By:Marcia Abramson
Many New Yorkers are questioning participating in the pranks of trick or treating this Halloween. They ask, How can we celebrate the pagan ritual of death and transformation while our country is at war and fearful of more acts of terror? However, children are looking forward to parading in their costumes and collecting more candy treats than they could possibly eat. In fact an Israeli-born pediatrician, Yuval Brandsetter, who has written about biological warfare has stated that gruesome costumes are morally wrong at this time, but feels that he could go along with cute little ghosts who are not really dead. The shop windows seem to have more displays of the carved pumpkin jack-o'-lanterns and black cats than skeleton puppets this year.
Therefore, I will relate my experience in searching for ghosts in Pennsylvania and seeing make believe witches at Salem, Mass. and what you can expect to find on a ghostly tour on a Halloween weekend in Pa. The ghost
searches are usually enacted by drama majors from local colleges. I found myself an old cemetery at St. David's Church. To add to the eeriness of the moonless night, it was misty and very quiet. I was certain that I heard the faint sound of horse's hooves and could make out a uniformed figure on horseback. Was I seeing and hearing things? No,I was told, it was the ghost of General Anthony Wayne who was still looking for his missing flesh again. The story goes that General Wayne known as Mad Anthony died of gout in 1796 and was buried in Erie. His son and daughter felt that he should be buried in the family's burial grounds at ST. David's Church. Thirteen years later they proceeded to reinter the General, but ran into difficulty because the horse-drawn carriage was too small to hold the coffin. They proceeded to have the flesh removed from the body and buried back in Erie, but took the bones to St. David's making Wayne one of the only men in history to have two gravesites. One of the church members started telling anybody who would listen to him that he saw the ghost and steed of General Wayne at the church cemetery intending to make his body whole again.
This ghost story is retold at the General Wayne Inn in Merion time and time again with other ghostly tales. A local psychic, Walt Bauer, insists that he has seen 17 apparitions including Edgar Allen Poe, who happened to be a guest at the Inn. Bauer also claims to have spoken to two Hessian soldiers who are buried in the area. He says they told him they are still angry because they were brought to Philadelphia to fight for the British. They were shot to death when they tried to desert, but according to other guests at the inn where the soldiers were quartered, they have seen men coming down the staircase. Hallucinations are denied by the guests.
Bryn Mawr's Harriton House, a restored 1704 estate, has Tuggy the Witch as its very own skeleton in the closet. Tuggy was a slave who wanted to kill her master. She took a wooden stake out to the family graveyard to cast a spell over her cruel master. Somehow the stake went through her own flesh and some current visitors claim to have heard her blood-curdling screams.
The last week of October is the best time to tour Salem. It is the week for witches to prowl around town on their broomsticks, clad in their stovepipe hats and blacks robes. Salem witchcraft history is on display at the Witch Museum, a Gothic building on Salem Common. You can learn how the Puritans sat in judgement in 1692, on 25 young women who were pronounced to be agents of Satan. They were condemned to death sentences. For most of Salem 15 miles up the coast from Boston, witchcraft is a nostalgic trip, wrapped in tourism promotion. You can't pass a gift shop without seeing drawings of witches on broomsticks as logos on all types of souvenirs. In the Crow Haven Corner Store on Essex Street, witchcraft is regarded as a living art. The Cabot family who run the shop told me that there are a few thousand people who follow the religion of Wicca. However, they only deal with white magic. Their charms, amulets and crystal balls are only bearers of good things like health, happiness and prosperity. The Hawthorne Hotel stages Haunted Happenings with all kinds of family fun, but is sold out from Oct. 26 through Oct. 31.
