Old Burying Point (Charter Street Cemetery)
Laid out by 1637, the Old Burying Point is Salem's oldest graveyard, its leaning slate stones crowded onto less than an acre beside the Charter Street Historic District. Among the roughly seven hundred buried here is Judge John Hathorne, who sent the accused to the gallows in 1692 and now lies under a granite-framed stone near the front gate. Visitors lingering after dusk speak of shadowy figures, disembodied voices, and a heavy sense of sorrow drifting near the older graves. The most often-repeated sighting is of a woman in a powder-blue dress carrying a basket, a small boy at her side, who appears in the cemetery's back corner before fading into the dark.
📍 51 Charter St, Salem, MA 01970, Salem, MA · Get directions