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The Salem Inn

Salem, Massachusetts

The Salem Inn was the 1834 home of Captain Nathaniel West, a successful sea captain and merchant. It later became the home of Civil War General Williams Cogswell. General Cogswell also served as mayor of Salem. The current owners bought the property over 35 years ago and converted it into the Salem Inn.

Since then, the owners have expanded the Salem Inn into two other buildings, the Peabody House, built in 1874 and the Curwen House. Curwen House was built in 1854 by James and Samuel Curwen.

It is said that there are three spirits in the Inn. The owners don’t believe any spirits are haunting the Inn but staff and guests have had several experiences, just read the journals in the rooms.

The first is a woman who is referred to as Elizabeth, perhaps after Nathaniel West’s wife, who divorced her husband for his extramarital affairs. Others refer to the spirit as Katherine.

There is also a little boy who is heard running up and down the staircase and through the halls. Staff have heard a child giggling when there are no children in the Inn.

The third ghost is that of a cat, the Inn has no cats, but guests report seeing one dart down the hallway or into a room.

Some of the strange occurrences the guests and staff have experience include that classic ghostly behavior of thievery. Countless times, members of the staff have complained of coal logs vanishing from the fireplaces, and even freshly set up candles disappearing from the surface on which they were placed upon.

One room that has achieved legendary status at the inn is Room 17. It is within this room that guests and staff alike have claimed to have experienced the most activity. Reports of items mysteriously moving from one location to another and the sight of unexplainable shadows are not uncommon. The ghost of Room 17, is believed to be a woman who was killed by her husband. This betrayal by her husband, has lead to her spirit’s ill treatment of any man who stays in the room. Usually when a man does spend the night in Room 17, she’ll become quite active in order to disrupt their sleep. She achieves this by causing loud noises in the closet, and stomping around the room. It’s been said, if you leave a tumbler of whiskey, or any alcohol for that matter, she just may leave you to a restful night of sleep.

The last of this spirit triangle, is believed to be the ghost of a child. The staff have said that they’ve heard the sound of a child giggling, at times when there were no kids saying at the inn. Some staff members have also heard light footsteps following them around the inn. Footsteps so faint they could have only been made by a child, but upon turning around expecting to see a kid in need of assistance, they are baffled by the discovery of nothing.

Old Burying Point Cemetery

Salem, Massachusetts

In Salem, Massachusetts, you’ll find the second oldest cemetery in the country, the Old Burying Point Cemetery. The Burying Point was established in 1637. For its age, every occupant at the Burying Point unquestionably holds historical importance. But, one of the most interesting names etched into the ancient gravestones belongs to John Hathorne.

Along with Hathorne, you’ll find most of the names associated with the Salem Witch Trials at Burying Point. From the memorial for the wrongfully accused to the headstones of their pious chastisers, Old Burying Point Cemetery is a step back into a time when the line between the wicked and the innocent blurred. Others who were laid to rest at Old Burying Point include Mayflower passenger, Captain Richard More, and the last governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Simon Bradstreet.

Since the first bodies were laid to rest at Old Burying Point, there have been many strange occurrences. The occurrences were widely believed to be supernatural, as this was the era of the witch. It is also because of this era that many choose to discredit these accounts of paranormal activity as a good case of hysteria.

Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote, “There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.”

Paranormal Activity at Old Burying Point

Sensitives who have visited Old Burying Point have reportedly become overwhelmed with the sensation of sadness and despair. Even while just walking through the graveyard, the heavy feeling of depression descends and sends innocent passerby into feeling as though there is little hope to be found in the world.

Over the years people have successfully captured EVP of voices from the beyond at Old Burying Point. Also captured at the cemetery via photographs are mysterious shadows, emanating lights, orbs, white mist and even apparitions.

One of these apparitions belongs to Mary Bright Corey, who died on August 28th, 1684. She was the second wife of Giles Corey, who later became an unfortunate victim of the Witch Trials. Giles died from his inflicted torture on September 19th, 1692, just after the eighth anniversary of Mary’s passing.

Another ghost that has been seen is the figure of a woman who appears in the back corner of the cemetery. She is usually spotted wearing a powder blue dress, whilst holding a picnic basket in hand. Sometimes, she is also accompanied by a young boy. It is the believed the two spirits were mother and son, and died in a fire.

The Ghostly Lady in White

In addition to the other ghosts spotted at Old Burying Point, another apparition that has been seen with great frequency is a Lady in White. However, she seems to be a bit camera shy, as there is little photographic evidence of her manifestations.

Normally, once the cameras come out, the Lady in White transitions into bright orbs or vanishes altogether. Although, on at least one occasion, an expertly timed photograph was slightly able to capture an image of her figure.

The Lady in White has allegedly even been spotted in the parking lot to the cemetery, as well as near by in buildings and restaurants. Though, it’s entirely possible these sightings are of different spirits.

Little People’s Village
Middlebury, CT

One of the allegedly creepiest places in Connecticut is Little People’s Village, tucked away in the woods of Middlebury. A complex of crumbling doll-sized houses and odd structures next to the remains of a stone house, it’s rumored to be the damned legacy of insanity brought on by … the little people.

