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The Charter Street Cemetery, also called the Old Burying Point, is a beautiful link to historic Salem’s past tragedies and glories. In this small plot of land are buried the bodies of notable figures such as notorious Witch Trials hanging judge John Hathorne, and Mayflower Pilgrim Richard More, as well as the earthly remains of regular old time Salem dwellers who’s history is lost to time. The graveyard is one of the oldest in the United States, dating back to at least 1637 and it contains beautiful examples of the early American folk art of gravestone carving, one of my favorite examples being the Timothy Lindall stone with it’s intricately carved skeleton and Father Time/Reaper motif. Next to the cemetery proper is a sober, modern memorial to the innocent victims of the Witchcraft Hysteria. This is merely a memorial, as…

Not a night goes by when visitors on the Spellbound Tours Ghost Tour fail to ask me how to find the infamous Gallows Hill, the location where the innocent victims of the Salem Witch Trials were unjustly hanged. It is a justifiable question. Despite being clearly labeled on the city maps the exact location of Gallows Hill has been intentionally shrouded in mystery since the last bodies crashed out of the hanging tree. Many Salem locals still harbor a deep embarrassment and shame about the Witch Trials centuries later. They hate to admit that their ancestors had committed such foolish and disgusting acts against their neighbors, and when the topic of Gallows Hill comes up it is not uncommon to hear them snort “it didn’t happen here, it all happened in Danvers”, or “ahhh, nobody knows”. The thing is, we…

Of all the historic sites associated with the Witch Trials the one the exerts the most fascination is the controversial Gallows Hill. Shrouded in mystery and controversy the infamous Gallows Hill is one of the very few places I refuse to take guests on my Spellbound Tours Salem Voodoo, Vampires, and Ghosts Tour. If you ask politely, I might give you directions, but no way am I bringing guests up there! At least not anymore. In a previous article I discussed the way some historians have attempted to hide the actual location of  Salem’s grim execution ground, yet the true Gallows Hill location is easy enough to discover with a little bit of research. However I recommend against going unless you are prepared for possible consequences. Gallows Hill today is a populated area and the people who live in the vicinity largely…

As a paranormal investigator sometimes your work will try to come home with you. At Spellbound Tours we have a reputation not just as being the best ghost tour in Salem, but for setting a professional standard in paranormal investigation. We get invited to check out high profile locations, and have seen and proven eerie things. I enjoy it. Most of our investigations are about documenting occurrences, and checking historic fact. When we enter a supposedly haunted location our goal is to confirm that it does indeed have supernatural (“ghostly”) energy, or debunk the case as misinterpreted natural phenomena, or sometimes expose it as an outright hoax. We are researchers, basically paranormal detectives. It pays to be skeptical, and we manage to explain away the majority of our cases, but the rare few that turn out to be authentic hauntings…