Ghosts from the Past
Before Confederate artillery fired on Fort Sumter igniting the hostilities between North and South and starting the Civil War, Mary Harwell was a happy girl dreaming of a future with Brady McKinley, the young man she had loved since childhood. She envisioned marriage, a family and a long, productive life. Of course, she could not have foreseen the terrible conflict that would tear the country apart and shatter her dreams.
At first, like most people on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, Mary and Brady believed the War Between the States would last only a few weeks. Both the Union and the newly formed Confederacy were confident they would strike an early and decisive blow, but after the bloody battle at Bull Run, even the most optimistic soldiers suspected they were in for a long haul.
When Brady announced in August 1861 that he planned to enlist in the 1st Massachusetts Battery Light Artillery, Mary tried to persuade him to change his mind.
"I have to go," he insisted. "You know how I feel about slavery."
"I don't like the practice either, but I don't see why it's any of your responsibility. Our government has an army of men trained to fight. You're a farmer, not a soldier."
"You forget that farmers helped the regular army win our independence from Great Britain."
"That was different," Mary argued. "Men were fighting for their freedom and to protect their homes and their families. Besides, this war is less about freeing the slaves than it is about keeping the Southern states in the Union. I say if the South wants to secede, let it."
"Such a division would dangerously weaken our country," Brady argued. "Neither the North nor the South is likely to survive as a separate nation. I agree with Mr. Lincoln: we must preserve the Union at all costs."
Throughout the centuries men of principle and courage have been willing to risk their lives and all that they held dear to fight for what they believed in. Such a man was Brady McKinley. Despite all Mary's attempts to dissuade him from such a course, her resolute fiancé joined the army. After a brief period of training, he kissed her goodbye and marched off to fight the war.
* * *
The death of a loved one is never an easy cross to bear, but the tragic, senseless passing of the young man she adored left Mary Harwell inconsolable. The fact that her fiancé had died on a bloody battlefield in Fredericksburg, Virginia, so far from his home and from all those who loved him, only compounded her pain.
With Brady gone, Mary could no longer stand to remain in Newburyport. There were far too many memories and remnants of broken dreams that would never come true. Unfortunately, she did not have sufficient funds to relocate to New York or even Boston. In fact, her meager savings took her only as far as Salem.
Although once the finest seaport in all New England, if not all of America, Salem had long since lost that distinction. The tall ships that once graced its bustling wharves were a thing of the past, yet there was still money to be made in the seaside towns of eastern Massachusetts. The North Atlantic was a great source of seafood, especially cod, and fishermen regularly sailed out of Marblehead, Salem and Gloucester to catch it.
An attractive young woman and no stranger to hard work, Mary was immediately given a job at the Rusty Anchor, an eating and drinking establishment near the Derby wharf that catered to free-spending seamen. No doubt, most young ladies of Newburyport would have found the customers at the popular tavern coarse and crude, but Mary did not mind their salty language or their lax table manners, for they were a generous lot who always tipped well. Those gratuities were even larger in her case since the fishermen knew of her loss and wanted to help out the loved one of a fallen hero.
"Hero?" Mary would cry whenever one of the tavern's patrons would mention Brady McKinley's bravery. "What good is a hero to me? I'd as soon have a living coward than a dead hero."
After hearing such a bitter outburst, one of the regulars would invariably try to cheer the young woman up.
"Now, girl, don't go talking like that. Your young man's death was God's will, and God's will is never an easy thing to swallow. Here, have a drink to wash it down."
Although Mary had never imbibed when she lived in Newburyport, she soon discovered that alcohol—once she got over the revolting taste—had a beneficial effect on her. After a few drinks, she began to laugh along with her customers. After a few more, she could temporarily forget about the life that had been so cruelly taken away from her.
* * *
When the news of Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox reached Salem, Curly Banneker, the owner of the Rusty Anchor, celebrated the Union victory by offering his patrons a round of drinks on the house. During the height of the merriment, a stranger walked into the tavern and sat down at the bar. The handsome young man bore a passing resemblance to Brady McKinley, and Mary felt a stirring in her heart that she had believed would never be resurrected.
"Are you new to Salem?" she inquired as she poured the stranger a drink. "I've never seen you here before."
"I'm just passing through," the man replied, responding to her innocent flirting with a smile. Then he frowned and asked, "Salem? Isn't that where they burned people for witchcraft?"
