Group hunts for specters of history

Bids to launch search for ghosts at Witch House

SALEM - It's an austere icon of America's tortured history of witch hysteria. Its very name evokes this city's unending fascination with the occult.

But is the Salem Witch House haunted?

That is the question a team of ghost hunters hopes to find out.

And if the city grants them permission, some night soon they will descend on the house with infrared video recorders and electromagnetic frequency monitors. Thus armed, they will search for any sign of paranormal presence haunting the hallowed 17th-century structure, once the home of one of the nine judges who sent 20 people to their deaths during the 1692 Salem Witch Trials.

"We're hoping to see if Judge Jonathan Corwin still resides there," said Christopher Andrews, of Spirit Finders Paranormal Investigators of North Smithfield, R.I., which pitched its plan to the city this week. "We have heard rumors of people seeing an old man sitting in one of the rooms."

That's a good start for a ghost hunt. But are ghost hunters good for the Witch House? It's a sensitive topic in a town that loves its history, relies on its tourists, but sometimes thinks the whole witch thing is a bit over the top.

"Yeah, I think it will be good for public relations and bring people to the house," said Douglas J. Bollen, superintendent of Salem Parks, Recreation & Community Services. "People go in there and think they are going to see witches. Some may walk out thinking it wasn't what they thought it would be."

People often think the Witch House is where they hanged the witches. In fact, the only known connection to the witch hunt is Corwin. Despite the name it has held for generations, the place is really a museum of the life of a wealthy 17th-century family, said Elizabeth Peterson, director of the Witch House. As for paranormal investigations, she's not sure she likes that kind of attention.

"This is sort of a touchy subject," she said as she gave a reporter a brief tour of the house, which is closed for the winter. "We want people to be aware that we're not a Salem witch attraction."

About a third of the visitors turn and leave as soon as they find that out, she said.

So what about the sinister black clapboard exterior? A common color for houses at the time, Peterson said. The odd way the tables are set, as though for unseen guests? Painstaking attention to historical detail, she said. The eerie shadows of the lead casement windows floating across the wall in the fading light? That's the sun reflecting off cars driving by on busy North Street, she said.

Hasn't she ever felt a creepy vibe from the place?

"I close up here at night," Peterson said. "I never feel anything."

Others feel differently.

"I'm firmly convinced this house is absolutely haunted," said the Witch King of Salem, also known as Eric Fraize, a self-described warlock and "one of the highest-priced psychics on eBay."

Fraize suggested the Witch House to Spirit Finders as a likely hunting ground. Even the tenuous connection to the witch trials could mean restless souls still roam the place, he said, then, there was the exorcist who said the spirits of the witches followed him after he visited.

"Any 370-year-old house is bound to have generational memories," said Fraize, dressed in black and framed by the odd array of items on his mantel: skulls, statuettes of demons, a dagger, an oath to Satan signed in his blood, and a portrait of his deceased mother.

Fraize plans to accompany Spirit Finders to the Witch House, which the ghost hunters say they will investigate without charge. Andrews says that they've recorded electronic voice phenomena - that's "ghosts talking," to you and me - in other buildings. But Fraize is not promising that they'll find anything.

"If the ghost doesn't want to present itself, it won't," quoth the Witch King. "That doesn't mean it's not there."

While the parks commission mulled whether to allow the search, some Salem residents were unimpressed by the hunt.

"There's nothing scary in there," said Elizabeth Gluckman, 10.

"The scariest thing in this town is the statue of 'Bewitched,' " said her mom, Amy Gluckman, referring to a recent addition to Salem's already saturated lore: the statue of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha in the classic '60s TV series.

That said, the town is taking Spirit Finders' proposal seriously.

"Who are we to say what's out there?" Peterson said.

David Filipov can be reached at filipov@globe.com.