Old Burying Point (Charter Street Cemetery)

Visitors to the Old Burying Point report voices, whispers and muffled weeping, orbs of light, sudden fog, shadows drifting between the stones after dusk and drops in temperature, with cold spots said to cluster near the grave of Judge John Hathorne, who many believe never found peace. Locals say that if you linger too long you may hear a woman's voice calling from the edge of the cemetery, and the most often cited apparitions are a young boy carrying a picnic basket and a Victorian-era lady in a blue dress, linked to the pub that backs onto the far corner. The cemetery, also called Charter Street Cemetery, was established in 1637 and is the oldest burial ground in Salem. Among those buried here are Hathorne, one of the magistrates in the 1692 witch trials, and Simon Bradstreet, the last governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the old charter. Most of the trial victims were buried elsewhere, and the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, dedicated in 1992, sits beside the cemetery. Salem ghost tours routinely stop here.