The young barmaid had never heard of the city's darker history.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about," she replied in all honesty.
"I'm sure it was Salem. Back in the late 1600s, several women were accused of being witches and burned at the stake."
A fisherman sitting nearby overheard the conversation.
"You got your facts wrong," he corrected the stranger. "They didn't burn witches in Massachusetts; they hanged them."
"They did?" Mary asked with fascination.
"Back in 1692 a bunch of hysterical girls accused some people—not just women; men, too—of bewitching them. Before the madness was all over, nineteen people died on Gallows Hill."
"Where exactly was this Gallows Hill?" the stranger asked.
"I don't believe anyone knows anymore," the fisherman explained. "After the hangings, the bodies of the so-called witches were tossed into a pit and covered with dirt because the church wouldn't allow them to be buried on hallowed ground. Anyway, after the years passed, the people of Salem wanted to forget about the whole incident, and no one spoke of Gallows Hill or the executions again."
"I can well understand why!" Mary exclaimed. "I'm sure I'd prefer to forget about them, too."
* * *
More than a decade had passed since the end of the war. Mary Harwell, whose alcohol consumption had steadily increased over the years, lost her only means of support when Curly Banneker passed away and the Rusty Anchor closed its doors. Given her reputation for being "a drinker," she was unable to find employment and was reduced to living in the streets, begging for food and trading an occasional sexual favor for a bottle of cheap whiskey.
Eventually, the good people of Salem decided that something must be done to help the unfortunate woman. Since most city hospitals were not equipped to deal with alcoholism, drunkards were often sent to lunatic asylums, along with drug addicts, indigents and prostitutes, to mix with the mentally impaired and the downright insane.
"She will be much better off at the Castle," the local doctor assured the mayor as he signed Mary's commitment papers. "At least there she will have a roof over her head and enough food to keep her alive. It's a miracle she's managed to survive as long as she has."
The "Castle" to which the doctor referred was the newly completed Danvers Lunatic Asylum—also referred to as the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers or the Danvers State Insane Asylum—located on a hill north of the town of Danvers, Massachusetts. The new facility was a far cry from the snake pit asylums of the past. Designed by Boston architect Nathaniel Bradlee, the massive Victorian Gothic style, red brick building resembled a castle, hence the nickname given to it by the surrounding communities.
Unlike many mental health institutions of its day, the Danvers Lunatic Asylum followed the more modern, humane Kirkbride plan (named for its originator, Thomas Story Kirkbride). This design called for all areas of the building to have plenty of light and ventilation. Also, on the outside, there were elaborate gardens, and patients were encouraged to exercise regularly.
On the night of her arrival, the new patient received a hot bath, a nourishing meal and a clean bed. Mary was actually glad to be at the hospital since she believed these necessities were all she could want in life. She did not even mind that she was expected to work on the patient-run farm, which provided much of the food for the hospital's kitchen. It was not much different from living on her parents' farm in Newburyport, she thought, feeling a pang of nostalgia and homesickness.
Mary would soon discover, however, that a bath, a meal and a bed were not all she needed. She had been a fairly steady drinker for more than ten years, and her body believed it needed alcohol to survive.
"You won't be getting anything to drink here," Olive Corwin, the day nurse, informed her.
"Surely one little glass of whiskey can't hurt," Mary declared in a coaxing voice.
Olive remained firm.
"Not one drop. If you're thirsty, you can have a glass of water."
Water didn't satisfy the cravings, though. As the day wore on, Mary began to experience the symptoms of withdrawal, both physical and emotional. She began to shake, and she broke out in a sweat as she fought against waves of nausea.
Olive could do little but listen to Mary's cries. The nurse had seen other patients go through alcohol withdrawal. It was never a pretty sight. Not only would the patient feel physically sick, but she would also suffer from depression, anxiety and rapid mood swings.
"You'll go through all that hell," the nurse predicted, more to herself than to Mary, "and the first thing you'll do when you're finally sober and released from this place is go right back to the bottle. It's always the same. You'll keep drinking until it kills you."
That night Mary lay in her bed staring at the moon and stars outside her barred window. She was still sweating profusely, but thankfully the nausea had passed. Although exhausted, she was unable to sleep. With insomnia came depression. For the first time in a long while, she thought about Brady McKinley. Memories of her dead fiancé and of her own lost youth and innocence moved her to tears. This onslaught of self-pity exhausted her even more, yet she could still not sleep.
