The Witch House

The only building left in Salem with a direct connection to the 1692 witch trials. Judge Jonathan Corwin actually interrogated accused witches in these rooms. The Corwin family owned it until the mid-1800s.

Four-year-old Dorothy Good told the magistrates that she had "a little Snake that used to Suck on the lowest Joint of her Fore-Finger." They examined her hand and found a deep red spot about the size of a flea bite. She spent nearly nine months in custody before being released on a bond of fifty pounds. She was the youngest person accused during the Salem witch trials — and her examination was overseen by Judge Jonathan Corwin, the man who lived in this house.

The Witch House at 310 Essex Street is the only remaining structure in Salem with direct ties to the 1692 trials. Corwin purchased it in 1675 from Captain Nathaniel Davenport and moved in with his family. He had inherited a substantial Puritan fortune, and when accusations erupted across Salem in February 1692, he was called to serve as a magistrate. Some historians believe pretrial examinations may have been conducted inside the house itself, though no primary source explicitly confirms it. What is documented is that on March 24, 1692, Corwin, along with John Hathorne and John Higginson, examined Dorothy Good at the prison keeper's house.

Corwin went on to serve on the Court of Oyer and Terminer that sentenced twenty-eight people to death. He replaced Judge Nathaniel Saltonstall, who had resigned after the execution of Bridget Bishop on June 10, 1692. Of all the judges involved, Corwin was the only one who never apologized.

Then came the losses. Between 1684 and 1690, Jonathan and Elizabeth Corwin buried five children in rapid succession: John at nine weeks, Margaret at six months, Jonathan Jr. at three months, Herbert at eight weeks, and Anna at nineteen. The pattern kept going — Reverend George Corwin died in 1717, his wife Mehitable in 1718, and Jonathan himself that same year. People called it the Corwin Curse. Whether it was coincidence or something else has been debated for over three centuries.

The house itself nearly disappeared in 1944 when it was slated for demolition to widen North Street. Historic Salem Inc. raised funds to move the building thirty-five feet from its original position, and architect Gordon Robb oversaw a restoration to its presumed seventeenth-century state — diamond-paned windows, center chimney, gable roof. The museum opened in 1946. During the work, several artifacts of seventeenth-century folk magic turned up inside the walls: a black shoe placed as a ward against witches, "witch bottles" containing human hair, pins, fingernails, and urine used as counter-magic, and a poppet doll originally found at Bridget Bishop's home that had been presented as evidence at her trial.

Visitors today describe a chill that crawls up their bodies as they move through the dark, low-ceilinged rooms. Electronic devices malfunction inside the house with regularity. Multiple people have heard a little girl's voice — some connect her to Dorothy Good — echoing from rooms where nobody is standing. Others have been touched by hands they could not see. A man in a black suit, believed to be Judge Corwin, has been spotted on more than one occasion, accompanied by heavy footsteps and doors slamming shut.

Ghost Adventures investigated the Witch House during their fourth season in 2011 and recorded what they described as the spirit of Bridget Bishop attempting to communicate, along with a child's voice captured on their equipment. Interest in the house's spirits goes back much earlier: in 1900, Carrie Peabody Bly claimed she was "bewitched by spirits in the house and could communicate with them," spending time in the upper chambers trying to reach them. Today the Witch House operates as a museum managed by the City of Salem, drawing visitors who come for the history and for the chance to encounter whatever still lingers in the home of the judge who condemned them.