One of the many versions of the story goes that back about a century ago, a man and his wife (who may or may not have been a witch) were living peacefully in Middlebury when she started seeing small fairy folk in the woods around their home. To accommodate these pixie-like creatures, she demanded her husband build a tiny village. As the years passed and the village grew, the enchantment faded into madness. The abandoned smurf-scale town is all that’s left to mark the couple’s anguished demise.

Another variation of the story is that a man living by himself in the stone house heard the voices of the little people, who commanded him to build the village. Eventually, this tale goes, he was driven nuts by the voices, which were now inside his head, and killed himself.

As such, many of the people who visit now claim it’s haunted by the spirits of the little people — or the ghosts of those tormented by them — and that strong fields of negative energy abound. Others claim that if you linger long enough, you can hear the voices of the little people yourself, and that you too will soon be plunged into insanity.

There’s also a “throne” here supposedly carved by the bewitched builder by request of the king of the little people. Local legend has it that if you sit in this cursed seat that you will die within 7 years.

Gallows Hill
Salem, Massachusetts

“This was the field where superstition won her darkest triumph […] the high place where our fathers set up their shame, to the mournful gaze of generations far remote. The dust of martyrs was beneath our feet. We stood on Gallows Hill.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Alice Doane’s Appeal, 1835
Almost two hundred years ago, famed author Nathaniel Hawthorne spent his afternoons wandering the depths of Salem, Massachusetts’ most notorious execution place.

Each afternoon, after spending the mornings penning his latest novels, Hawthorne took his children and brought them to Gallows Hill, where nineteen victims were put to death for witchcraft.

Legend has it that the descendants of the accused families would pass on the secret location of Gallows Hill to the family members who came after them. Nathaniel Hawthorne was the direct great-grandson of Judge John Hathorne (note the missing “w”), the man almost wholly responsible for standing trial for the accused and sentencing innocent people for practicing the evils of witchcraft.

Since the days of Hawthorne’s leisurely strolls through the woods, the specific location of Gallows Hill has been lost to time. Historians argue over its location in the same way that others fight over the identity of the Holy Grail; others, merely curious, spend the odd day or two reenacting Nathaniel Hawthorne’s pilgrimage with their wee ones in tow.

But where does Gallows Hill exist? And do the souls of the accused still haunt its blood-stained land?

It seems that we may never know, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to parse this grisly, ghostly information together.

For decades, especially with the growing popularity of ghost tours, talk of ghosts roaming Gallows Hill has made for a spooky story.

Though we now know that Gallows Hill (the “famed” spot for Gallows Hill) is not the true hanging site of the 1692 victims, tales of ghosts and hauntings have nevertheless pervaded Salem’s paranormal culture.

Salem Night Tour owner, Tim Maguire, informed author Sam Baltrusis that Gallows Hill has a dark history outside of the witchcraft hysteria. In fact, Maguire claims that Gallows Hill has been the site of multiple suicides, as well as truly inexplicable phenomena.

There have been full-bodied apparitions spotted within the woods. Disembodied voices shrieking in the middle of the night, so eerie that the startling sound sends chills racing down the spines of even the most unflappable people.

But still, people worry about demonic happenings at Gallows Hill.
In October of 1992, nearly two hundred people gathered together, all from various churches in the area. They desperately worried about the dark energy that stained Gallows Hill. The following day, The Salem Evening News claimed: “Before the formal program of singing and prayer began, a group of close to 100 gathered into a small, tight circle on top of Gallows Hill, raised their arms skyward and chanted, ‘The curse over Salem with witchcraft is broken.’ They then circled the town water tower on top of the hill, which is decorated with the drawing of a witch, and performed a ‘laying on of hands’ on the tower as a sign of spiritual healing.”

Respect for the dead, fear of the evils of witchcraft, and guilt for the slandering of the condemned has been a common reason why many believe Gallows Hill to be haunted. For many who visit, they are immediately consumed with a sense of foreboding dread. Ghost tour guides who once made the arduous trek up the hill with their guests no longer do so, convinced that something evil lurks in the depths of Gallows Hill. As one company put it, something occurs at the eerie spot and it’s not uncommon to see guests burst into tears upon entering the area.

Still, whether or not (and it’s most likely not) the spirits of the condemned still haunt the area, something is causing paranormal activity at the old Gallows Hill.

Strange sounds emerge from the area at night; knocking and thumping that wake the neighbors from their sleep. And, of course, the full-bodied apparitions said to walk the grounds certainly don’t make for a leisurely stroll through the park.

Salem Is Allegedly One Of Massachusetts’ Most Haunted Small Towns

Most of us have heard about the Salem witch trials by now, but that is only the tip of the iceberg for this small and spooky Massachusetts town. Salem is allegedly home to numerous accounts of paranormal activity, and many say that you can’t go anywhere without feeling an eerie presence. This small coastal town is home to dozens of sites that have spotted supernatural activity, making it one of the most haunted towns in all of Massachusetts. From Burial Point to the Witch House, Salem is as creepy as it gets. Many houses in Salem are reported to be haunted.