The hours slowly ticked by until suddenly there was movement in the shadows.
"Who's there?" Mary cried.
There was no response, just the unmistakable sound of the swoosh of a woman's dress sweeping the floor.
"Nurse Lawler, is that you?"
The night nurse came to the door, carrying a lighted candle.
"Did you call for me?" she asked.
"There's someone in my room. I thought it was you."
The nurse entered the patient's room and held her candle high, illuminating the shadows.
"There's no one here," she declared confidently.
"But I saw someone, and I heard a dress sweep the floor."
"People who are being weaned off strong drink often see things that aren't really there. Now, close your eyes and try to get some sleep."
But when the light of dawn shined through her window, the troubled patient was still awake.
* * *
The following day Mary staggered through the halls of the Castle like a zombie. The dark circles beneath her bloodshot eyes attested to her lack of sleep. When she sat at the table for her morning meal, she could not eat.
Olive conferred with one of her fellow nurses. Loss of appetite was to be expected in such cases, but the nursing staff had to make sure the patient's health was not adversely affected. One or two missed meals would be allowed, but if the patient refused to eat for any length of time, Olive would have to feed her by force.
After the patients finished eating their morning meal, they were taken outside to work in the hospital's garden. Mary asked to be excused, claiming she did not feel well, but the nurse believed the fresh air and exercise would do her good. The weary patient forced herself to kneel on the ground and pull up weeds. She closed her eyes as a cool breeze caressed her sweating brow. When she opened them again, for a brief moment, she saw a crudely constructed gallows from which hung five corpses clad in somber seventeenth-century garments. Although the nurses had assured the patient that hallucinations were common for someone in her condition, the ghastly images terrified her nonetheless.
Mary's shrill scream pierced the quiet of the peaceful morning. The other patients, although unaware of what caused her fear, joined in the commotion. The nurses and orderlies ran to subdue the agitated group before things got out of hand.
"Stop it!" Olive urged.
"They're dead! Can't you see them? They're all dead!"
Smack!
The nurse struck the hysterical young woman across the face to calm her. Though not seriously injured, Mary fell to the ground, moaning. Meanwhile, the other patients were quickly ushered back to their rooms.
* * *
Dr. Cleavon Petty didn't normally treat substance abuse cases. As one of a small number of overworked psychiatrists, he spent his time trying to help the more seriously disturbed patients. The nurses and orderlies were usually quite capable of dealing with those suffering from withdrawal, but Mary Harwell was an unusual case. Physically, at least, she had recovered sufficiently enough to be discharged, yet she was still having hallucinations.
Dr. Petty looked up from his desk when the patient entered his office. Despite more than a decade of hard drinking, there were still traces of beauty beneath the ravages of alcoholism and malnutrition.
"Please have a seat, Miss Harwell," he said.
Mary sat in the chair opposite him.
"I don't see why I can't leave this place," she protested. "I'm cured. My hands don't shake anymore, I can sleep most nights and I've put on weight since I got here."
"We're all quite pleased with your progress. You seem fit enough. However, ...."
"Go on, Doctor. What is it?" she asked, putting her guard up.
"Nurse Lawler tells me you're still seeing things that aren't there."
"The nurses said that was common with people who stop drinking."
"True, but you've already gotten over the other symptoms. You should also have gotten over your hallucinations."
Mary paled and nervously looked around the office, unwilling to meet the doctor's eyes.
"Now, suppose you tell me all about these visions you've been seeing."
"Why should I?" she snapped at him. "You won't believe me any more than the nurses do."
"I promise to keep an open mind."
Reluctantly, Mary told him about the apparitions, beginning with the mysterious swooshing shadow in her room. The doctor showed genuine interest in her description of the hanging victims.
"Are these people always dressed the same way?"
"Yes. They all look like they just stepped off the Mayflower: they were Pilgrims, Puritans, Separatists, or whatever they called themselves."
"I'm not sure what's causing your delusions, but I suspect you've heard the rumors that this hospital was built on land owned by Judge Hathorne."
Mary stared at him blankly.
"Judge who?"
"Hathorne. John Hathorne, one of the magistrates during the Salem witch trials."
"Oh, I heard about those poor people once when I worked as a barmaid at the Rusty Anchor, but I never heard of Judge Hathorne."
"There have always been rumors that the judge's farm was located on the land where this hospital stands. Perhaps these rumors caused you to fantasize about the men and women the judge sentenced to hang."
