Ropes Mansion
Built around 1727 for the merchant Samuel Barnard, this Georgian mansion at 318 Essex Street passed in 1768 to Judge Nathaniel Ropes and stayed in his family until 1907; today it is a Peabody Essex Museum historic house, familiar to many as Allison's home in the 1993 film Hocus Pocus. In 1839 the judge's daughter Abigail Ropes, known as Nabby, died after a three-week illness when her clothing caught fire near the hearth, a death the Salem Gazette recorded at the time. Local legend holds that Nabby never left, and visitors have long claimed to hear a woman's anguished screams drifting through the rooms where she was burned. Some say a figure can be glimpsed at an upper window long after the house has closed for the night, gazing out over the town she never wished to leave.
📍 318 Essex Street, Salem, MA 01970, Salem, MA · Get directions