THE STORY BEHIND SALEM’S HAUNTED WITCH HOUSE

Salem, Massachusetts was a very different place back in 1692. It was a dominant shipping port on the East Coast and home to a large Puritan community. A stark contrast to the bustling tourist destination Salem has become today, yet one thing that remains consistent is the town’s fascination with witchcraft.

Salem is indeed best known for the hysteria that dominated it in 1692, resulting in the Witch Trials that were to cause the deaths of many. The fear that Salem succumbed to was initially created by two young girls aged 9 and 11, the daughter and niece of the Reverend Samuel Parris. They had accused the family’s slave (Tituba) of witchcraft, after acting peculiarly and claiming they were under the spell of a witch.

This was the event that triggered the onset of many being accused of witchcraft. Tituba was one of the survivors, pleading guilty to the charges. Those who were to confess their innocence were not as lucky. The trials ran for a relatively short period, claiming the lives of 19 who were hanged for confessing their innocence. Excluding one man who was ‘pressed’ to death via a medieval torture technique of stacking heavy rocks atop the chest in an attempt to coax a confession out of him. Then there were countless more who were condemned to rot the rest of their lives away in a jail cell.

Although this horrific moment in history is Salem’s claim to fame and the main driver of the town’s tourism, there is only one remaining structure surviving that is linked to the Witch Trials. That structure is known as the Witch House.

Salem’s Witch House was never actually home to anyone accused of witchcraft. Its link to the trials comes from its former owner, Jonathan Corwin. Corwin was a judge who presided over many of Salem’s Witch Trials, which were directly responsible for sending 19 people to the gallows to face their deaths.

The house, rumored to be built in 1642, was the Corwin family home for many years through to the mid-1800s. Although not related to the actual Witch Trials, the home did see dramatic levels of death come through its doors. Many of those deaths were from members of the Corwin family.

Corwin moved to the Witch House with his wife Elizabeth, who already had four children with another man from her previous marriage. One of those children had already died and her 12-year-old daughter passed away shortly after moving into the residence.

Elizabeth would go on to bear more children, this time to Corwin. Many of these also met tragic ends, with 8 of the 10 children dying young before adulthood. The Corwin remained in the house, both dying in the late 1710s around the same time their remaining adult children passed.

Because of the many deaths associated with it, the Witch House is today thought to be one of the most haunted places in Salem. It has attracted many paranormal investigators over the years, including the famed television show Ghost Adventures. The spirits of deceased children are thought to exist within the property and have made themselves known to the living by touching them and projecting their voices. Sudden temperature drops and cold drafts gushing within rooms have also been experienced within the Witch House.

Salem’s famed Witch House today functions as a museum and is open to the public seasonally. It pays to check ahead of time whether it will be open during the time of your visit.

The museum details the involvement of the home in the Witch Trials, the lives of the Corwin family, and what life in Salem during the 1600s would have been like. The house has been restored to what it would have looked like during the time of the Witch Trials.

Salem is lucky to still have this time capsule of history, which was nearly destroyed along with many of the other properties linked to the Witch Trials. Locals lobbied to have the home saved, raising enough funds to move the house 30 feet and out of the path of construction. Do not miss out on the opportunity to experience this piece of old Salem history, whether you are a paranormal buff or just visiting Salem for the fun of Halloween.

OLD SALEM JAIL

SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS

The reputably haunted correctional facility played host to an estimated 50 hangings and enjoys a long and dark history. The Old Salem Jail was built in 1813, located next to the Howard Street Cemetery, where accused witch Giles Corey was crushed to death. Among the many inmates to be incarcerated in the prison, Albert DeSalvo, more commonly known as the Boston Strangler, was famously confined here. By 1984 conditions in the prison had deteriorated to such a level that a federal judge ordered the jail’s closure, which eventually took place in 1991, until then, it had been the oldest operating prison in America. And there it sat abandoned, crumbling into ruin and collecting ghost stories as the years passed.

Visitors to the Old Salem Jail reported sightings of dark apparitions wandering the empty corridors and rooms of the prison. Mysterious lights were sometimes spotted shinning from within, and unearthly screams were heard echoing from the thick granite walls. Today, after an extensive renovation the structure has been turned into luxury apartments and the spirits of Old Salem Jail appear to be at rest, for the time being, that is.

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.

Samuel Pickman House
Salem, Massachusetts

Samuel Pickman House is on the corner of Charter and Liberty Street, directly next to the Witch Memorial and the Old Burying Point Cemetery. The Pickman House was built in 1664 and is one of Salem’s earliest original structures. Owned by the Peabody Essex Museum, it too contains a dark, fatal history according to legend. One story tells of a husband and wife who lived in this house with their 7 year old daughter. The demons were believed to have caused the husband to go insane, chaining his daughter up in the attic, torturing and starving the child. He then tied his wife to a tree outside and killed her by pouring boiling hot wax over her body, leaving her to die a slow painful death. He then fled.
People take photos of the house claiming it is still inhibited by a demonic force and the ghost of the young girl who is sometimes seen looking out the attic window. Paranormal anomalies are the result of photographs showing what looks to be the girl looking out the window while people look in. Orbs and other odd lights are captured on film.

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