Salem: Museum of Witchcraft

The Museum of Witchcraft in Fallout 4 appears to be based on the Salem Witch Museum and possibly other attractions in the town of Salem such as the Witch Dungeon Museum and Salem Wax Museum.

The Salem Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0

The Museum of Witchcraft location in the video game Fallout 4 looks almost exactly like the IRL Salem Witch Museum
PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith

I couldn't find pictures of the Salem Witch Museum's exhibits but several reviews on TripAdvisor.com describe mannequins and "dusty dioramas" that sound similar to the game's portrayal of the museum.

One of the dioramas inside the Museum of Witchcraft in Fallout 4
PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith

Salem, Massachusetts, is well known for its witch trials, which inspired such movies as Bell Book and Candle (1958), Hocus Pocus (1993), The Crucible (1996) and ParaNorman (2012), and are mentioned in several TV shows throughout the past several decades, including Bewitched, The Simpsons, Charmed, Ghost Hunters, The Vampire Diaries and WandaVision.

Computer terminal showing "Today's Attractions" in the Fallout 4 Museum of Witchcraft, including a "witchcraft walk," relic collection and gift shop.
PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith

A brief history of the Salem witch trials

In January 1692, three girls, ages 9-11, started having strange fits, making odd noises and throwing things. A local doctor blamed the supernatural. Magistrates pressured the girls into blaming a slave named Tituba, a homeless beggar named Sarah Good, and a poor elderly woman named Sarah Osborne.

As the affliction spread to other children, many more members of the community were questioned. Despite declaring her innocence, Bridget Bishop, a local woman with a reputation for being a promiscuous gossip, became the first person hanged for practicing witchcraft in Salem, in June 1692. Her own husband even testified against her, claiming that she praised the devil.

Within the next few months, eighteen more executions followed. A man was also pressed to death with heavy stones and four people died in jail, including a baby girl born before her mother was hanged.

A life-sized diorama of mannequins, found within the Fallout 4 Museum of Witchcraft, depicts a woman burned at the stake while others watch
PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith

One of the museum's exhibits in Fallout 4 depicts a woman being burned at the stake, but no one was burned for the crime of witchcraft in America. In 17th century England and its colonies, witchcraft was punished by hanging.

On October 3, 1692, Increase Mather, then president of Harvard, spoke out against the trials and said, "It were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned."

But arrests and trials continued into 1693. When his wife Mary Phips was accused of witchcraft, Massachusetts Governor William Phips prohibited further arrests, pardoned the guilty and released those who were imprisoned.

The Salem witch hunt hysteria died down and there were legal attempts to seek restitution and exoneration for those who were found guilty. Over the years, monuments were erected to the victims.

On October 31, 2001, more than 300 years after the trials, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift signed a proclamation that decreed every one of the accused to be innocent.

Maps showing the location of the Salem Witch Museum in Massachusetts (left) and the Museum of Witchcraft in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Fallout 4

So, why did it even happen in the first place?

A guide to hunting witches called "Malleus Maleficarum" was published in the 1480s and it was so popular, no other book sold more copies at the time except the Bible. Think of it as one of the first viral misinformation campaigns. Within 200 years of its first printing, an estimated 80,000 suspected witches were executed in Europe. Around 80% of those were women.

Thanks a lot, Gutenberg.

Read: Print and the Persecution of Witchcraft, The Yale Historical Review

While witch hunts were dying out in Europe by the late 17th century, many folks were still primed to believe in the devil and supernatural powers. Governor Phips himself supposedly dabbled in astrology and believed in the existence of witchcraft, he just didn't believe that those accused in Salem were guilty of it. People in Salem even attempted to use a kind of magic in the form of "witch cakes" to identify witchcraft.

Some historians have suggested that ergot poisoning was to blame for the hysteria in Salem or that the slave Tituba worked people up with tales of voodoo from her homeland.

But spite, jealousy, greed and other psychological factors were probably the prime motivations of those who carried out the accusations, arrests and executions. As with European witch trials, the accused in Salem were often women who went against societal conventions or religious morals in some way - such as Bridget Bishop's alleged promiscuity or Sarah Good's homelessness. Or they were people in possession of property that was immediately confiscated and sold - such as innkeeper and landowner John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth.

Other points of interest near the museum

Just across the street from the Museum of Witchcraft in Fallout 4, in a pile of rubble, players can see a fallen street sign that says "Oakland St".

A fallen street sign near the Museum of Witchcraft says "Oakland St" in Fallout 4
Screen capture by Jewelsmith

This is strange because the Salem Witch Museum sits between Washington Square, Kimball Court, and Brown and Williams Streets in the real world.

The location of the Salem Witch Museum, courtesy of Google Maps

There is an Oakland Street in Salem, but based on Google street view it appears to be a residential area over a mile from the museum.

So many other streets and locations in the game are named according to their IRL counterparts, why is this one different? My best guess is that one of the game's developers has some connection to Oakland Street, perhaps growing up there, and the street sign is some kind of personal reference. But that is just a theory and not confirmed in any way.

A hollowed-out rock containing a note behind the Museum of Witchcraft in Fallout 4
PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith

In the video game, there are a couple of gravestones behind the Museum of Witchcraft, along with a hollowed-out rock that contains a note, fifty bottlecaps, some ammo, four baseball grenades, bubblegum, a rifle, three RadAway and three Stimpaks.

There is a second hollowed-out rock containing the same stash, along with the exact same note, on the east side of the museum, too.

The note in the hollowed-out rock is addressed to "S," signed "E," and mentions Megaton, a major town in the Capital Wasteland in Fallout 3.
PS4 screen capture by Jewelsmith

“S” and “E” might be Sticky and Eclair, who were children living in Little Lamplight along with MacCready during Fallout 3. Perhaps, like MacCready, they eventually made their way to the Commonwealth? The presence of baseballs (rather than the more typical frag grenades) and bubblegum might be hints that confirm this theory, as they are childish things.

Or the reference to Hell (with a capital H) might be a clue pointing to Underworld, another major settlement in Fallout 3. If so, the "S" might be Sydney, a relic hunter who sells guns there (depending on how you finish one of the quests) and the "E" would be her mercenary friend Emaline.

The note mentions Megaton, which is a major settlement in the 2008 video game Fallout 3. For many players, it's one of the first locations visited and offers several quests, merchants, and a permanent home for the vault dweller.

But, guess what? There’s also a hollowed-out rock behind Megaton. It contains ten .308 rounds, a sniper rifle, one stealth boy, two stimpaks and a note titled “As Requested,” which reads: “S, Here's that stuff you wanted. If anyone asks where you got it -- say it was a gift from your grandma. Happy hunting! E”

The message from the hollowed-out rock behind Megaton in Fallout 3.
PC screen capture by Jewelsmith

This message is probably not from Eclair to Sticky, since they're children living in Little Lamplight during Fallout 3, but it could still be a reference to Sydney and Emaline.

Except that there's also a note, from "E" to "S" in Bloodmoon, the 2003 expansion for The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, hidden in a hollow tree stump with some trinkets and ebony arrows near Thirsk mead hall on Solstheim.