Ghosts of Salem by Sam Baltrusis

Author:Sam Baltrusis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

Books on Salem’s lore, including Robert Ellis Cahill’s Ghostly Haunts, claimed that Hawthorne’s encounter with the ghost of Reverend Harris was at the Salem Athenaeum. Unfortunately, the sighting was at Boston’s exclusive library formerly on Pearl Street. Photo by Sam Baltrusis.

Whether Hawthorne actually believed in ghosts or merely used paranormal manifestations as a metaphorical device is a mute point. He was an inspiration for future writers, including horror author H.P. Lovecraft, who called The House of the Seven Gables one of “New England’s greatest contributions to weird literature.” It’s believed that Lovecraft’s short stories “The Shunned House” and “The Picture in the House” were inspired by Seven Gables.

Even though he spent a majority of his youth in the North Shore city, Hawthorne mused that he was “invariably happier elsewhere.” In fact, he and his family moved to a remote cottage in western Massachusetts after a scandalous three-year stint as a surveyor at Salem’s Custom House. After writing what is viewed as a negative depiction of Salem in the introduction of The Scarlet Letter, he traveled throughout the Boston area, returning to Salem only a handful of times in the last fourteen years of his life.

During a book tour in Plymouth, New Hampshire, Hawthorne died in his sleep. Even though he was buried in an area known as “Author’s Ridge” in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Hawthorne’s spirit lives on in Salem.

More than 150 years after his death, his ghosts continue to haunt the city he both loved and loathed.

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