Monday, April 18, 2011

Salem has an outside as well!

No more indoors!  Salem is a town!  And it has streets and old house and Dunkin' Donuts' and street signs that would confuse a cartographer (but I shall not GO there.  The sign points in the wrong direction!)

There is an historic district, and, heaven help me, I'm going to try to spell the word correctly just one time: McIntire Historic District.  There - that's the correct way. And, to save myself embarrassment, hereafter, I shall refer to it as the MID.

The MID starts about half a block past the Post Office on 2 Margin St.  I should have taken pictures of every house that I saw, but I was too overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of old homes and the nature of the streets and back ways to them.  So, pitiful tourist that I am, I did the best I could to capture the essence.


No, this isn't a house (if it was, it fell down).  It's a picture of a portion of sidewalk taken at about shin level to show the irregularity.  Quiz:  what's causing the warping of the brick?








Virtually every home boasted a sign like the ones above.  Almost all of the homes are currently being used as residences, just as they have been for the last couple of hundred years. 



And, if a visitor looks through the backyards from house to house, this is the kind of skyline that's visible.  Chimneys everywhere!   Steeply pitched roofs.  And sheds, fences, or hedges

Things are a bit scraggly right now, as we roll through April (remember, these pictures were taken on 3/27/11), but in the summer, the trees and bushes will provide privacy and shade.


And everywhere there is stone.  Stone set as walls, as benches, as part of foundations of houses. 







Stone is set into stone.  This is a compass rose set into the pavement at the corner of one street in the MID.




Stone makes up churches:

This is the first Unitarian Church, the oldest church in Salem.  I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like when the land is greener!

I wish I had more pictures - yet another reason (if I even needed one) to head back to Salem in a few weeks!

But at least here's a smattering of what you can see in Salem if the mood takes you and your feet wander there.

More wanderings ahead!  AND, I am ever so happy to report, we have had snow today!  April 18 and it's snowing - not sticking or anything, but snowing nonetheless!

Bah!

Off I go to cause more mischief!!!!


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

And Here I am again - Inside the Witch's House

Well, it's been a week and not a word have I written.  Stop cheering - it's not good for the vocal cords.

The reason I took so many pictures of the interior of the Corwin (or Witch's) House was that it provides a very good picture of what life would have been like for a prosperous person in the late 1600s.  Salem was a prosperous port and the town was able to support what was, for the time, a good life.


This is the obligatory sign that explains that Mr. Corwin purchased this home in 1675.  He had married or was about to marry a widow who had five children of her own.  The couple ended up having ten children.  Mr. Corwin was a merchant and considered to be well-to-do.  And, as a pillar of the community, he served as a selectman and as a magistrate.  He was one of the judges during the trials.


Rather than have visitors try to imagine what the foundation and building materials for a building such as this looked like, caretakers of the home have hung on a wall a cross section of foundation (rocks) and lath (slender slats of wood nailed to longer pieces and used as the basis for walls. The percentage of rock to lumber is about right.  Rock dominates much of this area still, a gift from the melt of the last continental glacier to cover the area approximately 10,000 years ago. 


We are standing with our backs to the large kitchen fireplace and looking across toward the kitchen table and a window that's tricked my camera just a bit with all the light that's coming in.  The furniture is from the period and varies in style.  The floors are wide pine boards.  And the walls are plaster laid over the lath that we saw a second ago.

See that chair over on the far wall - the one that's sort of sitting like it owns the room?  Thought I'd give you a better look:


The carving is wonderful, and the folks at Antiques Roadshow would have happy conniptions because the chair has been maintained well, but not refinished over the centuries.  This is a lovely example of what creative souls could do with wood.  I suspect that the seat is stuffed with something incredibly comfortable, such as horsehair.  (I am being ever so slightly facetious).  This would have been either the chair used by an honored guest or by Mr. Corwin himself.


Here we have another sturdy piece of furniture.  It's a storage chest and would have been used for whatever the Mrs. of the house wanted - everything from linens to pots, depending on the person. The wood is a rich reddish color and the design is simple but perfect for the purpose.

One of the things that I hate about learning a new technology is my rather embarrassing penchant for erasing things I should have kept.  My SD card is ever so clean and I have lost a number of my images (oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do?  Why, go back, of course!!!!)

What is that image up there?  No, it's not an early banjo, although that might be a reasonable assumption.  And where is it?

