Howard Street Cemetery

A cemetery from 1801, tucked right next to where the Salem jail once stood — the same jail that held the accused during the witch trials. A lot of history is buried here, literally.

"More weight."

Those were the last words of Giles Corey, an 81-year-old farmer who became the only person in American history to be pressed to death by order of a court. The site of his execution — now Howard Street Cemetery — is considered the most haunted ground in Salem. And the curse he uttered with his dying breath has been claiming victims for three centuries.

In April 1692, during the Salem witch hysteria, five afflicted girls accused Corey and his wife Martha of witchcraft. Corey had accumulated considerable wealth over his lifetime, and under Salem law, convicted witches forfeited their property. Rather than risk a trial that would strip his sons-in-law of their inheritance, he refused to enter a plea.

The punishment was peine forte et dure — "strong and harsh punishment" — a medieval torture never before used in Massachusetts. On September 19, 1692, Corey was stripped, laid on the ground, and a wooden board was placed across his chest. Heavy stones were piled on, one by one, crushing him over three days.

Sheriff George Corwin supervised personally. When Corey's tongue was pressed out of his mouth, Corwin forced it back in with his cane. Periodically, Corey was asked to enter a plea. Each time, he refused. "More weight," he demanded. The sheriff obliged.

Before he died, Corey fixed his eyes on Corwin and cursed him: "Damn you! I curse you and Salem!"

Three days later, his wife Martha was hanged on Gallows Hill.

The curse took its first victim four years later. Sheriff George Corwin dropped dead of a heart attack in 1696. He was 30. Since then, every Sheriff of Essex County has either died in office or resigned due to heart or blood ailments. The pattern continued for nearly 300 years until 1991, when the sheriff's office moved from Salem to Middleton — finally breaking, some believe, the three-century hex.

Former Sheriff Robert Cahill experienced it firsthand. In 1978, the night before suffering a heart attack that forced him into early retirement, Cahill says he saw Giles Corey's ghost in Howard Street Cemetery. An old man in colonial clothing, staring at him with unmistakable malice.

Corey shows up whenever disaster threatens Salem. He was reportedly seen the night before the Great Salem Fire of June 25, 1914 — a conflagration that killed three people, injured sixty, and destroyed 1,376 buildings. The fire started near Gallows Hill, where his wife had been hanged 222 years earlier. Witnesses describe an old man wandering the cemetery in the hours before dawn, then vanishing as flames erupted across the city.

Howard Street Cemetery was established in 1801, though the land holds older dead. Approximately 1,100 tombstones mark the graves of Revolutionary War soldiers, early settlers, and other witch trial victims. Colonel Samuel Colton, who fought at Fort Ticonderoga, rests here. So does George Crowninshield Jr., America's first yachtsman, and Prince Farmer, a wealthy African-American abolitionist.

But Corey dominates this ground. He lies in an unmarked grave — the courts never gave him a proper burial — but his presence is unmistakable. Visitors see him wandering among the headstones at night, particularly when trouble is coming. Dark figures move between graves. Voices speak from empty air. Strange mists form without explanation. Light appears in photographs where none was visible to the eye.

The cemetery closes at dusk, and trespassing is illegal — a rule many believe exists not to protect the grounds, but to protect visitors.

Giles Corey spent three days dying rather than submit to a court he knew was corrupt. He protected his family's inheritance with his body and his silence. And with his last breath, he made sure Salem would never forget what it did to him. The curse remains. The ghost remains. Anyone who doubts it can visit Howard Street Cemetery and see for themselves — if they dare stay until dark.