Salem Witches, Ghosts & Legends

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Salem Witches, Ghosts & Legends Ghostly tales abound in the Witch City!

In 1631, Philip Ratcliffe learned just how brutally the Massachusetts Bay Colony could punish someone for speaking again...
09/30/2026

In 1631, Philip Ratcliffe learned just how brutally the Massachusetts Bay Colony could punish someone for speaking against its leaders. Ratcliffe was accused of making “malicious and scandalous” statements against the colonial government and the church at Salem, and on June 14 the General Court handed down a staggering sentence: he was whipped, had both of his ears cut off, fined £40, and banished from the colony. The punishment was actually carried out and became controversial enough that complaints about the colony’s severity eventually reached England.

According to old East Tennessee folklore, the Witch of Roan Mountain was an elderly woman who lived in a cave on the mou...
09/29/2026

According to old East Tennessee folklore, the Witch of Roan Mountain was an elderly woman who lived in a cave on the mountain and was so feared that locals brought her food and gifts to avoid being cursed. One day, Old Man Crowse got drunk and mocked her powers. He was “witched clean crazy,” suffering strange fits for the next seven years. But the witch supposedly met her match when a traveling photographer took her picture against her wishes. It was said that a witch’s spell could be broken by shooting her image with a silver bullet, so a witch doctor pinned the photograph to a tree and fired into it. The following day, people gathering berries near the mountain discovered the Witch of Roan Mountain lying dead near her cabin.

Before it became one of Salem’s most recognizable attractions, the Salem Witch Museum was actually a church—and later an...
09/27/2026

Before it became one of Salem’s most recognizable attractions, the Salem Witch Museum was actually a church—and later an automobile museum. The Gothic Revival building overlooking Salem Common was constructed between 1844 and 1846 for Salem’s East Church, later known as the Second Unitarian Church, and remained an active church until the early 20th century. After sitting vacant for a time, it became the Salem Antique Auto Museum in the 1950s, displaying vintage automobiles and Americana inside the former sanctuary. A fire later severely damaged the building, and Holly and Tom Mulvihill purchased it and transformed it into the Salem Witch Museum, which officially opened on May 6, 1972. Interestingly, the property’s connection to the witch trials goes back much further than the building itself—in 1692, the land belonged to Salem minister Rev. John Higginson, whose daughter Ann Dolliver was herself accused of witchcraft.

In 1725, a company of New England militiamen returned from the frontier carrying a gruesome prize—ten human scalps. Capt...
09/26/2026

In 1725, a company of New England militiamen returned from the frontier carrying a gruesome prize—ten human scalps. Captain John Lovewell and his men had traveled north from Massachusetts in pursuit of Abenaki warriors during the long-running conflict along the New England frontier. In February, they encountered a group of ten Native people near what is now Wakefield, New Hampshire, killed all ten and removed their scalps, which could be exchanged for government bounty money. Lovewell’s company included men from Essex County communities such as Haverhill, and on their return they passed through Andover, where the scalps were publicly displayed before the men continued toward Boston to collect their reward.

On January 15, 1801, people gathered on Court Street—today’s Washington Street—in Salem to witness a punishment that wou...
09/25/2026

On January 15, 1801, people gathered on Court Street—today’s Washington Street—in Salem to witness a punishment that would seem almost medieval today. A man named John Hawkins had been convicted of forgery, and the sentence handed down was that he was placed in Salem’s pillory, where he was forced to stand on display for an hour as townspeople passed by and watched. But his humiliation did not end when he was released. Hawkins then had one of his ears cropped—part of the ear was cut away as an additional punishment for the crime. A few years later, Massachusetts abandoned the use of its stocks and whipping posts only a few years later. Today, thousands of people walk along Washington Street without realizing that more than two centuries ago, people could gather there to watch a convicted man stand in the pillory before leaving permanently disfigured.