That, my friends, is the 17th century equivalent of an electric blanket. It's a bed warmer, and believe me, it was a great thing to have.  Coals were place in the pan and the lid was closed.  The pan was then put under the covers and worked about until the sheets or blankets (depending) had warmed up.  Then, before the heat dissipated, people hurried to bed. 

The warming pan stands hear the bedroom fireplace.  A little smaller than the behemoth in the kitchen, the bedroom fireplace did what it could to keep the cold at bay. 

To reach the bedrooms upstairs, one must ascend this exceptionally (to our eyes) steep and narrow winding set of stairs.  I have size 9 feet.  They were not happy attempting to find the way up. 


There are two large sleeping areas on the upper floor.  This loom, which would have helped keep the family in blankets and clothes, is exceptionally large.  Setting the threads would have involved hours of work on the part of the lady of the house.  Beside the loom is a covered foldaway bed that would have been large enough to rest several of the family's children.


Please forgive the blurring, I was not standing still, either because I was shivering or had decided to see if I could destabilize the image.  This is a typical bed of the period.  The mattress is a pallet, and could have been stuffed with straw or with some other material, such as (you guessed it) horsehair.  The slats of the bed are actually ropes.  To keep the pallet from sagging, each night the ropes were pulled tight and reknotted.  Not the most comfortable thing, but better than the floor when the cold night fell.  Again, this would have slept three or four children.


Across the landing at the top of the stair was the second, larger room.  To the left of the cradle, you can see the skirt of a formal gown.  Please don't think that everyone wore black and white all the time.  They didn't.  The cradle is of the period and beautifully carved.  Both the cradle quilt and the large quilt on the trundle bed are of the same material, a lovely blue that did not come out well here.  And the quilting is magnificent.

The cradle is off to your left.  This is the trundle bed.  In this case, the trundle, or lower bed, is about the size of a full or double bed today.  The master bed is surrounded by drapery to keep away the drafts. In the summer, the material would be linen.  In the winter:  wool. 

There existed not a whole lot of privacy in homes of this time.  So people learned to "not hear" anything that might upset them.  It's an interesting thought:  I wonder how we'd do with it today in this country.

I am utterly bummed that I have lost so many pictures.  I have more of the town itself, and will share those.  But I am pouting large time at my fondness for the delete key!

Off I go, into the night.  More as soon as my brain focuses again!!!!  Where the dickens did I put that warming pan, anyway?

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Salem and "the trials"

All right then - here we go with what most people think of when they think of Salem:  the "witch trials" of 1692. 

By 1692, Salem had been a settled town for (uh oh - math.  92-26 is 66 years - checks with calculator.  Yup, that's it.  It was a sea port in the colonial period and habors one of the Tall Ships - the Friendship - today.  Here she is while we were visiting. 



The sky is blue and the water is calm here, but it was like walking through a wall of ice because the weather was so wintery.  We got to the port at low tide, and stayed to watch the tide rise under the ship.  And to eat lunch at The Capn's.  Most excellent ways to warm up, believe me!

The port has several piers and would have been a welcome sight for anyone who had survived crossing the stormy waves of the Atlantic.  The ship is a National Historic Monument and people can listen to an explanation of the ship's history by rangers assigned to the monument.

I'm not going to disucss the trials in Salem or make any assumptions about them .  That is the task of other people, and they most assuredly can do it well enough.

What remains of those horrifying times?  A quiet memorial to the fallen - we saw it in its bedraggled late winter dress.  The memorial sits in a small open space next to a cemetery.  Open at the sidewalk, its other three sides have memorials in the form of rock shelves coming out of the stone wall.

This is Sarah Good's:



There are 18 more along the walls, one for each of the nineteen who lost their lives.  While we were looking about, we saw one bench that had a candle and a flower placed on it by someone, in memory of the person who had died.

No one was burned at the stake.  No one was beheaded.  All of those killed were hanged, with the exception of one man, who was "pressed" to death.  Think of lying on a platform with another platform over you with heavy stones being piled on the upper platform until the unfortunate person between the wood pieces was, literally, pressed to death.  Giles Corey was pressed to death when he refused to implicate his wife or to confess that he was a witch.

There is a place in Salem called the Witch House, which is a misnomer, since none of the accused ever lived there.  It was the home of one of the judges, Jonathan Corwin, and his rather extensive family.  Between himself and his second wife, there were 10 Corwin children to care for, and the house was large enough to at least keep them off the street!

Here 'tis!




Forgive the angle - I was freezing and my fingers just weren't working all that well!!!!  It reminds me that I am a bit better off plodding, you know?

