House of the Seven Gables (Salem , Mass 2 the lost blog)

I knew nothing about Salem Witch trials or anything about this town until I got here.  We started at the very cool House of the Seven Gables made famous by an author I had never heard of...Nathaniel Hawthorne.  What I found interesting about this whole thing was that his relationship to the house that everyone made such a big deal about turned out to be that it wasn't his house and he never actually saw it with seven gables.  His description of the house came from the verbal description  of the woman who owned it while there was still seven gables.  Why was there not always seven gables and what the heck is a gable?  Glad you asked.

A gable is a pointy protruding part of the house that MUST come off the roofline.  If it doesn't it's merely a dormer.  Once upon a time when the house was built it was fashioned after houses in Eurpose especially England.  After all the hullabaloo with a little things like the British invading us people wanted to have their homes NOT resemble that of the homes back in England.  So, they remodeled and removed key pieces like gables.  THis house has seen many renovations but fortunately they never removed the coolest part...the hidden staircase.  In the book the butler seems to disappear and reappear as if by magic but we found out it was the very narrow hidden stair that hugged the chimney and led to the servants room upstairs.

The house was nice enough and we learned some great history and had fun in the mariner's cabin with map activities but really the highlight was the gift shop and the ladies who worked there.  They were funny and spent a ton of time with me.