Gay Salem! Your Gay Guide to the Witch City!

Salem, Massachusetts is one of those fortunate cities where history, arts, and culture converge. Located in New England, it takes it's rightful place as one of the early settlements in our country, The Witch Trials of 1692 forever tie Salem to the Witch, and being a port city gave Salem access to the many travels and discoveries from across the world. Below are links from which you can start your journey into Salem's past and perhaps even a peek into its unwritten future!

The Witch Trials of 1692
An Account of Events in Salem - 1692
From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft; dozens languished in jail for months without trials until the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts subsided.

Peabody Essex Museum/Phillips Library and University of Virginia
For well over one hundred years, students have used the reference sources of the 1692 Salem witch trials housed in the Phillips Library. Now, at the beginning of the 21st-century, the library maintains a rotating display of the original 17th-century documents, and has, in cooperation with the University of Virginia, made all of them available for viewing via the internet. Whether the student is seeking information about his ancestors, or the role of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great-grandfather in the trials, the Phillips Library is the repository to which one turns.

Salem Wax Museum of Witches and Seafarers
288 Derby Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, (800) 298-2929
Experience the terror of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and share in the exploits of bold seafarers as they braved the dangers of the high seas in search of a new world!

The Salem Witch Museum
Washington Square North, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, (978) 744-1692
The Salem Witch Museum brings you back to Salem 1692. Visitors are given a dramatic history lesson using stage sets with life-size figures, lighting and a narration - an overview of the Witch Trials of 1692

Witch Dungeon Museum
16 Lynde Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, (978) 741-3570
The mood is set form the moment you enter the Witch Dungeon Museum. You are there - in Salem Village in 1692, and you are guaranteed a unique educational experience with a chill or two. You'll experience the acclaimed performance of a Witch trial adapted from the 1692 historical transcripts. Professional actresses in repertory reenact the electrifying scene.

Witch History Museum
197-201 Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, 978-741-7770
The untold stories of 1692 told through an historically accurate live presentation followed by a guided tour.

The Witch House
310 Essex Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, (978) 744-8815
The Witch House, as it is called, is the home of Judge Jonathan Corwin (above), the most notorious of the witch trial judges.

Modern Witches
The Witches Voice
The Witches' Voice is a proactive educational network providing news, information services and resources for and about Pagans, Heathens, Witches and Wiccans. By keeping abreast of the latest news and updated information, as well as having ready access to critical resource tools, we, as Witches, Pagans, Wiccans, or Heathens can not only empower ourselves, but also develop programs to educate our local towns and cities on who we are and what we do.

Festival of the Dead
Halloween is the time of year when the shades of the dead whisper from forgotten places and spirits walk among us. The Witches of Salem, Massachusetts honor this time with Festival of the Dead, an annual event series that explores death’s macabre customs, heretical histories, and strange rituals.

Christian Day
Christian is a Salem Witch, the host of popular site Salem Tarot, and the co-founder of Salem's annual Festival of the Dead with fellow Salem Witch Shawn Poirier. Christian is also one of Salem's best known psychics; you can often find him reading the Tarot on Sundays at the Magic Parlor at 213 Essex Street.

Shawn Poirier
Shawn Poirier is a Salem Witch, founder of the Salem Tradition of Witchcraft, and the co-founder of Salem's annual Festival of the Dead with fellow Salem Witch Christian Day. He and Christian created the Festival as a means of gathering like-minded people to explore the spectre of death in all his many guises. Shawn is a powerful psychic and incredible medium who has proved that there is existence beyond the doorways of death and that our love ones await us on the other side.

Teri Kalgren
Teri Kalgren has been working with herbs at various levels for over twenty-five years. Her formal training has been with Rosemary Gladstar and Tierona Low Dog, and her certification was completed with the Suburban Herbalist, Margi Flynt. Teri also has her aromatherapy certification with Jade Shutes and is a licensed Esthetician. She has been teaching and showing the way of herbs for over ten years. Teri is the owner of Artemisia Botanicals and founder of Green Witch Herbals.

Michael and Therese Pendragon
Michael and Therese Pendragon are Native Salem Witches, with over sixty years of combined experience and contribution in the evolving fields of Paganism and Magick. Teachers, Spiritual Counselors, Artists, Musicians, and experts in a number of diverse Magickal Traditions, Michael and Therese present a rainbow of talents.

Richard and "Gypsy" Ravish
Richard and "Gypsy" Ravish are the owners and operators of White Light Pentacles/Sacred Spirit Products and of Nu Aeon—a Witch shop on Pickering Wharf in Salem. Richard and Gypsy are dedicated to the propagation of the Wiccan Arts and Magickal Sciences. they are also principal ministers of The Temple of Nine Wells, ATC, a public Wiccan congregation continuously operating in Salem that welcomes all people regardless of orientation.

Maritime History
New England Pirate Museum
274 Derby Street, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, (978) 741-2800
The unique and little-known history of New England sea-robbers comes alive at the Pirate Museum. Relive the adventures of Captains Kidd and Blackbeard, who roamed freely offshore plundering merchant ships. Participate in an educational, historically accurate and entertaining, live walking tour with a qualified guide who encourages student participation and questions.

Salem Maritime Historic Site
193 Derby Street Salem, Massachusetts 01970, (978) 740-1660
Salem Maritime, the first National Historic Site in the National Park System, was established to preserve and interpret the maritime history of New England and the United States.

Peabody Essex Museum
East India Square, Salem, Massachusetts 01970, (866) 745-1876
Founded in 1799, sixteen years after the establishment of the nation and nearly three-quarters of a century before the founding of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Gay Fabulous!
(These places are especially welcoming to gay and lesbians. We are in the process of evaluating every listing on our site to determine their "fabulousness." Let us know if you feel a listing should be designated as Gay Fabulous or to suggest a listing we might have missed entirely!)