“Bewitched” Statue

Essex Street and Washington Street, Salem

Statue of Elizabeth Montgomery – Salem, Massachusetts - Atlas Obscura
Statue of Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) from “Bewitched” in Salem. Source: Atlas Obscura.

At the intersection of Essex and Washington streets in Salem’s downtown area is a nine-foot-high bronze statue of a friendly-looking witch sitting on a broom. Installed in 2005, the statue honors Elizabeth Montgomery, the actress, and her television character, Samantha Stephens, a likeable suburban housewife and benign sorceress on the U.S. sitcom, Bewitched (1964-1972). In 1970, the crew and cast of the popular television show arrived in Salem to film some episodes, including one at the House of Seven Gables.

The installation of the statue proved to be controversial. Its local supporters presented it as a celebration of the connection, real and figurative, between the show and Salem, and as a booster of the city’s tourist economy. Meanwhile, its critics derided it for trivializing and commercializing the real-life (and death) drama involving those accused of witchcraft in the early 1690s, while serving as a crass advertisement for TV Land, the cable television company that built it. As one letter-to-the-editor writer stated in The Boston Globe, “If this statue is acceptable in Salem, why not have TV Land consider erecting a statue outside Auschwitz, honoring that funny and lovable German, Sergeant Schultz, a character on the TV series ‘Hogan’s Heroes’” (a comedy about U.S. POWs held in Germany during World War II).

In addition to obscuring the atrocities associated with the Salem Witch Trials*, the statue does not reveal that Montgomery was a progressive political activist. And her politics were manifest in the show at times: despite the comedic nature of Bewitched, one of its most famous episodes centered on racism and interracial marriage. Outside of the television studio, Montgomery was outspoken in her opposition to the Vietnam War and was a strong supporter of gay rights—in both cases well before it was fashionable to do so. She also narrated two documentary films highly critical of U.S. foreign policy in the 1980s: Coverup: Behind the Iran-Contra Affair (1988), and the Academy-Award-winning The Panama Deception (1992).

Getting there:

Commuter Rail from North Station (Newburyport/Rockport line) to Concord Station. About 0.2 miles (a 4-minute walk).

To learn more:

Kathy McCabe “’Bewitched’ statue plan bothers, bewilders,” The Boston Globe, April 28, 2005.

Jim McKairnes, “’Bewitched’ Broke Ground 45 Years Ago, USA Today, December 20, 2015.

Kathryn Miles, “Has Witch City Lost Its Way?” Boston Magazine, October 22, 2021.

Richard B. Trask, “Statue of TV witch makes light of past tragedies” (letter to the editor), The Boston Globe, June 26, 2005: D12.

*We discuss the Salem Witch Trials in our entry on Proctor’s Ledge in the Salem section of A People’s Guide to Greater Boston.

Parker Brothers Headquarters

190 Bridge Street, Salem

Parker Brothers is a well-known game company established in Salem in 1883, by siblings George, Charles, and Edward Parker. As the company grew, it purchased the property at 190 Bridge Street where it eventually built a 35,000-square-foot facility that housed its factory and offices.

Parker Brothers’ most famous game was, and remains, Monopoly. While many credit Charles Brace Darrow with the game’s invention (Parker Brothers purchased the rights to it from him in 1935), Elizabeth Magie (later Magie Phillips) first devised it.

Magie’s version, which she called “The Landlord’s Game,” grew out of her progressive politics. Indeed, she designed the game as a protest against the monopolistic practices of the likes of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. A student of the writings of the 19th century political-economist Henry George, who argued that natural resources—including land—should belong equally to all, Magie patented the game in 1903, hoping that it would teach people the importance of sharing wealth. Unfortunately for Magie, Darrow’s capitalistic adaptation of the game captured the attention of many more people and it was he who made millions from the game’s purchase by Parker Brothers.

Hasbro bought Parker Brothers in 1991 and closed down the factory soon thereafter, tearing it down in 1994. It is now the site of an apartment complex.

Former site of Parker Brothers Headquarters, as seem from Salem Commuter Rail Station, July 2015.

Getting there:

MBTA Commuter Rail (from North Station) to Salem. MBTA bus from Orient Heights Station on the Blue Line.

To learn more:

Mary Pilon, “Monopoly’s Inventor: The Progressive Who Didn’t Pass ‘Go’,” The New York Times, February 13, 2015.

New England Historical Society, “The Parker Brothers of Salem, Mass.,” undated, circa 2013.