SO, there are like a bunch of pictures of the inside of the Corwin House, mostly because I think things like that are way interesting.  I want to cut off for now and then do more later just talking about the house.

I'm going to leave with a picture of one of a witch with an itchy twitchy nose that everyone may be more or less familiar with.  Here is Elizabeth Montgomery as Samatha Stevens.  The statue stands in Salem and is seen by everyone who visits, I'm sure!



Wherein I Wander to Salem via Bristol

Salem, ah Salem.

Those who have read my other journal-ly thing about my trips West via car will, probably, be shocked to learn that I haven't ever Wandered East.  I've actually been to New York City as part of a college tour a thousand years ago.  And I've driven to my sister's house near Albany (captial of New York and the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers).  I went to college in the Far North Country of New York, near Massena and the St. Lawrence Seaway.  Those things were all well and good, but I hadn't Wandered East, if you know what I mean.

Being the soul that I am, (kind of teacher-y and all), I figure that I'd better show a map of Massachusetts (huge name for a relatively small state). 



Find Boston and North by North East between Gloucester (pronounced glaw-ster) and Saugus and you'll find Salem.  Ignore the tidy roads indicated, since they are an optical illusion designed to lure the unwary.

I traveled to Salem via Bristol Connecticut.  Massachusetts is a pretty small state.  Connecticut is even smaller.


Just as a warning:  no matter how hard you squint, you're not going to find Bristol.  However, if you find New Haven, you're on the way to Bristol. In a manner of speaking.

CT is nestled under Massachusetts, and is smaller than MA.  Of course, then there's Rhode Island, which is dinky.  However, there is no correlation between size and attitude, believe me!  These states are two of the original 13 (quick - what are the other 11?) and Massachusetts boasts enough history inside its borders to keep almost anyone happy.

Why go to Salem?  Why not Boston? 

Well, because, as intrepid an explorer (okay, as fairly decent a wanderer) as I am, I really don't like big cities.  For Boston, I'm thinking that a nice tour bus is in order.  That way I don't have to worry about parking, running over wayward pedestrians or finding gas for a car. 

No, I had an idea and Salem seemed to fit the bill.  (It's a story idea, of course.  Other ideas I might have are best kept to me!!!)

And I wanted to go before the made influx of tourists massed for the annual invasion.  So the end of March seemed logical.  There would be only about a 50 percent chance of snow on any given day.  And the sun had climbed enough in the sky that I figured I'd only have to wear gloves and a winter parka.  Not bad at ALL!!!

Crys lives in Bristol, and I went there via the Berkshires, which are very old and rounded mountains enclosing some absolutely gorgeous scenery.  Don't ask - when I was going to Bristol, I wanted to arrive before dark, and for reasons we shall see, I didn't return to Rochester the way I drove out.  So I don't have pictures of that part of the trip - This Time.  Next time?  That's another story.

My faithful Monte Carlo has over 136000 miles on it, and I didn't want to put it into strange territory until I'd had a chance to suss my way through first.  I, therefore, rented.

The place I used is extremely reliable and has some excellent weekend rates, so I was able to upgrade to a Malibu.

On top of all of the other "things to do before you leave the house", I must now add a small but significant codicil in the form of something that looks like math, but isn't.  I promise.

Car weight divided by engine size = the responsiveness of the car.

The Malibu is a pretty chunky car.  And, from the complete lack of responsiveness, it's a chunky car with a small engine.  I should have checked:  I know better.  Check your rental car or cars and trucks.  Make sure that, if you're looking for pick up to get clear of the train track before the 4:52 from Oshkosh comes in, you can actually rely on the engine to HAVE pick up!  Both CT and MA are hilly and an overburdened engine can only do so much. 

I missed my Monte (sniffle).

After some moderate adventures (I too can become lost, sometimes for hours), Crys and I reached Salem on Saturday afternoon.  Properly humbled by the need to ask repeatedly for directions (about every two miles), I pulled into Salem and followed the almost invisible signs toward public parking.

Oh simple JOY!  A ramp garage that looked like it had been around during the 1700s!  Low ceilings and poor signage in faded paint greeted us as we rambled through to find a parking slot. But we'd MADE it! 

After sticking a finger out the window and seeing it come back a few seconds later with frostbite, I figured jackets were in order. Since we hadn't taken 'em off, all we had to do was open the car doors. Within three minutes, we had reached the streets of Salem!  YAY!!!!

Monday, April 4, 2011

And the Thirteenth Time is the Charm

Posting pics shouldn't be this hard, but oh boy is it!  I feel sooo dumb!