“Witch Hill” or “The Salem Martyr” by Thomas S. Noble, 1869
I have mentioned my interest in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Last time I was in Salem, I visited a site that has made a long-lasting impression on me. I arrived armed with a copy of a rare map and a determination to find a very specific historic site. I wanted to see the spot where the victims were hung.
Sounds grim, I suppose. But I have no fascination for the macabre, honestly. My desire to find the site sprang from the same sentiments that move me to seek out regimental monuments, memorials and grave sites of people who have made history. I wanted to pay my respects.
There is a beautiful memorial to the victims of the Witch Trials in downtown Salem, built in 1992. It is a poignant and appropriate place to remember not just the 20 who were killed, but the 150 or so who were imprisoned. Still, that memorial doesn’t quite cut it for me. I have a thing about finding specific locations…the exact ground…where monumental things took place. The more remote and obscure the location, the better. Plus, I happened to be acting as historical guide to a group of friends on this trip, and I wanted to be sure that they managed to see someplace that most visitors rarely saw. Someplace hidden and forgotten.
In 1888, antiquarian Samuel Adams Drake wrote about a location outside of Salem known as Gallows Hill:
Just out of the city, on its southern skirt…an uncouth heap of steep-sided gray rocks, moderately high, on whose windy summit a few houses make a group of dusky silhouettes. This is a sort of waste place, good neither for planting, grazing, or building…Travelers look listlessly, and turn away. Yet stay a moment! Long ago, so long that no living man remembers it, one solitary tree grew upon that rocky, wind-swept height…Those cold gray ledges where it stood is Gallows Hill. The tree, tradition says, was that upon which the condemned witches were hung. From the moment of passing this fatal place, neither the noise nor the throng will be able to distract the stranger’s thoughts, wholly occupied as they are with the sinister memories that the sight has awakened within him.
So, I am not the only one whose thoughts have been “wholly occupied” with the sinister episode that took place on Gallows Hill. The place has been so called for a long, long time. If visitors looked listlessly at the rocky hill in 1888 and nonchalantly passed by, now most do not even look at it. Zipping by the location on Boston Street (Route 107), there is nothing about the hill at all that would attract attention. It is mostly a residential area now. And a Walgreens sits right at the base of the hill. No windy summit or dusky silhouettes to be seen. Just suburban sprawl.
On one of my first trips to Salem, many years ago, I drove up Gallows Hill to get a look at what might be there. Oddly enough, the top of the hill features a recreation area known as Gallows Hill Park complete with a playground and ballfield. I expected to see some kind of tablet dedicated to the women who died there. Instead I saw kids scampering around and moms pushing strollers. It was…weird. And although long-standing tradition indicated that the tragic executions took place at the summit of Gallows Hill, something about the site just didn’t seem right.
Later, when planning for this trip to Salem during which I would act as a tour guide of sorts, I wanted to do some serious preparation. In researching, I came across, in various electronic publications, a map depicting Salem in 1700 drawn by historian Sidney Perley around 1921. The purpose of Perley’s map was to pinpoint, based on decades of research, the location of the executions and the unmarked graves of the victims. The summit of Gallows Hill, Perley argued, was not where the victims were hung. Based on a variety of intriguing facts, Perley insisted that the actual site was near the base of Gallows Hill, on a rocky ledge then overlooking the North River.
There are several things about his argument that just ring true. The ledge at the base of the hill was just on the other side of the bridge crossing the North River, that is, just outside of Salem limits. (There’s no bridge now…the area has all been filled in). Sheriff Corwin had orders to conduct his grim business outside of Salem. It seems reasonable that he would choose a spot just over the town line and not go any further than he had to. Also, we know the victims were brought to the location by cart. The summit of Gallows Hill would have been a very difficult place for a cart to access.
Armed with Perley’s research and map, my friends and I tracked down the spot. After a long day of touring, it was dusk by the time we got there. The location is on a residential side street, which was depicted as an old cart path leading to the ledge on Perley’s map, now known as Proctor Street. The houses there are closely packed. However, on this well-populated street, there was a large, vacant parcel overgrown with trees.
I have to admit this was one of the most haunting spots I have ever visited. A rocky patch of woods in the middle of a neighborhood. No markers. No monuments. But something about it just seemed fraught with historic significance. Looking at the boulders strewn about, it was possible to imagine that these were the same rocks on which the crowds stood to watch the “witches” executed. Its obscurity and anonymity only added to the eeriness of it all. The site still hasn’t been built upon despite the significant development of the area. It seemed almost intentionally foresaken.
Perley’s argument has been around for nearly a century. And, recently, it has been gaining traction. Increasing numbers of people visit the site and in 2008 Perley’s theory and the story of the mysterious wooded ledge was written up by Daniel V. Bourdillion in Weird Massachusetts.
Despite what might be called increasing consensus, it seems impossible that the hidden location will ever become a protected historic site. Perhaps it’s for the best. When I was there, I had the distinct impression that the victims would have preferred the site of such tragedy and disgrace be forgotten. Shortly after having found what I had long been looking for, I was eager to leave.
[Update, January 2016: Apparently my prediction above, that Proctor’s Ledge would likely remain relatively ignored, was incorrect. A group of scholars has been researching the site and a project is underway to place a marker or memorial there. You can read more here.]
Historical Digression 
October 23rd, 2010 at 7:46 am
Fantastic. I love places like this. Your story reminds me of one I found ages ago, in the stony remains of what was once the town of Enfield, MA. While just a kid myself (17, or 18 I think), I was on a walkabout around the Quabbin Reservation and I came across a cellar hole that was deep into the woods and atop a tall hill. The thing that struck me as most odd– and different than the rest of the cellar holes that dot the area– was that it was in the middle of a clearing, no real growth around for 100 yards or so.
