Best Salem Witch Trials Historical Walking Tour

Best Salem Witch Trials Historical Walking Tour is a 90-minute guided walk run by Salem Historical Tours, LLC, booking from $30 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. It departs at 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm, with check-in 15 minutes earlier at the Salem Historical Tours office, 8 Central Street. Among the eighteen Salem listings in our research it is the only one that publishes a morning clock time, making it the daylight choice in a city whose tours run mostly after dark. Ten stops are named, among them the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, the Witch House, the Joshua Ward House and the granite jail on St Peter Street. Children from 6 can join. It is not wheelchair accessible.

What you will see

The Salem Witch Trials Memorial off Liberty Street is the route's newest stop. A juried competition drew 246 entries; the winning design by Maggie Smith and James Cutler was presented by Arthur Miller on November 14, 1991 (Salem State University Archives), and Elie Wiesel dedicated it on August 5, 1992 (Voices Against Injustice). Twenty granite benches name the victims with date and manner of death, and each threshold inscription runs into the stone and stops mid sentence. Wiesel spoke at the dedication; he did not design it. Nobody is buried here or in the burial ground beside it, which holds two of the 1692 magistrates instead. And the count reaches twenty because it includes Giles Corey, who was pressed to death rather than hanged.

The Witch House is the only building still standing in Salem with a documented tie to 1692, and the tie is a judge, not a witch. Jonathan Corwin bought it unfinished in 1675 and died in it in 1718 (Salem Public Library); the federal survey ties the name to his seat on the Court of Oyer and Terminer (HABS No. MA-398). No trial was held inside, no primary source puts the examinations there, and the house was moved about 35 feet in 1945 for the widening of North Street. At 148 Washington Street the Joshua Ward House is a working hotel, read from the sidewalk. Ward cleared the older house off the lot in 1781 and built this mansion between 1784 and 1787 (National Register nomination 78000481); Washington lodged here on October 29, 1789 at his own request, per the Salem diarist William Bentley (The Diary of William Bentley). The lot had been Sheriff George Corwin's; he died in 1696 at about thirty and lies in Broad Street Cemetery, not in this cellar.

Turner's Seafood trades under the Lyceum Hall name at 43 Church Street, where the Salem Lyceum opened its hall on January 19, 1831 and Alexander Graham Bell gave the first public demonstration of long-distance telephony on February 12, 1877, Thomas Watson answering from Boston (Salem State University Archives; Library of Congress). That was a demonstration, not the first telephone call, and the wood-frame hall of those years later burned and was replaced by the brick building standing now. The dining-room ghost story turns on Bridget Bishop, hanged June 10, 1692, whose orchard land the Salem Witch Museum places on this block; the apple smell and the apparition are undocumented, and the tavern and red bodice in most Salem scripts belong to Sarah Bishop, a different woman, a conflation corrected in 1981. The Salem YMCA replaced the Sanders House at 292 Essex Street, where Bell ran telephone experiments in the 1870s (Streets of Salem). At 16 Lynde Street the Witch Dungeon Museum stages Sarah Good's examination of March 1, 1692; Good was hanged that July 19 (Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive). That building went up in 1897 as a chapel, and the dungeon below is a recreation, the museum's own word for it (Salem Public Library).

The granite building at 50 St Peter Street looks exactly like a witch jail and is not one: it went up between 1811 and 1813 for $80,000, closed by court order in 1991 as unfit for human habitation, and became twenty-three apartments and a restaurant in 2009 and 2010 (National Park Service). The 1692 jail stood a block away at what is now 4 Federal Street and came down in 1956. The listing also names the Salem Masonic Building, Essex Lodge; Salem's Masonic Temple at 70 Washington Street carries the marker for the 1692 courtroom, which sat upstairs in a town house that stood mid-street on present-day Washington Street until about 1740. The marker faces the site rather than occupying it, and nothing of that courthouse survives (Clio). The Bewitched statue in Lappin Park is a television promotion, dedicated June 15, 2005 and paid for by TV Land, and residents objected that it trivialized the executions (Salem Public Library). Rockafellas Restaurant rounds out the ten.

Who it suits

Ninety minutes on foot, in daylight, around documented sites rather than jump scares. The child band starts at 6, and the 10 am departure leaves the day open. The tradeoff is the score: 4.2 across 790 Viator reviews sits in the lower half of the Salem field we checked, 4.1 to 4.9.

• Skip it if anyone in your party uses a wheelchair. The listing states it is not wheelchair accessible.
• Skip it if you want a night walk. Salem has a long list of evening alternatives.
• Skip it if the score is what you book on. Several Salem walks in our research hold 4.8 or better on more than a thousand reviews.
• Ask first about going inside the Witch House or the Witch Dungeon Museum. The listing states no included admission.

How it compares

Salem Historical Tours also lists Haunted Footsteps Best Ghost and Paranormal Salem Tour, same $30 and same 90 minutes, but that one is a costumed ghost walk whose listing says it does not focus on the 1692 trials, and at 4.1 across 456 reviews it is the lowest rated of the eighteen Salem listings we checked. If the trials are why you came, this is the one of the pair that covers them.

The city benchmark is History and Hauntings of Salem Guided Walking Tour, $36 for two hours fifteen at 4.9 across 15,335 reviews, the largest review base in Salem. In a hurry, Wicked Awesome Tours: Witch Trial History and Salem Haunts runs one hour from $29 at 4.8 across 1,272 reviews. Neither published clock times at our check, so a confirmed 10 am start is this tour's edge. For the wider field, see the best ghost tours in Salem and our Salem ghost tour comparison.

Questions people ask

What time does it start and where do I check in?

At 10 am, 1 pm and 4 pm. Arrive 15 minutes before and check in at the Salem Historical Tours office, 8 Central Street.

How long is it and what does it cost?

Ninety minutes, from $30 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. Prices move, so confirm the current rate before booking.

Which sites does it visit?

Ten: the Salem Witch Trials Memorial, Rockafellas Restaurant, the Joshua Ward House, the Witch House, the Salem YMCA, Turner's Seafood at Lyceum Hall, the Witch Dungeon Museum, the Bewitched statue, the Salem Masonic Building (Essex Lodge) and 50 St Peter Street.

Is it wheelchair accessible, and how young can children be?

Not wheelchair accessible, per the listing. The child band starts at 6 and the adult band at 13. No group cap appears.

How does the 4.2 rating compare with other Salem tours?

Lower half. Across the eighteen Salem listings we checked, ratings run from 4.1 to 4.9 and only one scores lower. The 790-review sample is solid, well short of the 15,335 on the city's most reviewed walk.

Is the granite jail on St Peter Street where the accused were held?

No. It went up between 1811 and 1813, more than a century after the trials. The 1692 jail stood a short block away at what is now 4 Federal Street and was demolished in 1956.