Boston Common

The oldest public park in America, established in 1634. For 175 years, it served as Boston's execution grounds. The Great Elm, once located near the Frog Pond, was the city's notorious hanging tree where 45 Native Americans were executed in 1676.

America's oldest public park hides a history of blood, suffering, and restless spirits. Established in 1634 as a grazing pasture for Puritan settlers' cattle, Boston Common spent nearly 200 years as something far darker—the city's public execution ground. Today, visitors walking these 50 acres often sense they're not alone. They're right.

The centerpiece of colonial justice was the Great Elm, a massive tree on the southeast corner near Frog Pond. For 175 years, its branches served as the city's gallows. Pirates dangled from its limbs alongside murderers. Accused witches swung in the wind as warnings to others. The condemned were left hanging until their bodies rotted, their spirits—according to centuries of testimony—never quite departing.

Thirty-five years before Salem became synonymous with witch trials, Boston was already executing women for alleged sorcery. In 1656, Ann Hibbins became the third woman hanged as a witch on the Great Elm—her crime being "more wit than her neighbors." A wealthy widow and sister-in-law to Governor Bellingham, Hibbins had sued a group of carpenters for overcharging her. She won, but her "abrasive" manner led to her excommunication. When neighbors accused her of witchcraft, the General Court convicted her despite her capable self-defense. "The popular clamor," one account noted, "was more than the court could withstand."

In 1688, Ann "Goody" Glover followed Hibbins to the gallows—an Irish Catholic woman convicted because she couldn't recite the Lord's Prayer in English. Today, visitors report seeing a female figure in Puritan-era clothing weeping and screaming near where Glover died.

But the most haunted legacy belongs to 1676, when colonial violence against Native Americans reached fever pitch during King Philip's War. Over fifty Native Americans were publicly executed on the Great Elm that year alone. Among them was Tantamous, a Nipmuc leader and medicine man captured despite being promised safety. He was marched through Boston streets with a noose around his neck and hanged while the crowd watched. After his death, his family was sold into slavery. Tantamous was said to possess spiritual powers—powers some believe he exercises still, reminding visitors of crimes the nation has tried to forget.

The Quakers suffered here too. In 1660, Mary Dyer became one of four "Boston martyrs" hanged for repeatedly defying Puritan laws banning her faith. Her execution so shocked King Charles II that he explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing Quakers, marking the beginning of the end for Puritan theocracy.

And then there was Rachel Wall, the last woman executed in Massachusetts, hanged in the late 1700s for piracy. She had lured ships to rocks, robbed sailors, and killed them. Observers today report ghostly figures swinging from branches where none remain—the Great Elm finally fell in a windstorm in 1876, but the apparitions continue.

The horrors beneath the Common rival those above. The Central Burying Ground, established in 1756 in the park's southwest corner, holds approximately 5,000 bodies despite having only 487 tombstones. The poor, foreigners, Catholics, and society's forgotten were buried here. During the American Revolution, British soldiers from the Battle of Bunker Hill and the subsequent occupation of Boston were dumped in a trench at the cemetery's edge.

In 1836, street construction displaced countless graves. Workers simply stacked the remains on top of one another in an unmarked mass grave called "The Dell." Worse came in 1894 during construction of America's first subway beneath Boylston Street. Workers unearthed approximately 910 bodies, including the long-forgotten British soldiers. Dr. Samuel Green of the Massachusetts Historical Society was hired to ensure "respectful reinterment"—the remains were placed in a mass grave marked only by a slate tablet.

The paranormal activity here is pervasive and documented. Subway passengers report moaning and wailing during commutes. A British redcoat soldier in full uniform has appeared on the tracks. Near the cemetery, visitors describe overwhelming coldness and a "profound sense of sorrow." Men in old military uniforms vanish around corners. Two women in 19th-century dress walk arm-in-arm on benches. A young girl in white has appeared repeatedly, once allegedly grabbing a visitor's car keys.

A tobacco shop employee near the Common reports hearing the rattle of chains in early mornings. Ghost tour guides speak of pale apparitions hanging from trees and the unmistakable creak of rope against branches—sounds from executions that ended over 200 years ago. Photographs taken in the Central Burying Ground consistently fail, appearing too dark or overexposed.

The Great Elm may be gone, but its victims remain. The witches wrongly accused, the Native Americans massacred, the Quakers martyred, the soldiers abandoned in trenches—all 200 years of public execution left a mark on this land that no amount of picnicking or tourists can erase. Boston Common is beautiful by day, but as darkness falls, America's oldest park remembers what happened here. And so do its ghosts.