Burying Point Cemetery, Salem Mass.

From June through September of 1692, nineteen men and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft, were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of others faced accusations of witchcraft; dozens languished in jail for months without trials until the hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts subsided. Many of those accused are interned at Burying Point Cemetery, MA.

The Burying Point Cemetery, also known as the Charter Street Cemetery, is the oldest cemetery in Salem and the second oldest cemetery in the country. It was started in 1637. While Burying Point is known as the cemetery which interns many of those who were accused of witchery and put to death in 1692, I don’t believe all (if any) of the bodies are actually buried here as history tells those charged with the crime of witchcraft were not allowed Christian burials (thrown to the side) and it was illegal for the family to remove a body from Gallows Hill following a hanging. However, Burying Point houses memorials to these historical figures commemorated by 20 benches, one for each of the victims actively put to death (not counting those who died in prison) in 1692- Rebecca Nurse, Bridget Bishop, Martha Carrier, Martha Corey, Mary Easty, Sarah Good, Susanna Martin, Mary Parker, Ann Pudeator, Margaret Scott , Sarah Wildes, Elizabeth Howe, Alice Parker, John Proctor, George Buroughs, George Jacobs, Samuel Wardell, and John Willard were all Hanged, and Giles Corey was “pressed” to death. Burying Point also interns Ann Putnam (Oct. 16, 1679-1716), the so-called leader of the "circle girls," the young girls whose accusations sparked the Salem Witch Trials who testified against the majority of convicted witches, is buried here next to her mother and father. Also interned are prominent Judges of the trials, John Hawthorne, Samuel Sewall, Cotton Mather and Increase Mather.

[see my blog on Rebbecca Nurse Graveyard]