Just twenty minutes from where I live sits the oldest known timber frame residence in North America: the Fairbanks House. It was built circa 1637.

I came across the place online by chance while researching Salem history and half an hour later we had tickets for the 4:00 tour. Can I just say that serendipity and synchronicity are two of my favorite features of research?

How great are docents? Liz Hunter gave us a lengthy and informative tour, one dosed with wry asides. In the photo above she has just demonstrated how one tightened the knotted ropes under the mattress. Hence the saying, “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” If done well, a single tightening might last several months.

The patriarch, Jonathan Fairbanks, and his family were part of a wave of immigrants who arrived in Massachusetts for economic reasons (at least, religion wasn’t mentioned). He was a joiner and made spinning wheels.

He, his wife, and their six children stayed with friends in Watertown for a couple of years (think about that: EIGHT GUESTS). After he earned enough money to build their own home, they moved to Dedham.

We learned plenty — about eating habits, hygiene (there wasn’t much), timber frame construction and more. But since it was witchcraft research that landed us here, let me share two features of the tour having to do with witches.

In the photos above and below, the docent is pointing to symbols carved in the mantel, symbols meant to keep witches away.

Also, these black leather shoes were found stuffed way up high in the chimney. Why? To ward off witches. The residents believed that witches were attracted by the smell of humans and would enter the chimney and then be trapped since witches can’t walk backwards.

(I’ve never heard of that, have you?)

And, BTW, if the shoes were pulled out of their glass case, we were told we would smell feet.

See previous post for more about this historic site.