I was mistaken for a murder tourist once. I was visiting the Fairbanks House in Dedham, Mass, which is the oldest timber frame house in America, a few years ago.
As a history blogger, I wanted to visit the house because of its history. However, I was also fascinated to find out in an episode of the HUB History podcast that the previous residents of the house had carved hex marks, occult symbols used to ward off witches and illness, into the mantle and other areas of the house.
When I arrived at the house with my husband, my twin sister and my brother-in-law, the older gentleman standing at the counter asked us what we knew about it. Having just recently listened to the podcast, I mentioned the hex marks.
“Oh,” he said. “Well, I’m a history guy. I don’t know about you, but I’m a history guy so I’m interested in history.”
I thought it was fairly obvious that since we were visiting a historic house we were also interested in history but apparently not.
He immediately pegged us as murder tourists because of the hex mark comment and probably also because, in 1801, one of the members of the Fairbanks family, Jason Fairbanks, was convicted of murder while living in the house.
I didn’t exactly know how or why I should have to explain to him that I also like history and I knew that as an older individual, he might not be familiar with the concept of blogging so I just didn’t bother to correct him or to tell him about my popular history blog, History of Massachusetts Blog. I just chalked it up to a misunderstanding and began exploring the house.
This was a mistake. Later on, as a crowd gathered in the house, we all stood in the main room while he told us about the history of the house.
When he got to the part about the murder, he stopped, pointed directly at me and my companions in the crowd, and said “You guys will like this part. You’ll find this interesting” and then proceeded to tell everyone about how Jason Fairbanks stabbed his girlfriend 11 times and slashed her throat at a nearby pasture before escaping back to the house.
Standing there, absolutely mortified and a little freaked out by the story, I noticed the woman next to me give me a little side-eye glance as if to say “So, you like that? You find that interesting?”
No, ma’am, I do not like that. I did not like murder at all. I wanted to crawl under the furniture and hide. Everyone in the room started taking casual glances in our direction trying to figure out why we would like a story about a man brutally stabbing his girlfriend. It was so embarrassing.
After exploring the house, we went outside to see the grounds. While out there, I saw the older gentleman come outside, stop, and look at us for a second as if he were about to say something before turning around and walking off in another direction.
I was a little annoyed with him at this point but didn’t want to cause a scene so I just let it go, again. We left the property and wandered off, just a little group of mistaken murder tourists on our way to our next adventure.
If you ever get the chance to visit the Fairbanks House in Dedham, definitely go because it’s an amazing historic house.
Just do yourself a favor and don’t mention the hex marks, the murder, or anything else that might get you confused with a murder tourist. Unless, of course, you like that kind of thing.