved in the witch hunt. First and foremost is the
Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers. It's the only home of
a victim of the witch hunt that's preserved and open
to the public. There are other homes that are just
somebody's private home that were homes of victims or accusers.
(10:42):
In sixteen ninety two, we have an archaeological site where
Reverend Paris's home, the Salem Village Parsonage was And then
in March of nineteen ninety two, the three hundredth anniversary
of the first death in the witch hunt, which was
one of the people who was passed away in jail,
this memorial to all the victims of the witch hunt
(11:05):
was dedicated in Danvers in what used to be the
center of Salem Village, that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You are a lifelong Danvers resident, and clearly you know
a lot about the history. You are a historian. This
is what you've dedicated your life's work to so far,
and we'll talk about your book, we'll talk about your
tours here in just a minute. Tell me what it
feels like to be somebody who lives in Danvers and
has kind of uncovered a lot of this history that
a lot of people these days don't talk about.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
What I find fascinating as having researched this event and
giving tours of sites related to this event is there
are people who come out to see these original sites
related to the witch hunt who are very much the
tourists who are history oriented. That they don't they might
(11:51):
come in October, but not for Halloween, not in costume
or anything like that, but that they are.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Tourists who are historical tourists.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
That's the group that would make it out from downtown
Salem to Danvers.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
These days, I feel like a lot of us talk
more about uncomfortable history. Do you feel that that's the
case now?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, Well, it is definitely an uncomfortable topic. It is
a genuine tragedy that these people have lost their lives,
and locally it's something that people living in town know about.
There's a high level of awareness and we have, for example,
the third graders of all the elementary schools do a
local History day that involves includes a visit to the
(12:35):
Rebecca Nurse homestead. It's probably the only town in America
where all the elementary schoolers visit a grave of a
condemned and executed alleged witch.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Speaking of Rebecca Nurse. By the way, you have written
a book, and this has been up for a couple
of years now. It's called a Salem Witch The Trial,
Execution and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. We've talked about Rebecca
Nurse a couple of times so far in this interview,
but tell me why you decided to focus on her.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Well, I knew I wanted to write a biography because
at the time of writing, there was no standalone biography
of any of the victims.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Of the witch hunt. There was no book that told one.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Of the victim's whole life story. And that that was
a need that I saw because it is a tragedy
and once you see it through one person's eyes, you
really understand how it affected them. It affected their family,
it affected the community. And I picked Rebecca Nurse because
when she's accused, she seemed at the time and now
(13:38):
even historians agree, really one of the least likely people
to have wound up being accused of witchcraft.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
There are others who.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
You know that they had disputes, you know that they
had feuds, and they wind up being accused. With Nurse,
she has such a respectable background through the Puritan eyes,
she is an upstanding member of the community that I
thought King, the least likely person to be accused, would
actually reveal more about how the overall event unfolded.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well, I'm going to leave that to people to read
the book, because it's really a powerful story about Rebecca
and how she was able to rise in society and
then had this tragic, tragic downfall and end. But if
people want to get out toward Salem and Danvers or
Salem Village, whatever you want to call it these days,
if people want to head to your neck of the
woods and take in some of this history, you lead
(14:29):
walking tours. So tell us a bit about those and
where you make your way around with these tours.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yes, So for four years now I've been leading walking tours.
It was the first and the only historical walking tour
of the Salem Village sites in Danvers. We hold them
on Saturday mornings, typically just in the fall, which is
when most people are coming out, and it includes the
(14:55):
foundation the archaeological site of where Reverend Paris's house was.
