Salem's Best Ghost Tour

What's included

What you'll see and do

1. Salem Night Tour

   Check in early at Remember Salem on Essex Street, where Wynott's Wands, the Ouija Board Museum, and the Halloween Museum are all within steps. The experience starts before the tour does.

   15 minutes here

2. Introduction

   Pass by without stopping

3. Salem Witch Trials Memorial

   Salem Witch Trials memorial featuring a series of inscribed stones throughout the burial ground.

   10 minutes here

4. Charter Street Cemetery

   Charter Street Cemetery, dating to 1637, is one of Salem's oldest burial grounds — but notably absent are the victims of the witch trials, who were denied Christian burial. Instead you'll find John Hathorne, the unrepentant hanging judge whose legacy so haunted his descendant Nathaniel Hawthorne that he added a 'w' to his name and spent his literary career processing the guilt. A Mayflower passenger rests here too. The cemetery closes at dusk — guests view it from beyond the iron gates, which somehow makes it more unsettling.

   5 minutes here

5. Salem Old Town Hall

   guests will hear about Salem's movie history and see one of the iconic filming locations of the movie Hocus Pocus

   10 minutes here

6. Essex Street Pedestrian Mall

   Pass through the epicenter of historic Salem filled with shopping, sightseeing and history.

   Pass by without stopping

7. Today home to Turner's Seafood at Lyceum Hall, and the site of the first public demonstration of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell, this storied building stands on the former property of Bridget Bishop, Salem's first executed witch. Hanged in 1692, Bishop has never quite left. Ghost hunters have recorded unexplained audio here, staff report persistent disturbances in the upstairs Bridget Bishop Room, and her face has been captured in upstairs windows. One of Salem's most documented and genuinely unsettling hauntings. We cover her story, her legacy, and her ghost!

   5 minutes here

8. This is the site of Salem's original witch gaol — where the accused were chained in dungeon conditions while awaiting trial. Among them was Dorothy Good, four years old, who confessed to witchcraft not out of guilt but out of desperation to stay near her imprisoned mother. Her mother Sarah was executed anyway. Dorothy spent eight months chained in darkness, alone, until her spirit went silent. She survived. She never recovered. Her ghost is said to still search these grounds for her mother — and those with a maternal instinct have reported feeling small hands tugging at their coats and bags in the dark. The weight of this story, on this ground, is something you feel before your guide has finished telling it.

   5 minutes here

9. We stop near the former Essex County Jail — built in 1813, it became the oldest active penitentiary in the United States before closing in 1991 under a court order citing inhumane conditions. But this ground holds something older and darker. This was once an open field where Giles Corey was pressed to death in 1692, the only person in American history executed by pressing. Corey refused to enter a plea, and with his dying breath cursed the sheriff and the city of Salem. Every sheriff who kept offices here before the jail's closure reportedly died of heart ailments — and Corey's ghost, seen before the Salem Great Fire and other calamities, is considered Salem's most feared and malevolent spirit. The Howard Street Cemetery next door holds prisoners who died inside, their gravestones marked with skeleton hands pointing skyward. This is not a ghost story. This is Salem's most documented and genuinely feared haunting — and we treat it that way.

   10 minutes here

10. Saint Peter's Episcopal Church

    Behind St. Peter's Church lies a garden that most Salem visitors never find. Dark, enclosed, and built on top of the dead. The gravestones were moved to the front when the church was rebuilt in 1833. The bodies were not. Beneath the ground you're standing on lies Philip English, accused witch, escaped prisoner, and one of Salem's wealthiest and most defiant merchants. A French-speaking Anglican among Puritans, English fled to New York in 1692 with his wife Mary to avoid execution, returning after the trials to spend his remaining years suing Salem for everything that was taken from him. He donated this land as a final act of defiance, establishing Salem's first Anglican church on the doorstep of the community that tried to destroy him. Our guides bring you here after dark, where the stories get darker and the air gets heavier.

    5 minutes here

11. Gardner Pingree House

    In 1830, Captain Joseph White — wealthy sea captain and slave trader — was bludgeoned to death in his sleep inside this Federal-style mansion on Essex Street. A hired killer entered through an open window. The trial that followed gripped the nation and inspired Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, with details from the prosecution speech echoing directly into the story's most famous lines. The murder is also said to have inspired Parker Brothers to rebrand the British board game Cluedo as Clue. Witnesses still report ghostly faces in the windows and unexplained footsteps inside. This is one of Salem's most consequential and most haunted addresses

    5 minutes here

Where it starts and ends

Before you book

Cancellation

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Languages

en

Ticket

Mobile Only

Runs on

Every day

Group size

Up to 15 travelers per booking

Operated by

The Salem Night Ghost Tour

Know before you go

• Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
• Service animals allowed
• Public transportation options are available nearby
• Suitable for all physical fitness levels
• October Only: Salem in October is magical but busy. Check in begins 30 minutes before your tour time at Remember Salem, 127 Essex Street. Multiple guides depart continuously throughout the check-in window — once your group is checked in, your guide will depart immediately. The final guide leaves exactly at your tour time. Any guest not checked in by that moment will forfeit their booking without refund. There are no exceptions, no catch-up options, and no transfers to later slots. We strongly recommend arriving the full 30 minutes early
• November - September: Check in 15 - 30 minutes prior to your tour time at Remember Salem, 127 Essex Street. Tours depart exactly on time. Guests who have not checked in by departure will forfeit their booking without refund.
• This tour is leisurely paced and accessible, but requires guests to travel between several locations on foot. Guests using wheelchairs or mobility equipment must provide their own.

Photos

Traveler reviews

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