History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour

History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour is a two-hour guided walk run by Witch City Walking Tours, booking from $36 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. The listing names nine stops, from Salem Old Town Hall and the Essex Street pedestrian mall to the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, Ropes Mansion, the Witch House, Charter Street Cemetery and Hamilton Hall. Day and night departures both appear on it, and the operator says it runs rain or shine, taking a liability waiver at purchase. It carries 4.9 from 15,335 reviews, the largest review count of any tour in our research. It suits visitors who want the 1692 story attached to buildings and ground they can stand in front of, rather than a costumed scare walk.

What you will see

The walk starts at Salem Old Town Hall in Derby Square, built in 1815-16 with a market house below and a meeting hall above; the federal nomination calls it Bulfinch-influenced Federal period work and names no architect. Nothing from 1692 happened in it: it did not exist yet. What runs upstairs is History Alive's Cry Innocent: The People vs. Bridget Bishop, staged since the mid-1990s from the 1692 court records with the audience seated as the jury. The Essex Street pedestrian mall next door dates from 1976, closed to traffic under the Heritage Plaza plans of 1972 and 1979, so the paving underfoot is a 20th-century treatment, not stones the accused walked on. The 1692 courtroom stood a block west, in what is now Washington Street: the second Town House, up from 1677 until about 1740, with a marker on the Masonic Temple at 70 Washington Street facing the site.

Two stops sit minutes apart and could not be less alike. The bronze of Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha in Lappin Park was dedicated on June 15, 2005 and paid for by TV Land: a television promotion rather than a witch-trials monument, and residents objected at the time that it made light of the executions. The Salem Witch Trials Memorial at 24 Liberty Street is the opposite. Maggie Smith and James Cutler won the commission from 246 entries, and Elie Wiesel dedicated it on August 5, 1992; he dedicated it, he did not design it. Twenty granite benches carry a name, a date and a manner of death each, and the threshold is cut with the victims' own protests of innocence from the 1692 records, every line running into the wall and stopping mid-sentence. Nineteen people were hanged; the twentieth bench is Giles Corey, who was pressed to death. Nobody is buried here.

Ropes Mansion at 318 Essex Street dates to about 1727. Judge Nathaniel Ropes died there on March 18, 1774, aged 48, five weeks after publicly renouncing his Crown salary; the story that a mob killed him over that salary is family tradition written down decades later, and he had already given the salary up. Abigail Pickman Ropes, of the same family, died of burns on April 23, 1839, aged 42, per Salem's death register. The one-acre garden behind the house, laid out by the botanist John Robinson in 1912-13, is free and open daily; the house is not, so do not book expecting to go inside. The McIntire Historic District is named for Samuel McIntire, 1757 to 1811, a carver and master builder rather than a trained architect, and he did not design Chestnut Street: the 1973 federal nomination credits him with two buildings there and the other seventeen Federal period houses to other builders.

The Witch House at 310 1/2 Essex Street is named for a judge, not a witch. Jonathan Corwin bought the unfinished house in 1675 and died in it in 1718, and he sat on the Court of Oyer and Terminer, which the federal HABS record says sentenced nineteen people to death. No witch lived here and no examination took place inside, and the house does not stand where it stood in 1692: saved from the widening of North Street by about $42,000 raised locally, it moved roughly 35 feet in 1945. Charter Street Cemetery, first documented in a town record of 1637, lies beside the memorial rather than around it, and no victim of the trials is buried in it, though two of the magistrates lie there, John Hathorne and Bartholomew Gedney. The city bans rubbings, climbing and standing on stones. The last stop the listing names, Hamilton Hall, was under construction in 1806 and first used in 1807. John Remond, a free Black man born in Curacao, ran his catering business from it between 1826 and 1835, and his son Charles Lenox Remond became in 1842 the first Black man to address the Massachusetts legislature. The hall is a working event venue, so a walking tour sees it from outside.

Who it suits

This is one of the more accessible listings in the Salem set we checked: no stated minimum age, wheelchair and stroller access both listed, dogs flagged as welcome on July 28, 2026, and it runs rain or shine. The trade is two hours on Salem brick and cobble, with the operator's own caveat that "Salem has brick sidewalks, uneven surfaces and narrow areas." Every ghost story on this route is tour tradition, not archive.

• Skip it if you want a short walk. Two hours is the long end of the Salem set; several rivals run an hour or ninety minutes.
• Skip it if you need a small group. No cap appears on this listing; the same operator's night tour states 15.
• Skip it if you want interiors. Hamilton Hall is a working event venue and Ropes Mansion access is seasonal.
• Skip it on price. At $36 it is the priciest single guided walk in the Salem set we checked, level with the operator's night tour, while several rivals run $23 to $30.

How it compares

Witch City Walking Tours also runs Mysteries and Murders of Salem Guided Night-Time Walking Tour, the same $36 for two hours, with seven stops, a cap of 15, ages 13 and up and 4.8 from 1,529 reviews: that one for a capped group, this one for wider access. Bewitched Walking Tour of Salem is $35 for two hours at 4.9 from 1,943 reviews, with a City of Salem licensed guide and a cap of 40. Salem's Best Ghost Tour is the cheapest of these four at $24 for about 75 minutes, with the second-largest review count in our Salem research at 4.6 from 4,352, but its listing says it is not wheelchair accessible.

The scale gap is the real difference: 15,335 reviews is more than every other Salem tour in our research put together, and the 4.9 holds across that sample. For the rest of the field, see Salem ghost tours compared and our guide to the best ghost tours in Salem.

Questions people ask

How long is it and what does it cost?

The listing sells a two-hour walk at $36 per person, checked July 30, 2026, and its structured field says 2 hours 15 minutes, so leave the longer window. Confirm the current rate on the booking page.

Is there a minimum age?

None is stated. The age bands run from infant through adult, so children can be booked on it. The 13-and-up threshold belongs to the operator's night tour, not to this one.

Is it wheelchair accessible?

The listing flags both wheelchair and stroller access, with the operator's own caveat about Salem's brick sidewalks, uneven surfaces and narrow areas. Two hours on that surface is what to weigh.

What happens if it rains?

It runs rain or shine, with no weather cancellation, per the listing, which accepts a liability waiver at purchase.

Does the walk visit the execution site?

No. None of the nine stops named is Proctor's Ledge or Gallows Hill. The 1692 hangings happened at Proctor's Ledge, at the base of Gallows Hill rather than the top. Nineteen people were hanged and nobody was burned at the stake; Giles Corey was pressed to death and is counted apart from those nineteen. A 2016 radar survey found no remains at the ledge.

Can I cancel?

Free cancellation up to 24 hours in advance, per the listing at our July 30, 2026 check. Read the terms on the booking page before you book.