By J.B. Fitzsimmons | Gloucester Correspondent
GLOUCESTER — Tensions erupted Monday morning as a host led by the Salem Witch Museum launched a full-scale siege against Gloucester’s historic Hammond Castle. The assault marks a dramatic escalation in the long-standing feud between the rival North Shore tourist attractions.
Led by High Curatrix Evelyn Rooks and her coven of historical interpreters, the Salem-based tourism coalition marched on and surrounded Hammond Castle just after 9 a.m., citing “recognition of Salem’s uncontested control of mystical-related revenue streams” as its casus belli.
“Hammond Castle’s continued operation represents a breach of the 1987 Memorandum of Haunting Rights,” declared Rooks from atop a blood-red palfrey named Widdershins. “By our writ and our wand, we now besiege this stone interloper.”
In response, Hammond Castellan Caleb “The Burn” McMurphy raised the ancient banner of House Hammond — a field vert bearing a gear and lightning bolt crossed in saltire — and sealed the gates. Docents donned chainmail and took defensive positions along the parapets, armed with catapult-launched souvenir mugs and Hammond Castle-branded foam swords.
Mayor Greg Verga was quick to act, issuing a call to arms under the city’s emergency Feudal Code: “By decree of the mayoral seal and the ancestral rights of the Dorchester Company Accords,” he declared, “I call the banners. Let every ward muster its levy.”
And muster they did.
Ward 5 Councilor and Warden of West Gloucester Sean Nolan was witnessed in full articulated plate atop a dappled destrier, brandishing a banner depicting a haddock rampant upon a field gules, leading his Magnolia levy up Western Avenue in a column four abreast, with outriders on Segways.
“They may have witches,” Nolan declared, “but we have the Blessings of St. Peter and a working fog machine. Gloucester shall not yield!”
Ward 5 forces were bolstered by light skirmishers from Ward 1, with reserve forces — mostly paddleboarders with laminated shields — preparing for seaward support under the command of Councilor-at-Large and Master of Waves Jason Grow. Ward 2 Councilor Dylan Benson rallied a coalition from Portagee Hill and The Fort in quilted gambesons, bearing the colors of both the St. Peter’s and Gloucester Fraternity clubs.
In a show of municipal cooperation and Cape Ann solidarity, Rockport mustered a small contingent of octogenarian viking berserkers bearing the standard of Spiran Lodge — a sun-faded blue field emblazoned with a rampant Dala horse — supported by a squad of mystics from Apothecary Suil Crow.
The Witch Museum alliance, operating under the banner of the Greater Salem Tourism Compact, includes the House of the Seven Gables, the Salem Trolley Guild, and at least two freelance metaphysical shops. Their main demand: exclusive control over all “seasonal and non-seasonal arcane interpretations” within a 20-mile radius, including but not limited to Halloween events, ghost tours, and any structure with a tower.
Early fighting was limited to symbolic skirmishes and a failed attempt to bespell the Hammond Castle gift shop into giving out free keychains. The Castle’s defenders responded with boiling clam chowder poured from parapets and a psychic amplification pulse generated via Tesla coil.
A temporary cease fire was brokered late afternoon by emissaries from the Peabody Essex Museum, who offered to mediate via a Trial by Exhibition — a judged pageant of historical accuracy and local lore to be held on neutral grounds at Lynch Park in Beverly. If accepted, each side would present their champions, their relics, and their most confusing brochure.
As night fell, Mayor Verga — now styled Lord of the Five Wards and Defender of the Cape — addressed the levies assembled at Stage Fort Park from the balcony of the Gloucester Visitors’ Center.
“Know this — Gloucester bends the knee to no foreign museum, no matter how waxy its figures or how many Yelp reviews it conjures,” declared Verga. “Hammond Castle stands, and with it, our honor.”
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