Samuel Pickman House
The Samuel Pickman House, a weathered first-period saltbox built around 1664 at the corner of Charter and Liberty streets, is one of Salem's oldest standing homes, now abutting the 1992 Witch Trials Memorial and the Old Burying Point cemetery. The Peabody Essex Museum bought it in 1983 and reopened it as the cemetery's welcome center.
Folklore holds that an 18th-century resident, descending into madness, chained his young daughter in the attic and starved her before killing his wife and hanging himself. Visitors photographing the house have long reported a small girl's pale figure at an upper window, and museum staff claim to hear children's voices after dark.
No record confirms the tale, leaving it legend, yet this small dark house beside the witch-trial dead remains one of Salem's most retold haunted sites.
📍 43 Charter Street, Salem, MA 01970, Salem, MA · Get directions