Guess what was always my dad's favorite holiday and my second favorite holiday, Halloween! Would one think it was my first favorite holiday, yes, but since for me every day is Halloween and I can't afford to have Christmas every day as the light in my heart is not that big, not that I have a light life force most of the time. I love dark things and matters, of course, but anyway, here are some creepy ass things you can do for Halloween if you can get to these destinations in the United States!
1. We'll start with a neighboring city to my home town, Salem, Massachusetts. Not only is there a crap ton to do there all year, but obviously Halloween is their big booming time of business for tourism, especially.
This is where witches openly advertise their stores and the purpose for which they operate, you can get a psychic reading, view the "Witch House", visit a wax museum, watch horror history videos and see reenactments, visit Pioneer Village, and visit the Peabody Essex Museum all on one block!
Everything, including restaurants and Salem Willows, a very old arcade and beach is all within one block, pretty much. Oh, and Winter Island, an old military base can be toured there and you can even camp there, but I'm not sure about in October.
2. Be sure that before you leave Massachusetts to visit Danvers, Massachusetts, the home of Danvers State Hospital, where the first "successful" frontal lobotomy was performed. Avalon Crane Brook built a housing complex on the grounds, which can be seen from Route 114 when driving down the highway. You can pull up to the grounds from Dayton Street and just look at some of the old buildings. Its definitely scary to be there and feel that energy.
Danvers used to be part of Salem and is where Olde Salem Village was actually located. A visit to the Danvers Historic Society will get you lots of information on the actual witch trials portrayed in the Crucible, because the people in the Crucible were real. Reverend Parris' house foundation still stands behind some houses on Centre Street, on a marked historic path.
I only know this, because I used to live there. It took me months to actually find it and I lived right down the street. Danvers is also the home of the Rebecca Nurse homestead, one of the accused and executed witches who resided in Olde Salem Village in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692.
Waverly Hills Sanitorium opened as a small hospital in 1910 to house tuberculosis patients. Parts of the original structure burned to the ground and some were torn down due to poor condition. The hospital closed in 1962, because drugs were developed that reduced tuberculosis to such a degree that the institution was rendered unnecessary. The remaining residents were moved to other facilities.
The building began its use later that year as Woodhaven Geriatric Center, a nursing home. The facility housed mostly elderly patients, needing a high level of care and the mentally challenged. The facility was shut down by Kentucky in 1982 due to horrific conditions due to underfunding, which of course leads to understaffing and neglect of patients.
Waverly Hills has been featured on America's Most Haunted, Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted, and Ghost Adventures as well as some other paranormal shows in the United States as well as Europe.
The particularly creepy thing about Waverly Hills is not that a nurse that is said to have hung herself in Room 502 because she was pregnant and unmarried to the man who owned the hospital (according to urban legend), but if you can imagine the hospital at its maximum capacity during an epidemic outbreak in the early 1900's having a death or so every other day.
If you went to Waverly Hills, you knew there was a large probability that you would never be leaving. That's a fact with the patients, but what about the staff were subjected to a disease for which antibiotics did not yet exsist. They used steam treatments and "fresh air" to nurse the sick. Can you imagine how much good that must have done, probably not much.
The dead were led out on a gurney through a tunnel to spare residents the grief of actually knowing how many of their peers were dying? It was thought to keep morale up and keep the other patients fighting for their lives. It was also a measure to extricate the dead ridden with disease to protect the staff and other patients. A hearse would come get them after a ride down the creepy "death tunnel", but you can bet patients noticed their peers missing!
This leads us to now, a couple purchased the building and does "haunted" tours to help with its upkeep and restoration. They host fundraisers for this purpose at the facility, which can be toured for a small fee. Trinkets are also sold there like t-shirts as well as "hearse rides".
4. LaLaurie Mansion - 409 Royal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana is the former home of sadist, serial killer, and socialite, Madame Marie Delphine LaLaurie. The atrocities that went on in her home were only discovered due to a fire that broke out in the home. Dead slaves were found concealed in the home. They were bound and showed evidence of long-term torture. Later when news of the horrible treatment of her slaves, an iratemob chased her out and she was never seen again.
Oddly enough, she had emancipated two of her slaves, but they were both men. The LaLauries were convicted of mistreating their slaves and forced to forfeit nine of them as well so who knows why they emancipated the others. However, the LaLauries got the slaves back and brought them home yet again.
She allegedly and beat her kids when they tried to offer food to the slaves. It is said that the LaLaurie Slaves were found looking like Holocaust victims and were weak and had obviously been abused.
When the firefighters came to put out the fire in the home, to their horror, a slave who cooked for the family was chained to the stove. the cook had set fire to the house in an attempt to kill herself, because she was going to be punished and when you were brought upstairs to be punished, you never returned.
Some slaves were found in the attic mutilated beyond recognition, hung by their necks with their arms and legs ripped off. The survivors said they hung there for many months. The tortured slaves were taken to a local jail, where they were available for public viewing. Thousands came to view them (sickos).
At least two of the survivors died. Upon later search of the LaLaurie grounds, dead bodies were found buried in the yard, even a child in a broken down well. Its thought that the Madame may have murdered in the neighborhood of 100 slaves. Interestingly enough, Nick Cage, being a giant weirdo owned the mansion for a time, but it was sold by the bank at auction. You can check out tour details here!
NO NOT THE BEES, NOT THE BEES!
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