"It doesn't seem very likely, Doctor. I don't know anything at all about this judge or the victims themselves."
Dr. Petty, however, was not willing to abandon his theory.
"You must have overheard the rumors and not realized it, probably while you were inebriated. No doubt, they became lodged in your subconscious mind."
Mary could not explain the strange visions that haunted her, but she was certain they were caused by something other than snippets of a conversation locked deep in her mind.
* * *
The patient lay on her bed, anxiously waiting to fall asleep. Since she had recovered from her addiction to alcohol, she no longer suffered from insomnia. Yet there was always the fear that she would see the bodies of hanging Puritans in the shadowy corners of her room. To avoid the terrifying glimpses of the supernatural, every night when she got under the blankets, she closed her eyes tightly until she crossed over into Morpheus' domain. The recent weather, though, had been oppressively hot and humid. She perspired freely in the stifling room and felt almost as bad as she had when she was going through withdrawal. For the first time in several months, sleep eluded her.
"Maybe a drink of water will help cool me off," she told herself, hoping to convince the night nurse to get her one.
When she opened her eyes, Mary had to put her pillow over her mouth to stifle her scream. A hazy, unnatural light shone in her room. In the middle of the eerie glow, stood an old wooden gallows from which five bodies were suspended: four men and one woman. Previously, these macabre visions faded in a matter of moments, but not that night.
While she stared in horror at the faces of the dead, wanting to look away but unable to do so, one of the men's eyes opened. He looked directly at Mary and spoke.
"Elizabeth."
The poignant expression on the man's features invoked sympathy rather than fear.
"My name isn't Elizabeth," she replied.
Suddenly, the unnatural light grew brighter, momentarily obscuring the gallows and its victims. When the brightness dimmed and darkness returned, the spirits were gone.
* * *
While it is true that a good number of the patients at Danvers Asylum were indigents, alcoholics, drug addicts and prostitutes, some were sent there because of a serious mental condition. Such a patient was Myra Simms, who had for years wandered the streets of Peabody, carrying on conversations with invisible companions. When the young girl's parents died, she was deemed unable to care for herself and was subsequently remanded to the custody of the commonwealth and promptly placed in an asylum.
Myra never talked to the other patients or hospital staff, presumably preferring the company of her imaginary acquaintances to that of real people. It greatly surprised Mary, then, when Myra sought her out during the patients' exercise period the following day.
"I'm surprised John spoke to you," Myra said abruptly.
At first, Mary paid no attention to the strange girl. No one at Danvers ever bothered listening to her odd, one-sided conversations, not even the nurses or the psychiatrist.
"I said," Myra repeated, speaking more loudly, "I'm surprised John spoke to you."
Mary turned and was stunned to see that the girl was addressing her.
"You must be mistaken," she replied uneasily, fearing the disturbed patient might be jealous of an imaginary boyfriend.
After all, one never knew what could set the lunatics off and cause them to become violent.
"I'm not mistaken," Myra stubbornly persisted. "He spoke to you last night."
"I don't know anyone named John, and I certainly didn't talk to any men last night."
"He thinks you're Elizabeth."
Elizabeth!
Mary felt a flush of exhilaration. She hadn't imagined the gallows and the five dead Puritans. Myra had seen them, too.
"When did you see John?" she asked excitedly.
"I've been seeing him all my life. I can see them all: John, Bridget, Rebecca, Martha, and even poor old Giles. I see them and so many others."
Mary's excitement died. Perhaps Myra was mad after all.
"I'm a sensitive, you see. I have been one as long as I can remember. The dead are always asking for my help, but more often than not, there is little I can do for them."
Mary was confused.
"Just who is this John?"
"A ghost, although some have a preference for the term specter. Myself, I've always been fond of the word revenant. I've heard people refer to them as 'revenant spirits,' but I suppose that's a bit redundant, like saying 'ghost ghost.'"
Mary shivered. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she must have known her bizarre visions were supernatural in origin, but actually recognizing them as such and labeling them as ghosts made them all the more frightening.
"How long have you been a sensitive?" Myra asked, feeling a sudden kinship with the other woman.
"I don't know that I am one," Mary admitted. "I never saw or heard anything unusual until I came to Danvers. And what I've seen here were very brief glimpses—until last night, that is. It was the first time any of the spirits spoke to me."
