The Graves are Numbered
Do You Want to Do Some Witchcraft?
I found out about the Danvers State Hospital cemetery sometime around the time of my MS diagnosis. It was 2022, and I was experiencing shock and despair. Up until that point, I’d had your general neurodivergence based disability, but I felt far away from the demographic of person who would “require” institutionalization.
(Joke was on me, they will literally lock a person up for anything including being an argumentative woman, lol).
When I was declared a cripple, no matter how disabled I was presenting or feeling, it felt so final. I wrote about that experience early on in the process for Catapult; I’m in a very different headspace about it now. But when I found out that there was a cemetery where patients had been buried and had numbers as head stones, that felt like a hit in the face.
The asylum opened in 1878, and is the architectural inspiration for Arkham Asylum. I cannot prove that patient treatment was also the inspiration, but I wouldn’t be shocked. The hospital closed in 1992, which is three years after I was born. It was originally designed to house 500 patients with “attic space that would allow for 1000 more.”
I’m not an expert in building asylums but there’s something grim about storing the bulk of the human population in “attic space.”
In the 1930s and 1940s overcrowding was rampant and Danvers housed over 2000 patients. In the 1900s the asylum and its research laboratory performed extensive application of lobotomies, straight jackets, and electroshock.
My sister and I pulled into Danvers and were frankly stunned by what it has become. It’s an apartment complex. But it’s like a FANCY one. They have spiral staircases outside.
There is little actual asylum left except for the large leasing office. The doctors have become the landlords.
Even in the broad daylight it looked terrifying. I took the virtual tour and they look like a house flipper’s resume. There’s pools and billiards rooms and elevators, and in contrast to the site's gruesome history, it was difficult to not feel a little sick to my stomach.
Every nice place to live is built on bloodshed, especially in America.
I noticed a gravel path that led past the most haunted cornfield I’ve ever seen into an overgrown thicket.
It’s a very beautiful glen, the cemetery. All things considered, there is something private and close about it. It’s a sunny autumn day in New England, and the noise of life faded to make room for the silence of the dead.
Many still don’t have headstones with their names. They died anonymous and numbered like inventory. There’s a lot of legitimate criticism of the burial industrial complex, but you can tell a lot about where humans are culturally by how they treat their dead. And concrete numbers in a hidden field says it all.
In 2003, the historical society started identifying as many remains as they could. They’ve identified over 500 people buried at the Danvers cemetery. There’s a memorial in the center of the glen, covered in tributes of rocks and a stick cross. The tributes of the people. I had a Samuel Adams bottlecap in my pocket. I don’t know where it came from, but I left it on the monument. Maybe the dead need a drink.
The sensation of turning out your pockets to honor something keeps the records of what makes us human. It praises memory, it records the past and the present simultaneously. Small “r” ritual always feels more communal to me, because it engages with the personal. Each of those stones came here to be left by someone. Journeyers who recognized the significance of a tragedy.
The wind picked up and a sunny Wednesday got quiet. The liminal space of the cemetery made me feel more mortal. More fragile somehow. The victims of Danvers asylum were no longer The Dead but My Dead and I was Their Living. I had climbed through the brush to get to them. They had waited quietly for me.
I’ve got some events happening this holiday season and I’ve built a schedule on my website for them! Also if you’re looking for a gift for your friend, colleague, or yoga teacher, may I suggest Spells for Success? Perfect for witchy beginners and seasoned practitioners.
Find me by sending a crow to the only streetlight in the smallest town you've ever heard of.
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