Salem: where Nathaniel was born

The author of this book, The Scarlet Letter is Nathaniel Hawthorne.  He was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804.  Salem is a famous historical place, where The Salem Witch Trials happened.  In 1692, some young girls acted strangely, and they claimed they were being hurt by witches.  The town of Salem set up a special court to decide who was a witch.  Many girls were arrested and put on trial, and 19 girls were executed.  Later, people realized the trials were wrong and all those were based on fears.  Through the Salem Witch Trials, many girls who didn’t do anything wrong were pulled to the court and wrongly sentenced as a witches.  Nathaniel’s great-great-grandfather was the Judge of the Salem court.  Nathaniel felt guilt for his family history, and he changed his family name by adding w to be different from his family’s dark past.  I think Nathaniel put the ideas from The Salem Witch Trials in his work, like sin, punishment, social criticism, etc.