(8/04 - Wednesday)
Grey day today, but it isn't raining, yet.
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| Spider waiting to be packed for Sunapee Fair. |
Yesterday, Jean called Salem Waterfront Hotel for reservations. The reservations clerk at the hotel was very enthusiastic, exclaiming "fantastic" when Jean said she would take the offered room for a night. The hotel is located on the historic Salem waterfront, only 15 miles from the airport.
We were planning to leave Conway by 10:00 am for the 2 hr drive to Salem and packing went according to schedule leaving us time to visit Nate's Workshop where he was finishing the packing of glass for Sunapee Fair. He will fill a rental truck with works for his booth at the fair.
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| Masts of Schooner As Seen From Hotel. |
We arrived in Salem in good order about 1:00 pm and parked in the hotel parking lot. The room wasn't ready yet so we left the bags in the car and headed out for lunch and sight seeing. We ate next door to the hotel at the Derby Fish and Lobster Corp. Jean had a lobster roll, which was very good. Hotel desk clerk recommended the restaurant.
We next toured the Derby Dock where the square-rigger, New Friendship of Salem, is moored alongside the Boott wharf. But before going aboard for a first-hand look we watched a 15-minute movie at the NPS Orientation Center. After the boat tour we headed back to the Salem Waterfront Hotel to check-in. The hotel offers free Internet, WiFi in the rooms and a guest computer in lobby. The red trail marking the route through historical Salem village is right outside the hotel.
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| The red line marks the trail through historic Salem. |
We walked, in humid 92 degrees heat, up Hawthorne St. (named after Nathaniel Hawthorne) along the red painted path through Historical Salem. We went past the Peabody Essex Museum (no time to visit this famous museum today) and entered into the air-conditioned NPS Visitor Center and watched another movie, "Where Past is Present". Both of the NPS movies we watched today were great.
Near the end of our walk we passed the Old Town Hall where the play, Cry Innocent, about the Salem Witch Trials is presented. The audience sits as jury for the trial and is asked to judge the accused.
The old cemetery, known as the Charter Street Cemetery, is down the street from the Old Town Hall. Buried there is the presiding judge of the trials, John Hawthorne, and carved out of the corner of the cemetery lies a memorial to the Innocents executed when found guilty; ironic, no? Of course, the bodies of the victims are not in the cemetery; it is said that the family of a hanged person would take the body of their family member from the scaffold in the dark of night to a private burial outside of sacred ground.
Old Town Hall is the earliest surviving municipal structure in Salem, Massachusetts (dating from 1816-17) and an outstanding Federal Style building. The second floor of the building, Great Hall, has always been used as a public hall, and contained Town offices until 1837. The first floor, originally designed as a public market, is now being used as a public art space, in conjunction with Artists Row in the Marketplace. The building was was closed when we walked by.
We ate dinner at the Regatta Pub downstairs in the hotel. Catch of the day was Haddock; it was good and so were the freshly cooked veggies; even the coffee was good. Traveler's luck, I guess.
Tomorrow we fly home to Palo Alto.
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| Boott Wharf with schooner Friendship of Salem |
P.S. At the NPS visitor center I was stumped by a trick question: "How many witches were hanged during the Salem witch hysteria? I could not remember whether it was 16 or 19. The official NPS answer: None, the hanged were all innocent!
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