#howard street cemetery and salem jail

Howard Street Cemetery and Salem Jail
Salem, Massachusetts

Salem has a long history of darkness. Since it was among the earliest communities of European settlers in the United States, the ethics and morals of its leaders were not always terribly democratic.

Quakers were beaten in the streets of Salem and good people were hung as “witches” after being wrongly accused by young children in the Salem Witch Trials. Salem was a petri dish in which new American’s learned some important “life lessons” that helped shape many of our countries beliefs about right and wrong. Little things like one’s right to defend oneself in a court of law that is separate and distinct from the church and freedom of religion became more salient as important pieces to the American Dream following the drama of the Salem Witch Trials.

The Salem Jail was built in 1813. It has been abandoned since 1991 and is currently slated to be restored into townhouses or condos.
The Salem Jail and Howard Street Cemetery is considered to be one of the most haunted places in Salem, Massachusetts. There are 100 prison cells and prisoners were executed here. Indeed, the famous execution of Giles Corey took place here.

Giles Corey and his wife Martha were accused of witchcraft. The laws in Salem at that time were pretty twisted at the time. People accused of witchcraft were pretty much screwed no matter what their plea. But if they didn’t enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, they would, at least be able to pass along an inheritance to their children. A plea meant that the city could take away a person’s belongings and distribute them among the city’s leaders. In this case, Sheriff George Corwin was the main benefactor when it was time to go gather up the belongings of community members accused of witchcraft.

Giles Corey was laid on a pile of rocks in the field that has become known as Howard Cemetery. Two boards were placed on top of him and then, large, heavy stones were placed on the boards one by one. Giles was slowly crushed to death by Sheriff George Corwin who was ultimately in charge of the execution.

Giles Corey, according to local lore, kept uttering, “more weight”. But in his dying breath he is recorded to have said, “Damn you Sheriff. I curse you and Salem!”

Local Salem historian and former High Sheriff of Essex County Robert Ellis Cahill discovered some time ago that the curse of Giles Corey may have some authenticity in events of late. Cahill has noted that each and every Sheriff down from George Corwin to himself, each headquartered at the Salem Jail overlooking the place where Corey was killed, has died while in office or has been forced out of his post as the result of a heart or blood ailment. George Corwin himself died in 1696, 4 years after Corey’s execution, of a heart attack. Cahill recently suffered a heart attack himself but thankfully was only forced into an early retirement whereupon he started looking more closely at the strange stories about Salem’s past.