Where the Witches Hid: Four Legendary Witch Locations in Massachusetts

When the Salem witch trials happened in 1692, most of the accused were arrested and put on trial. A handful, however, got wind of their arrest and fled Salem. Philip and Mary English escaped to New York, while John Alden either fled to either New York or Duxbury. Constable John Willard ran off to Lancaster, but was arrested there and ultimately executed in Salem. 

The Salem witch trials loom large in the history of Massachusetts, and many legends have developed around them. Here are four legendary locations where victims of the Salem witch trials supposedly hid from their persecutors. Is there any truth to these legends? Read on...

Witches Woods (Beverly)

There is a forested area in Beverly called Beverly Commons, but it was once known as Witches Woods. One explanation for this name is that Giles Corey, one of the more famous victims of the Salem witch trials, fled Salem Village home after being accused and hid in Beverly. 

I haven't found any evidence that Corey hid in Beverly before his arrest. Corey's fame rests on the fact that he was crushed to death with heavy stones while being interrogated by Salem's sheriff. Folklore claims that he stubbornly refused to answer any questions as the stones were piled on his body and his only dying words were, "More weight." His story and reputation grew over the years, and in the 19th century a poem called "The Ballad of Giles Corey" even claimed he was a sinister wizard and not a victim of injustice. But there's nothing to show he fled to Beverly. 

I certainly understand the temptation to connect an infamous historic personage like Giles Corey to a locale with an odd name. But I think Witches Woods got its name for an even stranger reason. According to Caroline King Howard, a wealthy Salem resident who vacationed in Beverly with her family in the 1840s, Witches Woods was said to the location of a haunted farmhouse. The farmhouse usually appeared as an old ruin, but at other times it seemed to be inhabited and in good repair. Travelers often got lost in the woods near the strange house, wandering for hours in an area that was not that large. A headless ghost also reputedly haunted the woods, wandering sadly among the trees with his head under one arm.

The Garrison Witch House (Rockport)

After farmer John Proctor of Salem Village was accused of witchcraft, his pregnant wife Elizabeth fled north to Rockport on Cape Ann. Her sons lived in that town and built a house to shelter their mother. The house, called the Witch House or the Garrison Witch House, is still standing today.

This is another legend that is probably not historically accurate. Elizabeth Proctor was imprisoned with her husband but her execution was delayed because she was pregnant. She was not executed and she and her child were released from prison in May of 1693. There's not evidence that she fled to Rockport.

The website Vintage Rockport points out that the Garrison Witch House was originally just called the Garrison House and may actually predate the Salem trials, possibly being built in the 1670s. But Vintage Rockport also points out that the house has been called the Witch House since at least the early 1900s. Here's a postcard from 1926 showing the Witch House:

I do wonder how and why the legend of Elizabeth Proctor became attached to this house. I also wonder if the house was originally associated with some other witch whose name has long been forgotten. Although the Salem witches are the most famous in the state, there were hundreds of witches in Massachusetts, both legendary and historical, who are less well known. 

It's also possible the term "Witch House" might have just meant "old creepy house." When I was a child in Haverhill there was a spooky looking Victorian house a few blocks from us. It loomed above the street on an embankment and was in perpetual disrepair. I sometimes heard people refer to it as the "Witch House." No one said a witch actually lived there, but it looked like one might. 

Witch Rock (Rochester)

Witch Rock is a large boulder in Southeastern Massachusetts. When I first wrote about it several years ago I was aware of four interconnected theories explaining its name:

1. The rock was originally the site of local Native American religious ceremonies. When the Puritans arrived they mistakenly identified these ceremonies (and the rock) with witchcraft.

2. When the Puritans arrived they noticed that the Native Americans avoided the rock and therefore they named it Witch Rock.

3. According to a Rochester legend, the soul of an executed witch is trapped inside the rock, along with some nefarious demons. The witch and demons can sometimes be heard howling from inside as they try to escape through the boulder's cracks.