We had a teacher in those days who was an expert on local history, Shawn Bresnahan. Of course, I asked him about this, and with a chuckle, he unraveled a tale about a witchcraft trial with roots in Western Massachusetts, that of Mary Parsons of Springfield and Northampton. While relating this tale, he indicated that there were local stories that had Mary Parsons (or one of her disgraced children) relocating to the backwoods in what would become Enfield, and living in a house on top of a bald hill; and that for reasons unknown, when the Quabbin was flooded and the workers were razing the buildings of the affected towns, they left the Parsons house alone. He stated it sounds like I’d stumbled across it.
Now, I can neither confirm nor deny the truth behind the tale, though I have made great hay with it from time to time. Sometimes I wonder if I could make my way there again.
October 23rd, 2010 at 8:09 am
Fantastic story. I’ve seen parts of the remains of Enfield, but didn’t have much time to explore. This site sound very cool. Maybe a field trip at some point?
October 23rd, 2010 at 11:02 am
Absolutely. I’ll want a pre-trip to see if I can find it again of course– it was well off the skeletal roads and hunting paths– but there were some landmarks.
December 21st, 2010 at 11:53 am
Better to reflect on the horrors of that time in a quiet visit to the Witch Trials Memorial on Charter Street, adjacent to the old burial ground where Judge Hathorne is buried (so he can, presumably, reflect for all eternity upon his role in that terrible time).
But I advise you (and anyone else truly interested in Salem history) to visit this city in any month OTHER than October. In October, Salem transforms itself into a Halloween Theme Park, complete with parades (one for people, one for motorcycles), a ferris wheel and other amusements, sausage vendors, and t-shirt and other chatchkie peddlers, all patronized by hundreds of thousands of people dressed in all manner of odd costumes. On Halloween you’ll find a full program of crowd-pleasers like a beer tent, DJs, live acts, and a grand finale fireworks display.
I know this because I live there. And I do my best to hibernate during the month of October, emerging only after the last fireworks blast (which rattles my windows, it’s that close to my home) has spent itself.
Yep. Just what Giles Corey must have envisioned as he was being pressed to death for refusing to plead (either way) to being a witch.
October 8th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
Found it. Just now thanks to you. Littered with bottles. Took my breath away
October 8th, 2012 at 8:48 pm
It’s a really strange, eerie sort of site, isn’t it? Glad I was able to help you find it.
October 19th, 2012 at 8:51 pm
More people (30 Indians) were executed on the Boston Common at the tail end of King Philip’s War in August of 1675 than all the alleged witches executed in all the colonies. There were other executions of Indians during the course of the war. Many of these executions happened at the great elm, a giant tree blown down in a winter storm in1876, now indicated by an historic marker on the ground near a children’s playground and wading pool.
September 20th, 2013 at 2:19 pm
Hi where did you get the map
September 21st, 2013 at 7:36 am
Here is a good online version of it.
http://www.salemin1700s.com/salemmap.aspx?mapyear=1700
March 8th, 2014 at 10:09 pm
I just found this today. I’ve lived in Boston my whole life so I’ve heard about the trials all my life, and today I saw the exact spot with my own eyes. I took some photos… looking at them *with the hill relatively covered in snow* is beyond description.
But I got to thinking about it, and it seems just right that the masses should think the park is the location where the hangings occurred. It should be a place that only those who truly care are privy to, so that the site of such a tragedy doesn’t turn into what the rest of Salem does the month of October!
March 9th, 2014 at 11:08 am
I concur. We will be up in Boston in April and we will check it out as well. Thanks for your hard work. It’s a great adventure for the children and a teaching moment about the errors as well as the victories in our human history.
March 11th, 2014 at 6:49 am
Thanks, CJ. I definitely agree that the spot is relatively untouched and unknown and should remain that way.
Regards,
Patrick
March 11th, 2014 at 7:42 am
That was my thoughts on Gallows Hill. It was a secret that we found through you. We had a moment of silence as well
March 17th, 2014 at 9:39 am
How fitting and ironic that the site of the infamous Salem witchcraft hangings are really behind a Walmart store. The truth rarely earns a buck.
March 17th, 2014 at 12:17 pm
Is it true the site is behind the walmarts thanks jerry
March 17th, 2014 at 12:35 pm
According to Perley’s map, the site is behind what is now a Walgreen’s.
March 17th, 2014 at 7:15 pm
Have now made the trip twice to visit the real and fake Gallows Hill. It’s astounding that anyone takes seriously that Park site. That hill was so seriously steep! I know that erosion does have some effect on the landscapes but wow…
In answer to the above comments, it definitely FEELS right that the real location is behind the Walgreen’s. It’s this odd haunting feeling that you don’t really get anywhere else, and it kinda stays with you awhile. I would recommend anyone who has interest in the witch trials visit at least once. And if you decide to actually climb it *which I did on the second visit*, be careful where you step, there’s some branches with small thorns up there. But the view is quite breathtaking!
July 6th, 2014 at 8:53 pm
Fascinating article…
I live on the Hill, just around the corner from the site. I’ve been all over the upper part of the Hill (the park areas) but have not ventured into the undeveloped area on the north side of Proctor St.. I’ll be sure to visit soon.
A question: Has anyone any information regarding paranormal activity in the immediate area, particularly at the Irish social club on Boston St. about a quarter-mile away? I’ve received numerous reports of such activity and was told that there had been some professional investigation done in the recent past. I’ve been asked to do some further investigation on behalf of a friend. Any information would be appreciated!
Best,
-Mark Pagliarulo
Salem, MA