An idea came to Myra, like a light illuminating the darkness.
"Of course! How could I be so foolish? John spoke to you last night because yesterday was August 19, the anniversary of his death."
"How do you know that? Did his ghost tell you?"
"He didn't have to. You see, my father was a professor, and he taught me all about the history of Salem. I'm quite familiar with the events of 1692, including those of August 19 when John Proctor and four other accused witches were hanged on Gallows Hill."
"And who was Elizabeth? Was she one of the women hanged with him?"
"No, Elizabeth was Proctor's wife. Like John, she was accused and condemned, but while she was imprisoned in Salem gaol, it was discovered that she was with child. The magistrates gave her a stay of execution because of her condition. By the time the baby was born, the witchcraft hysteria had passed, and she never had to suffer her husband's fate."
Mary felt pity for the Proctors, torn apart by the pervasive madness that had struck Salem in the late seventeenth century. But what had their plight to do with her or with Danvers Asylum? Had her alcoholism or her withdrawal awakened some dormant psychic powers within her?
* * *
When the last of the patients' lamps had been extinguished for the night, a silence fell over the rooms and halls of the Castle. A familiar hazy, unnatural light appeared again in Mary's room. As on the previous evening, the gallows emerged from the light, and five bodies swung from the gibbet. The patient held her breath, fearing what would come next. Once again, John Proctor's eyes opened, and he spoke.
"Elizabeth."
"Go away," the terrified woman screamed.
The light brightened and slowly dimmed, and the gallows disappeared, but the ghost of John Proctor remained. Mary cowered in her bed, pressing herself against the wall, trying to use her pillow as a shield against the supernatural.
"Come with me, Elizabeth," the spirit commanded and held out his hand. "Time is short, my dear. You must hurry."
Despite her terror, Mary was compelled by an unknown force to follow the ghost's command. The long-dead Puritan soundlessly led the reluctant patient out of her room, along the dimly lit halls of the asylum and down into the cellar. The subterranean tunnels were dark as pitch, but the spirit emitted an unearthly glow by which Mary could safely walk.
"Where are you taking me?" she asked anxiously. "I've never been in this part of the hospital. It's off limits to the patients."
"It's not much farther."
Suddenly, the cold, hard floor vanished, and Mary felt the soft earth beneath her bare feet. John stopped and pointed to what appeared to be some form of excavation, as evidenced by a shovel lying beside a pile of dirt.
Mary looked from the mound of dirt to John. The ghost nodded his head and silently pointed to the hole. When the patient leaned over and saw the bodies that had carelessly been tossed into the freshly dug grave, she fell to the ground in a dead faint.
* * *
Mary Harwell awoke from her swoon to find herself surrounded by nurses, orderlies and Dr. Petty, the overworked psychiatrist.
"What are you doing out of bed?" Nurse Lawler demanded to know, as two of the orderlies lifted the patient to her feet.
"This is it!" Mary announced triumphantly. "This is where Gallows Hill stood, not in Salem as everyone believes."
"Calm down," Dr. Petty cautioned. "It's just another hallucination."
"No, it's not. I saw the bodies here in the open grave."
Mary turned and saw that what had been earth a short time ago was once again a solid floor.
"But it WAS here. I saw it. There was no floor here, just dirt. There was a hole in the ground, and bodies had been thrown into it."
The doctor instructed the orderlies to take the patient back to her room.
"You'd best give her something to calm her nerves," he told the night nurse, who promptly left to obey the doctor's orders.
One of the orderlies, however, stayed behind, staring down at the floor.
"Are you coming, Stan?" Dr. Petty called.
"She's right, you know," Stan declared. "This must be the location of Gallows Hill."
The psychiatrist, a man born and raised in New Jersey and, as such, unfamiliar with local history, stated, "I thought the witchcraft hysteria happened in Salem. What makes you think the convicted witches were hanged here in Danvers?"
"Most of what is now Danvers used to be Salem Village, where the whole nasty witchcraft business started with Betty Paris taking a fit. Most of the accused witches were from Salem Village, not Salem Town, the Salem we know today."
Given the lateness of the hour, the psychiatrist was in no mood for a history lesson.
"Still," Dr. Petty maintained, "I see no reason to believe this was the location of Gallows Hill."
The orderly turned toward the doctor and said, "I used to work for the company that built this place. When we cleared the land and dug the foundation, we unearthed human bones. Nobody thought much of it at the time. We believed it was an old, abandoned family burial ground. But now, I have to wonder."
