Salem, Puritans, the HOTSG, and Nathaniel Hawthorne

So for this blog we have to find "interesting tidbits" about the House of the Seven Gables, Salem, Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Puritans.

House of the Seven Gables:
There is a secret stairwell in the house that was mentioned in the book.
The house has more than 2000 artifacts, more than 40 paintings, 500 photos, and 650 books inside of it.
People claim that the ghost of Matthew Maule and the bewitched Alice Pyncheon are still in the house to this day (also mentioned in the book).
The House of the Seven Gables is a historical landmark.
The house has seven gables.

Salem:
It was founded at the mouth of the Naumkeag river in 1626.
It used to be the site of an ancient Native American village and trading center.
During the Revolution, Salem became a center for privateering.
In 1790, Salem was the sixth largest city in the city.

Nathaniel Hawthorne:
He changed his name from Hathorne to Hawthorne so people would not know that he was a descendant of John Harthorne, a judge for the Salem witch trials.
He wrote a biography of his friend Franklin Pierce.
On November 10, 1813, a young Hawthorne was hit on the leg while paying "bat and ball" and became bedridden for a year even though several doctors found nothing wrong with him.
Hawthorne's dad died of yellow fever while he was just a kid.

Puritans:
Puritan was originally used as a word used to call the Protestant group extremists similar to the Cathari of France.
Some people use the word precisianist instead to refer to the Puritans.
Puritanism was anti-Catholic.

The second part of the blog was to tell people how Puritanism has influenced America today. It has influenced it in a big and obvious way. The biggest religion in America today is Christianity. The President doesn't go to a temple or a mosque, he goes to a church. The Puritans were not tolerant of other religions. Today, we object to having a mosque built at ground zero and most of the people in America probably think negatively of Islam. Also our national pledge: "I pledge to allegiance to the United States of America, and to the republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Our nation was founded by Puritans and no matter how many people switch over to agnosticism and atheism, that won't change the fact that this country was founded by Puritans.