4. The local Native Americans thought a witch was trapped inside the rock.

Commenters on my blog pointed out that there was also a fifth explanation. One of Rochester's early settlers was a man named Mark Haskell. According to tradition, Haskell was asked to be a juror in the Salem witch trials. He refused, and to avoid persecution he fled south to Rochester. He took shelter near a large boulder, which was named Witch Rock in commemoration. This story seems to be well-known among Haskell family genealogy buffs, and Mark Haskell is often referred to by them as Witchcraft Mark. 

I really don't know which of these theories is correct. Perhaps there is some truth to all of them? The boulder has been called Witch Rock since at least the late 19th century, and even today it is painted with the image of a witch and is often the site of Halloween festivities. The legend lives on!

Witch Caves (Ashland)

Many years ago Tony and I traveled out to Ashland to find the mysterious Witch Caves. 

After the witch trials ended in 1693, the families of those who were accused moved west out of Salem to Framingham. According to tradition, they sheltered in a series of caves while they built houses in their new home. The caves are now located in a large park in Ashland, which split from Framingham in the 1840s.

It took us a while, but I think we found the caves that day. They were filled with dead leaves a yard deep and didn't look that safe, but here are a couple photos from way back in 2012. Forgive the low quality!

Did refugees from the Salem witch trials live in these caves? It's possible. Families from Salem did settle in this part of the state - a Framingham street near the park is named Salem's End Road, and historians have confirmed that a house on that road was built by Sarah Clayse, who was the sister of Rebecca Nurse and Mary Easty. 

Rebecca and Mary were executed as witches during the Salem trials, while Sarah was only imprisoned. After the trials ended she and her husband Peter left Salem for Framingham. They didn't want to live near the people who had murdered their relatives. Several other Salem families followed them. So there is some basis to the Witch Caves legend. We don't know for certain that the refugees lived in the caves, but we do know that the settled in that area. 

Do you know any other legends about places where witches hid? Please leave a comment if you do. I'm curious to learn more.

Peabody's Witch Rock: Occult Symbols Connected to The Salem Witches?

Do you have an extra $600,000 sitting around? Are you interested in New England history or witchcraft? If so you might want to purchase the house at 348 Lowell Street in Peabody, Massachusetts, which recently went on the market. The house was the home of John Proctor, one of the people executed during the Salem witch trials.

Proctor, who was immortalized in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, was a farmer in Salem Village. One of his servants, a young woman named Mary Warren, was one of the afflicted girls who accused dozens of innocent people of witchcraft. Perhaps if Proctor had played along he would have escaped the gallows, but he didn't. Instead he told Warren that she was faking her symptoms and if she didn't stop he'd beat her. He also threatened to beat John Indian, a slave and the husband of Tituba, when he accused Proctor's wife of being a witch. Needless to say, Proctor's doubtful and threatening attitude didn't sit well with the afflicted girls and they soon accused him of being a witch too.

Proctor was executed on August 19, 1692. His wife escaped the gallows because she was pregnant at the time and did not give birth until after the trials had ended.

The real estate listing for the Proctor house claims it dates to 1638, but the Peabody Historical Society says it is unclear how old most of the current structure is. It's likely that multiple additions and renovations have been made over the property's 300+ years of occupation. It does have six bedrooms, which is nice, and has a dining room "which can accommodate your largest holiday gathering." There's also an inground pool.

Image from Historical Archaeology, Vol. 15, No. 1.

This weekend as I was taking the train to Salem for Halloween festivities two friends reminded me of something I had forgotten: there is a large mysterious boulder near the Proctor House called Witch Rock. I wrote about it a few years ago in my book Legends and Lore of The North Shore (2014). The boulder is covered with occult symbols that may (or may not) be connected with the Salem witch trials.

