Salem's Haunted Happenings Offers Spooks, Specters, Will-o-the Wisps and Witches

From the pages of AAA Horizons

Salem has long been synonymous with spooks, specters, will-o-the-wisps and witches. Since Judge Jonathan Corwin and other magistrates sentenced 19 women and men to be hung for witchcraft in 1692, The Witch City has had more than its fair share of haunted happenings.

Almost 300 years after The Salem Witch Trials, Downtown Salem, ironically, had become a ghost town. Staring at empty streets and even emptier stores in the early 1980s, Salem Witch Museum owner Biff Michaud, Salem Chamber of Commerce Chair Joan Gormley and others created Salem’s Haunted Happenings.

Designed to attract customers to downtown businesses, Haunted Happenings started as a modest three-hour endeavor on Salem Common one Saturday afternoon in 1981. Now, Salem’s signature event has blossomed into a 26-day extravaganza that draws more than a half-million people to this infamous town, which sits in the shadow of the Cape Ann Peninsula in Northeast Massachusetts.

“This is the only ‘natural’ Halloween location in the country,” says Henry Witham, who, along with his wife, Nancy, and volunteer Kathie Driscoll-Gauthier, work full time for the Salem Halloween Committee, a not-for-profit organization that runs Haunted Happenings. “We were known as the Halloween capital of America back in the ’40s and ’50s, long before anybody cared to be called that.

“This is Haunted Happenings’ 20^th year,” adds Witham. “My wife and I came along just when the festival was growing to the point where it was becoming a Mardi Gras for college students.”

That year was 1997, when Witham estimates that the attendance leaped from 200,000 to more than 350,000. Due to the college crowd’s rowdy behavior, Salem Mayor Stanley Usovicz Jr. threatened to shut down the event. But cooler heads prevailed when the Withams and Driscoll-Gauthier promised to get Haunted Happenings under control. “Since the three of us have been here,” notes Witham, “we’ve turned it back into a well-rounded family festival.”

Real paranormal thrill seekers will visit the Joshua Ward House, the Ropes Mansion, the Witch Dungeon Museum, or the Hawthorne Hotel, all purportedly haunted. “You’ll actually see some tourists standing in front of a house, staring at open windows hoping to see a ghost,” says Witham. Most visitors, though, will settle for the artificial thrills of the various ‘haunted houses,’ ghost tours, and witch museums that grow in Salem like coconuts in Hawaii.

This year, the festivities kick off with the annual Salem Haunted Happenings Parade on Friday, October 6. Each weekend boasts a unique theme, such as the Fall Family Festival Weekend (Oct. 6-8), the Superstitious Weekend (Oct. 13-15), the Wicked Wharf Weekend (Oct. 20-22), and the Bewitched Weekend (Oct. 27-31).

For those more interested in a New England-flavored experience, new events such as a Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, a Scarecrow Festival and an Apple Festival have been added. Traditional Halloween balls, psychic fairs and costume contests are also on tap, and rumors are that MTV might be airing a Halloween concert live from Salem. For those interested in the history of the Witch Trials, the Salem Witch and Witch Dungeon museums are great places to learn about 1692’s tragic events. Even the respected Peabody-Essex Museum and Hawthorne Hotel host spirited special events.

“We find that a lot of the residents enjoy it, too,” says Driscoll-Gauthier, who was involved with the early Haunted Happenings. “Maybe they don’t enjoy Halloween Day itself, because the city becomes gridlocked, but it’s a chance for locals to get out and come downtown.”