The Danvers Archival Center — a unique resource both for the community in which it resides and the region whose history it helps chronicle — was recently honored with a $25,000 grant from the California-based Annenberg Foundation.
The donation came following a visit a year ago by the foundation's vice president, Charles Annenberg Weingarten, and a film crew from its affiliated "Explore" project.
After interviewing Town Archivist Richard Trask in his office in the basement of the Peabody Institute Library where the archival center is located, the team visited the Salem Village Parsonage Archaeological Site off Centre Street. The property was once home to the Rev. Samuel Parris whose servant, Tituba, was accused of using witchcraft to torment his daughter and other neighborhood children. Later they visited the 1992 memorial just around the corner, which is dedicated to the victims of the 1692 witchcraft hysteria, which began in the Parris home.
As Trask recalled in a recent letter to this newspaper, "It was a lovely autumn day and all three Californians just loved the bright New England fall colors and experiencing history in an intimate manner." Then several months later, out of the blue, came notice of the Annenberg Foundation grant — $25,000 over two years — to help the Archival Center continue its good works.
Sometime this month after experiencing the madness that is Halloween in Salem, you might want to take a quiet stroll yourself around the Highlands neighborhood of Danvers — formerly Salem Village — where the witchcraft hysteria began.
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