Hawthorne Hotel

Built in 1925 on land once owned by Bridget Bishop, the first woman executed in the Salem witch trials. It's been on Ghost Hunters, once hosted a seance trying to reach Houdini, and is named after Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Room 325 is where it starts for most guests. They wake in the dark to the sound of a baby crying — frantic, inconsolable, clearly inside the room. There is no baby. The faucets run by themselves. Lights snap on and off. One houseman found his entire work setup rearranged in the middle of a shift and refused to take another night assignment.

The Hawthorne Hotel rises six stories above Washington Square in downtown Salem, a Colonial Revival landmark built in 1925 after residents voted to fund a proper hotel for their city. It takes its name from author Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose birthplace on Union Street and the House of Seven Gables on Derby Street both stand nearby. The building has earned a reputation as one of the most haunted hotels in America — shaped by Salem history that goes back much further than 1925.

The land carries a specific legacy. Bridget Bishop, the first person executed during the 1692 Salem Witch Trials, owned an apple orchard on or near this site. On June 10, 1692, she was hanged after testimony that included claims of a deformed monster fleeing through her trees. Historians still debate the precise location of Bishop's property, but guests at the Hawthorne regularly catch the scent of apples drifting through the halls. The hotel does not serve apples.

The Salem Marine Society adds another layer. Founded in 1766 as a fraternal order of sea captains, the Society held meetings on this site starting in 1830 and sold the land for hotel construction on the condition they could maintain a permanent presence in the building. A replica cabin from the East India trading vessel Taria Topan still sits atop the hotel where the Society meets today. In the restaurant Nathaniel's (formerly The Main Brace), a ship's wheel from the original meeting hall has become a focal point for strange activity. Staff and guests have watched the wheel turn entirely on its own. When someone stops it by hand, it resumes spinning after they walk away.

On the sixth floor, guests report a woman in a long white dress who walks the hallway, pausing outside Room 612 before moving on or standing motionless for minutes. Those who stay in 612 describe the heavy sensation of sharing the room with someone they cannot see. The woman has been seen entering the room at night, lingering near the mirror. Guests wake to ice-cold hands on their shoulders and arms, or feel their hair tugged by fingers that are not there. Nobody has identified her, though some connect her to Bridget Bishop.

The hotel drew national attention over the decades. In 1970, the television series "Bewitched" filmed scenes in the hotel's elevator. On October 30, 1990, a seance in the Grand Ballroom attempted to reach the ghost of Harry Houdini on the 64th anniversary of his death. It failed. In 2007, SyFy's Ghost Hunters investigated the property and reported no definitive evidence — though this has done little to convince the guests who have experienced the phenomena firsthand.

The Hawthorne was added to the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Historic Hotels of America in 1990. It has hosted President Bill Clinton and actress Vanessa Redgrave (while filming a PBS series about the witch trials), and served as a filming location for the 2015 movie "Joy." But the uninvited guests — the woman in white, the phantom baby, the old sea captains still turning their wheel — are the ones who made the Hawthorne legendary.