* * *
Less than two months after her journey to the lower level of the Danvers Lunatic Asylum, Mary Harwell was finally released from the hospital. Since that terrifying night, she had no further contact with the supernatural. Upon her discharge from the Castle, she returned to Newburyport where she eventually married and led a sober, productive and happy life.
It was not until her fiftieth year that she learned the reason John Proctor had appeared to her. When her mother died, Mary inherited the family farm. While going through an old trunk in her parents' attic, she found papers indicating that she was a direct descendent of the son Elizabeth Proctor had carried in her womb when she was convicted of witchcraft and sent to Salem gaol. Mary's ancestor was the unborn child whose existence had spared his mother the trip to the gallows that her husband, John, had taken.
* * *
Stan, the orderly from the asylum, like most men who worked hard for a living, occasionally liked to down a drink at the local tavern. One night, after having a few too many, he voiced his suspicions about the bones found in the ground beneath the asylum. Unfortunately, the tavern had been crowded, and word soon spread: Danvers Lunatic Asylum had been built on Gallows Hill.
This news was met with mixed emotions by the citizens of Salem. Some were surprised that the location had finally been discovered and relieved that it was found in Danvers and not in their own fair city. The majority of people, though, preferred to disregard the discovery, just as they had ignored the entire embarrassing chapter in Salem's past. Theirs was, after all, a city rich in maritime history, and they preferred to remember the many merchant ships that had departed and entered the port and unloaded goods at the wharves and forget about the ignorant Puritans who wrongly persecuted their neighbors.
Over the ensuing decades, the orderly's suspicions were taken as fact. In the early part of the twentieth century, if you were to ask a resident of Salem where Gallows Hill was, he would tell you that it was now the site of an insane asylum—that is if he answered you at all and didn't leave the witchcraft affair under the rug where it had been swept more than two hundred years earlier.
Eventually, however, a thriving tourist business developed in Salem. The Salem Maritime Historic Site became the first historic site in the National Park system. Yet a growing number of visitors were more interested in Salem's darker past. Museums telling the tragic tale of Tituba, Reverend Paris, the Proctors and the other innocent victims of the witchcraft hysteria, began popping up all over Salem. Inquisitive tourists, as well as local teenagers and adolescents, soon made their way to the Castle on the Hill, as though they might be able to see the gallows protruding through the hospital's slate roof.
Something had to be done to keep the vandals and rubberneckers away. So, by tacit agreement, the location of Gallows Hill officially became "unknown." Today, if you visit Salem and ask someone at the Witch Museum or the House of the Seven Gables where Gallows Hill once stood, you'll be told that "no one knows for sure." Even the most learned tour guides will not hazard a guess.
In 1992, the last patients passed through the doors of what was later renamed the Danvers State Mental Hospital. Nathaniel Bradlee's massive Victorian Gothic, red brick building now sits quietly atop the hill, like the abandoned castles of Europe, a looming relic from the past. Yet perhaps it is not completely abandoned. Perchance the spirits of those who died on Gallows Hill in 1692 walk its deserted halls even now.
Since I wrote this story, much of Danvers State Mental Hospital was demolished in order to build luxury apartments (Avalon Danvers). The Kirkbride Building, a historical landmark, was gutted, but the exterior remains pretty much the same. If you are curious about this building, there is a movie entitled Session 9 that was filmed there. It stars David Caruso and is available on DVD.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I first visited the Salem Witch Museum back in June 1973, the recorded program claimed that on the ground where the witches were hanged, a mental hospital now stood. I have gone back to the museum a number of times in more recent years and noticed that while the recording is essentially the same, there is no mention of the mental hospital or the location of Gallows Hill. I asked several employees at different museums in Salem and got the same answer: no one knows for sure where Gallows Hill was located. By the way, the ground on which Danvers Asylum was built was owned by Judge Hathorne (an ancestor of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, who later changed the spelling of the family name). There is a historical marker beside the road leading up to Avalon Danvers that confirms his previous ownership.
The image in the top left hand corner of this page is from an old postcard of State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers. (Imagine getting a postcard from an asylum? What would it say: "Having a great time; wish you were here"?)
Salem didn't like his stay at Danvers State Mental Hospital. He couldn't get to his Godiva chocolates with his paws in a straitjacket.
