Talk:The Witch House

Question
Why does the caption call the house the "Roger Williams house" when it was Jonathan Corwin who lived there? Ljosa 12:12, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

It's because it's the wrong house!! Roger Williams was a resident in Salem at one time; evidently his house was also later called "The Witch House". But this entry is for the Jonathan Corwin House, so I removed the Williams House link. MacPhilbin 12:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I removed some material that seemed to be biased: "Tours are available during the season and especially during the month of Haloween. If you are out of town, all you need to know is that this is the only house that one should visit. This is the only house with the direct link to the Horrible Witch Trials of 1692.

The Witch House is owned and operated by the City of Salem." Koifishkid (talk) 22:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

the OTHER "Witch House"
It should be prominent in the article that locals and tourists alike routinely refer to the nearby "Witch Museum" as the "Witch House", although it is actually an old church with no connection to the events of the time (and not even a museum, really). Many of us call the real one the "Corwin House" as a result.

I'd even add a link for the Museum's wiki, despite how tacky/inauthentic the place is. Or perhaps a disambiguation page a la "Witch House - (2) a colloquial name for the Salem Witch Museum". The two are inextricably linked in local speech. 66.105.218.38 (talk) 07:51, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm a local and have never heard the Witch Museum referred to as the Witch House. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SmithCorona (talk • contribs) 15:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Only Link?
What about the Rebecca Nurse Homestead which also obviously has links to the trials since she was hung as a witch? Or what about the John Proctor House? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.179.164.72 (talk) 19:00, 21 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Because the Nurse Homestead is not in Salem, but in Danvers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.252.55.78 (talk) 00:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I was just at the House today and took many photos and videos. Once I got home I uploaded them to my computer and started to examine the photos and videos. After many views I have documented 1 bright ORB in many of the videos! It is Bright, bouncing, and has a tail when it moves! I also noticed temp changes from room to room. You must check this house out! def. worth the 8 bucks!!!!!

Whose house is that?
According to all the claims, Roger Williams first owned the house. Then it was bought by Corwin and became the Witch House. The engraving dates to that period. Then the area in which the house stood (Essex Street) was urbanized. The house must have been remodelled several times. The gable was abbreviated, sections were cut away. So it appears in the 1910 postcard. At last they finished modernizing, moved the house and ancientized. They say, it looks like it did originally, but that does not really look like the engraving. This topic obviously needs more research. Is that really the same house? I will report back.Branigan 03:47, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Here is what I found, first pass. You may start with that I think. GOFF, J. V. (2009). Salem's Witch House: a touchstone to antiquity. Charleston, SC, History Press. This is previewable, Google Books, at least for the moment. The first solid document on the house is a builder's contract between The Corwins and builder called Andrews to make substantial improvements to the house they had just bought from the Davenports. An earlier theory based on fantasy guesses claimed that Roger Williams lived in the house from 1635. That was disproved when it was proved that Williams lived closer to Town House Square. Most likely, this source says, the Davenports built the house, which was on Essex street, a former Indian highway, about 1674 and then sold it after a year when they moved to Boston. This is a pretty good book. The author gets into family details and house features. He correctly points out that Gloucester was the first settled in Essex County and Salem, or Naumkeag, was settled from Gloucester. Having gotten you started I am going to leave it up to you to rewrite and expand this article. It should be fun. I have answered your immediate questions. I am going to leave all those different pictures in the "Salem Witch House" category on Commons. It is up to you to explain them.Branigan 04:41, 20 October 2012 (UTC)


 * PS here's another source: witch house

This article has multiple issues
I could put a number of tags on this but people don't seem to like the tags. I guess they have been used as a weapon of revenge too often. Right away I noticed the extensive plagiarism, but I am not sure who is plagiarizing whom. The article quotes large chunks of the web site without attribution. That site is given as a reference but the reference section is improperly formatted. Regardless of who copied whom, the web site is not an encyclopedic reference. There are no encyclopedic references. One of those refs sells the Witch House without giving us any info. I promised to look into the houses but I am not going to undertake the rest of it, at least not in the near future. This paper gets an F. Would you like to do it again?Branigan 03:47, 20 October 2012 (UTC)