MARBLEHEAD — Wilmot Redd was among the last people accused, convicted and hanged during the Salem Witch Trials, and her grave is among several chilling stops on the Marblehead Museum’s October haunted walking tour.
Led by local historian Diana Dunlap in costume with a lantern, the tour will focus on Old Burial Hill with walking dates scheduled for Oct. 16, 17, 23 and 24 at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets cost $15 for members and $20 for future members with pandemic precautions limiting tour groups to 10 people. The walk takes place over hilly, sometimes uneven, ground.
Tickets can be purchased at https://marbleheadmuseum.org/upcoming-programs-page/
Dunlap will also introduce tour participants to the tale of the screeching lady of Lovis Cove and Wizard Diamond who, legend has it, could communicate telepathically with sailors at sea and guide them through storms safely ashore.
Redd’s history and her execution in 1692 are noted locally with a marker near where her home stood.
“This is the second year we’re doing the tour. It’s a mix of history and legend — some of it true and some of it ghost stories,” said Museum Director Lauren McCormack.
The Museum reopened in July after initially closing in compliance with coronavirus precautions. Small tours took visitors into historic sites, including the Jeremiah Lee Mansion. The J.O.J. Frost Gallery and Carolyn Lynch Education Center were reopened along with the Museum Shop.
To comply with precautions, visits to the Museum’s 170 Washington St. location are limited with public programs offered on Zoom, with programs listed on the museum website, marbleheadmuseum.org.
The museum kicks off October programming with an Oct. 1, 7 p.m., presentation examining the press during the Revolutionary War.
“Revolutionary Networks” shows how printers balanced their own political beliefs and interests alongside the commercial interests of their businesses, and how they all contributed to the Revolution and the birth of the United States.
The lecture can be access through Zoom. Register at www.marbleheadmuseum.org
Joseph Adelman, associate history professor at Framingham State University, holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University and a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University.
Adelman won the 2011 Rita Lloyd Moroney Junior Prize for Scholarship in Postal History from the U.S. Postal Service for his article, “A Constitutional Conveyance of Intelligence, Public and Private.”
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