We talk outside some buildings in the historic district, including
one that had been the tavern in Salem Village. We
go to the memorial to the victims of the witch hunt,
and we talk in front of and about the first
Church of Danvers, the Congregational Church, which is the same
(15:15):
congregation that was the Salem Village church back in sixteen
ninety two.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Wow. And obviously for people who might be listening from
outside of the area, Salem and Danvers are not that
far apart. It does not take long to get between
the two. So if you're staying in Salem, super quick
ride up in uber or like public transit. It's not
that far to go.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
That is very true.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yep, No, it could be about fifteen minutes driving it is.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's really close by.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And many people I find stop and take the walking
tour on a Saturday morning on their way into Salem
for the day.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Tell us where people can find out more about signing
up for the tour, about your book, about the history
work that you've done. Because this is no small fee,
This is a lot of stuff to pull together, tell
us where we can find out more.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
You can find out more.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We're at Daniel gagninhistory dot com. The walking tour is
booked through the Salem Historical Tours website. Okay, and I
also always recommend people check out the nonprofit Rebecca Nurse
Homestead Museum in Danvers too.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
All Right, Daniel Gagnin, this is great information stories that
many of us may not have known. So thank you
for the education and enjoy your time in Salem Village
for the rest of the spooky season.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Thank you very much, nice talking with you.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
Each and every week right here, we come together, we
talk about all the topics important to you and the
place where you live. It is great to have you
back with us this week. I'm Nicole Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
The city of Salem this time of year, especially downtown
is completely packed. People come from all over the globe
to learn about and take in all things spooky for
Halloween happenings and a major angle of this is a
piece of American history that stands out for its cruelty
and for what we learned. This is the Salem which Trials.
We're talking about the tragedy which played out in the
(00:42):
sixteen nineties. There is a memorial dedicated to the trials
in Salem, a which museum exhibits over at the Pbdessex.
So much more, but not too far away in Denvers,
just over the line, that is where the hysteria actually
began in what was then known as Salem Village. This
was a part of that was trying to break away
and become independent. There was a lot of internal conflict,
(01:05):
social and economic struggle, much more. This is quite the story.
Let's talk about it. Dan Gagnan is here. He is
a lifelong Danvers resident. He's a historian and author of
a book called a Salem Witch The Trial, Execution and
Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. Dan, thanks so much for being here,
and I want to start by talking about this split
(01:25):
involving Salem village. How long had this been going on?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Tough feelings on the village wanting to become independent had
been around for a while. They don't really come to
a head before the witch hunt. The village had made
moves to separate really like thirty years prior, so it
wasn't a new event. It wasn't something that had really
bubbled up at that moment, and the village was fairly
(01:49):
united in uniform and w wanting more independence. There had
been some books written decades ago that claimed Salem Village
was split in two over the issue of whether or
not to be come independent, but the facts and the
documents don't really bear out that sort of a conflict.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So you've got the two separate Salems and things are
like relatively copasetic at this point. But then we get
into the early sixteen nineties and tell us how the
whole idea of witches came into the conversation here.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Well, the Puritan view of witchcraft is very different from
our own, and of course even today in the twenty
first century, if you asked several different people what do
you mean by a witch, you would get many different answers.
But to the Puritans, their one view of witchcraft was
it was an ordinary person, human being who decided to
(02:41):
not work for the Puritan church, but instead they signed
up to work for the devil himself. That they literally,
the devil appeared in their house one day, handed them
an employment contract.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
They signed it promising.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
To do evil, wicked, bad things, and in return, the
devil gave them special powers to do so.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Where did the whole hysteria then start? When it came
to the whole he's a witch, and she's a witch,
and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Right, So that starts out in Salem Village. The first
two young girls who are so called afflicted, meaning thought
to be harmed by witchcraft, were living in the minister's home,
Reverend Samuel Parris's home. It was his daughter Betty his
adopted niece Abigail Williams, and the two of them started
(03:33):
to act really strangely look like they're having seizures, that
they were seeing ghostly shapes. And it's one of the
local doctors that says it's witchcraft. And after the doctor,
who was a trusted, respected member of the community says that,
then the hunt for who is doing this supposed witchcraft begins.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And just how extensive did this get? If I remember correctly,
at least twenty or thirty people were put on trial,
if not more.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yes, So in total, if we take the witch hunt
as lasting about eight months in sixteen ninety two, you
have almost two hundred people accused. You have nineteen hanged,
one is pressed to death, and at least five die
in the really awful jails.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Oh my god. And you know, from what I've seen,
most of the residents who were executed were from Salem Village, right.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
So those executed, we have a large proportion from Salem Village,
and the accusations and those executed, it's spread to all
surrounding towns.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
There's many from andover.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
It goes as far north as Maine, which was then
still Massachusetts, as far south as Charlestown, and as far
west as the area around bill Ricca.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
It really seems to me like there's records of accusers
just calling out members of families that their families didn't lie,
or that people weren't getting along with or somebody just
seemed like they were acting a little off. I mean,
it feels to me like this was at times really personal.
Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yes, Yes, every accusation is unique, and some reveal right
dark bad sordid histories between individuals. And then on the
other hand, you have some accusations that almost seem random
that it's not even clear if those two people had
ever met before. It's just amazing how each case is
(05:30):
so varied.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Well, there's clearly a lot of shame in the aftermath
of all of this, and for obviously good reason. This
was just a horrendous incident that happened. So then let's
talk about how Salem Village moved forward from this happening.
How did this further contribute to the division of Salem
(05:54):
Town and Salem Village.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, the village is where most of the accusers lived.
It continued to be the epy center of the witch
hunt even once they started the trials, which took place
in downtown Salem, the city of Salem, because that's where
the court usually met just like today, and that's where
the county courthouse is. And with that after the whole
(06:18):
witch hunt ends. It ends because people did realize it
was wrong, and they spoke out and got the government
to stop because they thought it was wrong. But these
people in Salem Village go back to their farms. You
might go back to your farm and the guy next
door is the one who accused your mother or grandmother
of witchcraft. How do you ever try to go back
(06:39):
to normal when a community had been so split.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I don't think you do. Frankly, I think that at
that point I would just want to leave. I'd want
to start again somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, we'll have some descendants of the accused who do
move out west. Back then out West was Framingham compared
to you know today, many do remain. Though many do remain,
they can't afford to move that the only thing they
have of value is their farm, the land, and so
(07:13):
a lot of people really are just stuck in that place.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So seventeen fifty two is.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
When Danvers becomes its own independent community. And the name
Danvers was not at all a choice of the local people.
It was assumed that they would be probably just keep
the name Salem Village, and the legislature told them, nah,
you cannot have two places next to each other with
basically the same name. Of course, today we have places
(07:41):
like Andover and North Andover. But back then they were
told no, and someone in Boston picked the name. It
was probably the governor and the name was just assigned
to them. It was thought it may have been a
political favor, the royal governor naming it after Danvers Osborne,
who had been a Lieutenant Governor of New York and
(08:03):
had been politically connected to his family.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
That's the best hypothesis.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Well, let's fast forward now to the current times and
Salem even as we talk, you know, it is packed
with people. It is Halloween season, and of course with
all that heavy, heavy focus on the witch trials, you've
got the Witch Museum and everything else. Danvers, though, is
pretty quiet. So why do you think that Danvers has
been essentially not left behind in the conversation? But it's
(08:33):
not as much of a spotlight on Danvers.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So you are very right that the disparity is quite real,
especially this month October with all of the Salem tourism.
The reason for this disparity is in part because the
city of Salem had more of a commercial base in
the early nineteen hundreds it transitioned to more embracing tourism,
(08:58):
whereas agricultural and then suburban residential later on, Danvers never
really had the business to boost tourism, the business infrastructure,
and the other part is for generations and generations. So
many people in Danvers were still connected to someone from
(09:22):
the witch trial days on whichever side, accusers or defendants.
But in the city of Salem you had such a
shift of new people moving into the city, factories opening
it attracting people from across New England to move there,
that in the early nineteen hundreds many of them had
less of a personal connection to the witch hunt, or
(09:45):
perhaps no family connection.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
That makes sense, And the fact that you know the
name change. When you hear Salem witch trials, you don't
hear talking about Danvers witch trials, right, So I'm sure
that just in the public sye, it's a little bit
of a disconnect for that reason alone.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
You're right, the name is the brand, and of course
Salem has its original name, and so that connection is there.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
What's left behind in Denverse To remind people of these atrocities.
I mean you said that a lot of the accusers
stayed behind in Salem Village. Surely their homes and their
farms are still there too.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yes, we have several buildings that are connected to people
involved in the witch hunt. First and foremost is the
Rebecca Nurse Homestead in Danvers. It's the only home of
a victim of the witch hunt that's preserved and open
to the public. There are other homes that are just
somebody's private home that were homes of victims or accusers.
