Wenham’s ‘Night at the Museum’

Posted on March 14, 2014

By Mary Cresse
October 2011
Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle

The house was dark and the wind whistled through the windows of the Claflin-Richards House as if in mockery of a of Halloween story.

The room seemed empty. But from the corner came movement. Had the statue-like figure in front of the chimney actually moved?

The Gypsy and the Bride clung to the side of the Human Pumpkin as the Ballerina pulled close to the Grandmother in a Tiara.

“I’m scared,” said the Bride, who was masquerading as Hannah Beardsley, 5, from Boxford. “They look like ghosts.”

“It’s okay,” whispered the Human Pumpkin, also known as Mom, or Robin Beardsley, as she led the Bride and the Gypsy (sister Abby, 7) up the narrow wooden staircase. “Everybody’s real.”

“No, they’re not!” said the Bride.

Perhaps she was right.

In a corner of an inky room lit only by a candle sat the Rev. Joseph Gerrish, minister of the First Church in Wenham, one of the 11 ministers from Essex County who signed a petition against the Salem Witch Trials. Masquerading as Adam Celata, he suddenly stood and spoke. Witchcraft was a scourge on Essex County; it was a horror in which the mere imagining of another as a witch could spell doom for all.

"You mean someone could say you’re a witch just because they dreamed it?” asked the Ballerina.

“They could and did,” answered tour guide Kaleigh Pare, 23, a Harvard graduate student in museum studies who led the tour.

But there was no need to fear real witches or ghosts. It was all a part of a Night at the Museum party at the Wenham Museum. There, in a welcome reversal of art imitates life, actors attired as characters from the museum’s collection came to life. The event drew about 50 families seeking a spooking good time.

Eric Bateman, of Exeter, N.H., wore the uniform of the Third Line Infantryman in Napoleon’s army—just like the one in the case at the museum. With his firearm, cutaway coat, and shako with tricolor plume, he cut an imposing figure, commanding some to follow him about the hallways. (The uniform was also useful, it seemed, in slowing down traffic at the normally busy intersection in front of the museum as Bateman stepped outside to take a break.)

Joining Bateman was his son, Spencer, 7, wearing the uniform of a Confederate soldier and carrying a weapon that rivaled his height.

In the a distant corner of the museum, screams were heard. Children, many in costume, supped on cider and cookies as the 2006 movie with Ben Stiller played in the background.

Cowgirl and pumpkin-painter Hannah Bates, 10, of Lynn, was not only not scared but remarked that she should very much like to have a 19^th century McIntire bed of the type she saw in the room occupied by the ghost of Johanna Claflin (a sentiment shared by some mothers in attendance). The ghost appeared briefly to tell visitors about the doll collection in the building adjacent.

In the main museum, Exhibits Curator and Evil Queen Jane Bowers, stood among the puppets in the PuppetPalooza exhibit, remarking upon the role of a museum in developing a child’s imagination. “When a museum comes to life, people come to life.”

Read more here: http://www.wickedlocal.com/x319048852/Wenham-s-Night-at-the-Museum-Comes-Alive

Posted in Ham-Wen, Human Interest