My pastor is from the Houlon Maine area. He asked me to look at the connection between spiritual darkness in that area and the Salem Witch trials. I found a connection! Here it is:

Aaron Putnam and Joseph Houlton started a village in 1807. They named it for Houlton, who had moved to Maine from the more populated part of Massachusetts. Curiously, the Putnam family and the Houlton family may have been from Danvers Massachusetts (a.k.a Salem Town). The Putnam family benefited greatly from the witch trials, ending up with the Nurse homestead after Rebecca Nurse was killed as a witch. Also, a prominent politician during the Revolutionary war called Samuel Holten was from Danvers also. I have not been able to determine if Aaron Putnam and Joseph Houlton are related to the the Putnams and the Holtens from Danvers,

As for the spiritual darkness in Houlton, I would attribute this to the Unitarian church that is prominent in Houlton. The Unitarian movement came out of Harvard University after a prominent Congregationalist pastor of the First Church of Boston named Charles Chauncy, opposed the “Great Awakening” that occurred in the mid 18th century. Chauncy was probably the last Congregationalist pastor of the First Church, and now the church is a Unitarian Church.

The First Church of Boston was also the church where Cotton Mather was Puritan pastor during the Salem witch trials. Cotton Mather and others later tried to diminish his role in the trials, but all the evidence is that Mather was one of the main impetus behind the trials. Robert Calef who was a layman, wrote a book critical of the witch trials and Mather. Calef may be a person I want to emulate as I start this new phase of my life in Christ.