Lovecraft Tour of Salem

In this video follow Christopher Jon Luke Dowgin of the Salem Smugglers’ Tour as he brings you on the Lovecraft Tour of Salem. He will bring you to the locations behind Lovecraft’s most famous stories. For example, he will bring you to the Bentley-Crowninshield House. The house appears within The Thing on the Doorstep.  Further, he will bring you to the old Charter Street Burying Ground. Inside the pages of Pickman’s Model, they mention the graveyard. Moreover, he will give you the real histories behind the locations and the people who lived in them. So watch this video and take the tour of Arkham, which we locals know as Salem MA! Lovecraft and Cthulhu would be so proud!

To find out more about the weird locations in Salem and the tunnels that run under the city, book a tour on the Salem Smugglers’ Tour. Plus read the books Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City and Sub Rosa.

 

Witch City Quick Secret Tour

Chris Dowgin of the Salem Smugglers’ Tour brings you around the Salem Common on a quick secret tour of the Witch City. Learn how 3 miles of tunnels were built to circumvent paying taxes which made America’s first millionaires and what they got up to with all of the money.

Learn about the Stoned Elephant!

Firstly, he will inform you about how the elephant got stoned and how she found rehab within one of America’s most famous circuses. Did you know Nathaniel Hawthorne’s father was on that ship?

Find out the Truth Behind the Murder that Clue is Based on!

He will take you to the locations involved in the most infamous murder of the nineteenth century Moreover, he will tell you how it affected the highest levels of our government and changed the path of our nation forever. Consequently, it was also the murder that inspired Edgar Allan Poe to write the Tell-Tale Heart.

See the House that was in Lovecraft’s Thing on the Doorstep on this Witch City Quick Secret Tour

Further, you will learn how this house also affected the US Constitution and the murder of a Congressman.  Little did Lovecraft know that reality is weirder than fiction sometimes.

So Much Packed into the Witch City Quick Secret Tour

In short, you will learn about those people who:

  • manipulated our national banks
  • those who created financial panics and depressions like clockwork
  • how the tunnels were built and why
  • who was the architect of the tunnels and where else he built them
  • and became America’s first millionaire.

In conclusion, you will realize after watching this quick tour of the Witch City that Salem is definitely more than Witches!

Visit Salem Smugglers’ Tour to book your tour for October, if the virus does not scare you away from this Halloween’s celebration! Also, read Salem Secret Underground: The History of the Tunnels in the City and Sub Rosa to be better prepared and enjoy your stay with us that much more!

 

H.P. LOVECRAFT AND SALEM

CTHULU WALKS HERE…

Jacob Crowninshield House from Thing on the Doorstep

In 1923 and 1924 in the summers H.P. Lovecraft, horror writer, came to Salem and was inspired by many of the buildings in town. Those listed above are only a few. In his narratives Salem became known as Arkham; an epitaph borrowed by the Batman franchise. Other surrounding areas became Innsmouth (Ipswich) and Kingsport (Marblehead). Tales like Herbert West-Reanimator, Pickman’s Model, and The Thing on the Doorstep were set inside this fictional Arkham.  Also, institutions like Danvers State Hospital were transformed into Arkham Asylum and the Essex Institute into the Miskatonic University.

For more info read Sub Rosa to find out how Salem shaped America and your lives! Available at Remember Salem, Jolie Tea, Wicked Good Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com.

Lovecraft and SalemSalem House Press
http://www.salemhousepress.com

Black Squirrels and the Miskatonic University

Not exactly Cthulu…

Black Squirrels and Universities

The first black squirrel I had seen was at Princeton University. Later that year we travelled to another university in NJ and there was another. So I have always associated black squirrels with university life.

Now the first Black Squirrel I had seen in Salem appeared the same year that Salem State became a university. But it was not introduced at the university but another institute of learning, the Essex Institute or as Lovecraft once called it the Miskatonic University.

In 1923 and 1929 H.P. Lovecraft came to Salem which inspired him to base the fictional town Arkham on it. One of the institutes he borrowed from was the Essex Institute which he renamed Miskatonic University first in Herbert West-Reanimator. It would be in 5 other stories and be described as a university on par with Harvard University. The Essex Institute was behind the lecture series at the Salem Lyceum where Alexander Graham Bell first introduced the phone at.

Here is a history of melanistic squirrels being released in universities. In the United States, the city of Kent, Ohio developed a significant black squirrel population after ten were legally imported from Canada in February 1961 by Larry Woodell, the head groundskeeper at Kent State University.

Another story relates to the founder of Kellogg Cereal company. Black squirrels are abundant in Battle Creek, Michigan, and, according to legend, were first introduced there by Will Keith Kellogg, founder of the Kellogg Company, in an effort to destroy the local population of red squirrels. The story continues that this same population of squirrels was further introduced to the campus of Michigan State University by John Harvey Kellogg for the same purpose.[16] This story was corrected by Wilbur C. “Joe” Johnson, the late chief wildlife biologist at M.S.U.’s Kellogg Biological Station near Battle Creek which includes W.K. Kellogg’s former 32-acre estate at Gull Lake. Johnson, who worked at K.B.S. for 48 years, credited Dr. John Harvey Kellogg for introducing the black squirrel to the Kellogg estate during the 1930s. Johnson said he himself trapped 20 black squirrels at Gull Lake during the early 1960s at the specific request of former MSU president John A. Hannah and released them on the East Lansing campus.

Then, Eastern black squirrels were introduced at Stanford University and can be found on adjoining property in Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Now beyond universities, there seem to be some colleges as well that have them as mascots:

  • Haverford College where the black squirrel is the official mascot of varsity athletics[37]
  • Kent State University[10] which each year holds a Black Squirrel Festival (located in the Risman Plaza during the second week of September) to honor the university’s growing black squirrel population.[35] It features live music, vendors and an overall tribute to the black squirrels seen throughout the campus. Beyond the festival, other businesses and organizations in Kent are named for the black squirrel, including Black Squirrel Brewing Company, Black Squirrel Radio[38] and Black Squirrel Books, an imprint of the Kent State University Press.[39]
  • Albion College where the black squirrel has become a significant symbol on campus[40] Sarah Lawrence College where the campus coffee shop is named for the black squirrel.[41] The black squirrel is also used as an unofficial mascot, with the bookstore selling plush squirrels.
  • The College of Wooster where a student on the official website describes an “obsession over black squirrels” [42] and there is a bed and breakfast nearby campus which is named after the animal.[43]
  • Augustana College (Illinois) in the Quad Cities, where ten bronze squirrels are hidden atop buildings around campus[44] and a student film production group, Black Squirrel Productions, is named after the animal.[45]

The black squirrel seemed to be the dominant squirrel when forests were thicker and darker in North America, but as the woods grew thinner and more light came in grey became a better choice for survival. Many people have imported the black squirrel to areas, and at other times there is stories about them escaping zoos. So what is the story for Salem State University or the Miskatonic University; who brought them here?

Read about Ratatoskr who lives in front of the Essex Institute in A Walk Through Salem the fairy tale set in the whimsical magical side of Salem in which you are the main character. Available at Remember Salem, Wicked Good Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com Or you can buy it directly from www.salemhousepress.com and give more of the profit to the author. Look for new AR version coming out this Summer.

Remember, support local artists!

~Mr. Zac

Come back every Tuesday at 3PM for new stories about Salem and images from the Salem Trilogy.