In the early 1830s, the Salem ship Glide was thousands of miles from home, trading among the Fiji Islands, when things w...
09/24/2026

In the early 1830s, the Salem ship Glide was thousands of miles from home, trading among the Fiji Islands, when things went horribly wrong. Eight sailors had gone ashore when they were attacked, and the men aboard the Glide watched anxiously as their boat finally returned with only six men. Missing were Joshua Derby and Enoch Knight, both of Salem. Another boat was sent toward shore, where the bodies of the two sailors were discovered on the beach, stripped of their clothing and badly mutilated. Their remains were carried back aboard the ship while their stunned crewmates wept. The voyage's troubles were far from over. The Glide was later wrecked on a reef in Fiji, leaving her surviving sailors stranded thousands of miles from Salem before they were eventually rescued.

When 71-year-old Rebecca Nurse was accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692, even some of her neighbors found the allegati...
09/23/2026

When 71-year-old Rebecca Nurse was accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692, even some of her neighbors found the allegation difficult to believe. Nurse was a respected wife, mother and grandmother who had lived in the community for decades, and 39 people signed a petition attesting to her good character. During her trial, the jury initially returned a verdict of not guilty—but the accusers immediately protested in the courtroom, and the judges instructed the jurors to reconsider. They did, changing their verdict to guilty. Rebecca Nurse was hanged on July 19, 1692, alongside four other women. Because those executed for witchcraft were denied ordinary Christian burials, her body was reportedly retrieved after dark by members of her family and secretly buried on the Nurse homestead.

One of Kentucky’s strangest witch legends comes from Taylor County, where a woman named Nancy Bass became known as the “...
09/22/2026

One of Kentucky’s strangest witch legends comes from Taylor County, where a woman named Nancy Bass became known as the “Spurlington Witch.” According to legend, Bass was believed to possess the power to ruin crops, kill livestock and place curses on anyone who crossed her, and some frightened neighbors reportedly gave her food and allowed her to sleep in their barns rather than risk making her angry. One story claims a man finally attempted to destroy the supposed witch using a bit of counter-witchcraft: he obtained something belonging to Nancy, fastened it to a stake at a crossroads and hammered the stake for seven consecutive nights, believing she would die when the seventh blow was struck. Unfortunately for him, Nancy discovered the stake before the final night and pulled it from the ground, breaking the spell intended to kill her.

On June 25, 1914, Salem faced a disaster unlike anything the city had seen since the days of the witch trials. A fire th...
09/22/2026

On June 25, 1914, Salem faced a disaster unlike anything the city had seen since the days of the witch trials. A fire that began in a leather factory spread rapidly through the city, driven by wind and feeding on densely packed wooden buildings. By the time it was brought under control, nearly 1,400 buildings across more than 250 acres had been destroyed and roughly 18,000 people were left homeless. Entire neighborhoods disappeared, including much of the Point, and thousands of stunned residents gathered on Salem Common, where tents were erected to shelter families who had lost everything. Remarkably, Salem immediately began rebuilding, adopting new construction regulations and reshaping streets in the burned district.

On September 19, 1692, 81-year-old Giles Corey suffered one of the most brutal deaths associated with the Salem Witch Tr...
09/21/2026

On September 19, 1692, 81-year-old Giles Corey suffered one of the most brutal deaths associated with the Salem Witch Trials. Accused of witchcraft and imprisoned alongside his wife, Martha, Corey refused to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, preventing the court from putting him on trial. Authorities responded with an old English punishment known as peine forte et dure: Corey was stripped, laid on the ground, and subjected to increasingly heavy stones in an attempt to force him to plead. He refused, enduring the crushing weight until he died after roughly two days. Tradition holds that when officials demanded a plea, Corey responded with the words that would make him one of the most legendary figures of the Salem trials: “More weight.” His death did nothing to save his wife. Three days later, Martha Corey was hanged at Proctor’s Ledge alongside seven others in what became the final ex*****on by hanging of the Salem Witch Trials.

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