Ghoulies, ghosties, and Puritans. Now that’s a potentially horrifying combination. And who better to pen them loose on the page than Concord author Nathaniel Hawthorne? Born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4, 1804, Hawthorne came from a family steeped in history, scandals, and a curse put upon them by a young woman about to die.
Just hours after their wedding on the 9th of July 1842, a honeymooning couple moved to Concord, MA and into the house they would rent for the next three years. Shortly after their arrival, the groom, who was also an aspiring author, noted the following, “Houses of antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to.”
