Slightly Odd Fitchburg

  Fitch Bits: The Last Salem Witch Trial DID YOU KNOW that the last Salem witch trial took place in 1878? "Witchonthefloorsayswhat?"   Yeah, so most people think the Salem Witch trials ended in 1693 after 19 women and one man were executed but think again! Just because one kind of crazy gets shut down doesn’t mean another one doesn’t take its place. So, it all started in May when a woman named Lucretia L. S. Brown decided to accuse a feller name o’ Daniel H. Spofford of “attempting to harm her through his ‘mesmeric’ mental powers.” That kind of sounds like he was trying to seduce her, but that’s not the case. You see, both people were Christian Scientists and that’s where most of these shenanigans started. "Yes, my name is Lucretia. You got a problem with that?" Christian Science was founded by a hot little minx named Mary Baker Eddy. She also wrote The Christian Science Monitor, Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal and, well, you get the pictur

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now on to the odd story! DID YOU KNOW that the witching parts of the Salem Witch Trials actually took place in Danvers? Yeah, this is kind of like Salem's dirty little secret. Back in the 16 hundos, you had Salem Town and Salem Village. The town part was, well, filled with townspeople and seaports. The village part was where all the farms and such were. It was Salem Village where the girls claimed to be bewitched and where the accused mostly lived and were arrested. Salem Town is where the trials actually took place. About 60 or 70 years after those trials, Salem Village decided that it didn't want to pay taxes that were meant to support the filthy cosmopolitans and fishermen of Salem Town and became its own thin

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Fitch Bits: The Worcester Palladium DID YOU KNOW that the Worcester Palladium is haunted AF? Yeah, it's super haunted! It was built in 1928 and was the subject of a Ghost Hunters episode. It's said that you can hear disembodied voices in certain areas of the venue. There are also reports of a glowing orb floating around. It's about the size of a soccer ball and multiple people have seen it! It's very common for a theater space to be haunted but few of them have any actual reasons to be. Not the Palladium, though! It's rumored that several dead bodies were once found in a dressing room and that pretty much guarantees some angry ghosts! Anyway, this DYK is going to be a little light on

  This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Not the actual photo. It just looks like an ice hole.   Fitch Bits: New Hampshire's Famous Ice Hole! DID YOU KNOW that Wakefield, New Hampshire is home to a famous hole?   Okay, so it was back on January 10, 1977, when a farmer, name o' William McCarthy, looked out over his pond. Most of the body of water seemed normal for a New Hampshire winter. It was frozen so solid that, according to Willie himself, you could drive a tank over it. That was, of course, except for the perfectly circular three-foot hole in the middle of it all!   This was a private pond on a private farm, so there was just no explanation for it. It couldn't even be explained away by blaming it on an ice fisher because those fel

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story!   Fitch Bits: Boston's First Recorded UFO DID YOU KNOW that the first recorded (by the Western world) UFO sighting in the Americas happened in what would become Boston?   It happened all the way back in 1639 when, on March 1st, John Winthrop (yes, of the Winthrop Winthrops) wrote: "earlier in the year James Everell, 'a sober, discreet man,' and two others had been rowing a boat in the Muddy River, which flowed through swampland and emptied into a tidal basin in the Charles River, when they saw a great light in the night sky. When it stood still, it flamed up, and was about three yards square,” the governor reported, “when it ran, it was contracted into the figure of a swine.”   That's not

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Fitch Bits: The Angry Old Ghost of The Old Powder House DID YOU KNOW that The Old Powder House in Somerville, MA. is haunted by a very angry ghost? The building was constructed as a windmill around 1703 for the Mallet family farm. It was subsequently sold to Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1747, and turned into a powder magazine. That's where it got its name and it actually featured somewhat heavily in the Revolution. It was seized by the British because it held gunpowder and munitions for the colonies. One thing led to another and there was a battle fought over it. That's later than our story, though. Back when it was still a windmill, it was the scene of a grisly murder! At least that's the fo