(10:42):
In sixteen ninety two, we have an archaeological site where
Reverend Paris's home, the Salem Village Parsonage was And then
in March of nineteen ninety two, the three hundredth anniversary
of the first death in the witch hunt, which was
one of the people who was passed away in jail,
this memorial to all the victims of the witch hunt
(11:05):
was dedicated in Danvers in what used to be the
center of Salem Village, that neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
You are a lifelong Danvers resident, and clearly you know
a lot about the history. You are a historian. This
is what you've dedicated your life's work to so far,
and we'll talk about your book, we'll talk about your
tours here in just a minute. Tell me what it
feels like to be somebody who lives in Danvers and
has kind of uncovered a lot of this history that
a lot of people these days don't talk about.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
What I find fascinating as having researched this event and
giving tours of sites related to this event is there
are people who come out to see these original sites
related to the witch hunt who are very much the
tourists who are history oriented. That they don't they might
(11:51):
come in October, but not for Halloween, not in costume
or anything like that, but that they are.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Tourists who are historical tourists.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
That's the group that would make it out from downtown
Salem to Danvers.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
These days, I feel like a lot of us talk
more about uncomfortable history. Do you feel that that's the
case now?
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, Well, it is definitely an uncomfortable topic. It is
a genuine tragedy that these people have lost their lives,
and locally it's something that people living in town know about.
There's a high level of awareness and we have, for example,
the third graders of all the elementary schools do a
local History day that involves includes a visit to the
(12:35):
Rebecca Nurse homestead. It's probably the only town in America
where all the elementary schoolers visit a grave of a
condemned and executed alleged witch.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Speaking of Rebecca Nurse. By the way, you have written
a book, and this has been up for a couple
of years now. It's called a Salem Witch The Trial,
Execution and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse. We've talked about Rebecca
Nurse a couple of times so far in this interview,
but tell me why you decided to focus on her.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Well, I knew I wanted to write a biography because
at the time of writing, there was no standalone biography
of any of the victims.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Of the witch hunt. There was no book that told one.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Of the victim's whole life story. And that that was
a need that I saw because it is a tragedy
and once you see it through one person's eyes, you
really understand how it affected them. It affected their family,
it affected the community. And I picked Rebecca Nurse because
when she's accused, she seemed at the time and now
(13:38):
even historians agree, really one of the least likely people
to have wound up being accused of witchcraft.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
There are others who.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
You know that they had disputes, you know that they
had feuds, and they wind up being accused. With Nurse,
she has such a respectable background through the Puritan eyes,
she is an upstanding member of the community that I
thought King, the least likely person to be accused, would
actually reveal more about how the overall event unfolded.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well, I'm going to leave that to people to read
the book, because it's really a powerful story about Rebecca
and how she was able to rise in society and
then had this tragic, tragic downfall and end. But if
people want to get out toward Salem and Danvers or
Salem Village, whatever you want to call it these days,
if people want to head to your neck of the
woods and take in some of this history, you lead
(14:29):
walking tours. So tell us a bit about those and
where you make your way around with these tours.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Yes, So for four years now I've been leading walking tours.
It was the first and the only historical walking tour
of the Salem Village sites in Danvers. We hold them
on Saturday mornings, typically just in the fall, which is
when most people are coming out, and it includes the
(14:55):
foundation the archaeological site of where Reverend Paris's house was.
We talk outside some buildings in the historic district, including
one that had been the tavern in Salem Village. We
go to the memorial to the victims of the witch hunt,
and we talk in front of and about the first
Church of Danvers, the Congregational Church, which is the same
(15:15):
congregation that was the Salem Village church back in sixteen
ninety two.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Wow. And obviously for people who might be listening from
outside of the area, Salem and Danvers are not that
far apart. It does not take long to get between
the two. So if you're staying in Salem, super quick
ride up in uber or like public transit. It's not
that far to go.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
That is very true.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yep, No, it could be about fifteen minutes driving it is.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's really close by.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
And many people I find stop and take the walking
tour on a Saturday morning on their way into Salem
for the day.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Tell us where people can find out more about signing
up for the tour, about your book, about the history
work that you've done. Because this is no small fee,
This is a lot of stuff to pull together, tell
us where we can find out more.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
You can find out more.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
We're at Daniel gagninhistory dot com. The walking tour is
booked through the Salem Historical Tours website. Okay, and I
also always recommend people check out the nonprofit Rebecca Nurse
Homestead Museum in Danvers too.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
All Right, Daniel Gagnin, this is great information stories that
many of us may not have known. So thank you
for the education and enjoy your time in Salem Village
for the rest of the spooky season.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Thank you very much, nice talking with you.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Have a safe and healthy weekend. Please join me again
next week for another edition of the show. I'm Nicole
Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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