The boulder was first discovered in 1978 by a group of archaeologists surveying Peabody. They were intrigued by the stone's faintly visible sigils which were done in black paint. (The photo above has been retouched to highlight them.) To quote one of the archaeologists who found the boulder:

The central symbol, which is over a meter in diameter, is a pentacle or five-pointed star with point downward surrounded by concentric circles. The appearance of the star has been heightened by infilling. Between the circles at the points of the star are poorly preserved cabalistic designs. The lesser symbols are a caduceus and a composite figure made from the sign for Aries (reversed) and the Cross of Lorraine or the Archiepiscopal Cross. (Richard Michael Gramly, "Witchcraft Pictographs from Near Salem, Massachusetts." Historical Archaeology, Vol. 15, no. 1(1981), pp. 113 - 116.)

When I first heard about Witch Rock I thought "Oh, that has got to be a fake." The archaeologists considered this a possibility too, but they tested the paint and discovered that it was not modern paint. It was made from hematite and either milk or egg whites. In other words, not something that you can buy at Home Depot and was probably not applied to the rock by teenagers who liked Black Sabbath. It was probably quite old and had survived the harsh winters and summers only because the rock faces south and had a very rough surface which held the paint.

But just how old are those sigils really? Archaeologist Richard Michael Gramly conjectured in 1981 that the boulder was the work of 17th century Salem Villagers who were afraid of witches. Although the reverse pentagram is often a symbol of the Devil, Gramly notes that it has also been used to avert the evil eye.

The entire composition would appear to be a warning against witches. Freshly painted and exposed to view the granite block with its pictographs would have drawn the attention of every passerby. If it were painted in the late seventeenth century, the composition would have sheltered nearby residents from all sorts of evil. The pictographs are not likely to be the work of witches but rather of people mortally afraid of their powers. (Richard Michael Gramly, "Witchcraft Pictographs from Near Salem, Massachusetts." Historical Archaeology, Vol. 15, no. 1(1981), pp. 113 - 116.)

There is one problem with this theory: there's no evidence that the people of 17th century Salem Village used these symbols for defensive magic or even used them at all. There's lots of documentation about the types of defensive magic Puritans did use, including witch bottles, horseshoes hung over entrances, daisy wheel carvings, and iron implements hidden in walls. Inverse pentagrams and the caduceus aren't mentioned in those documents. The Puritan clergy hated all magic, even the benign kind, so it seems likely a giant sigil-covered boulder at the epicenter of the Salem witch trials would have drawn their attention and ire. But it didn't, so perhaps the symbols didn't exist in 1692.

Gramly does briefly also consider the possibility that people may have painted Witch Rock in 1892 as parts of the bicentennial observances of the Salem trials. Lectures were held in the area at that time and witch trial souvenirs were sold so perhaps someone created the sigils as part of the commemorative events. He thinks the paint used is older than the 1890s though. 

Jeff Belanger points out in his book Weird Massachusetts that the symbols resemble some in Francis Barrett's 1801 book The Magus. Perhaps occultists painted the symbols on the boulder in the 19th century. But then again, Barrett used lots of older grimoires to compose The Magus - he was not the first person to use these symbols. They existed before the book's publication.

I don't think the mystery of Witch Rock will be resolved given the current information we have. It's just one of those weird and interesting things about New England. I have never been to Witch Rock, but my friends who have been say it is on private property and is surrounded by poison ivy. Salvatore Trento includes a map in his 1997 book Field Guide to the Mysterious Places of Eastern North America, but I do not know if it is accurate. Trento also notes that Witch Rock is in Danvers. It's an easy mistake to make and is one that I unfortunately included in my book Legends and Lore of the North Shore. 

There are several other boulders in New England named Witch Rock, including one in Rochester, Massachusetts and another (well, technically Witches Rock) in Bristol, Connecticut. Perhaps destinations for autumn road trips?

Rochester's Witch Rock

There are a lot of rocks in New England.

There are a lot of stories about witches in New England.

Therefore, there should be stories about witches and rocks in New England! And there are...

I was recently looking through the United States Geographic Survey for places with the the word "witch" in their name. There are quite a few, and they will probably be featured in an upcoming blog post. I was particularly struck by three rocks named Witch Rock or Witches Rock in southern New England. They each have an interesting story, but today I'm writing about one I was not familiar with.

It's located in Rochester, a town in southeastern Massachusetts near New Bedford. The rock, which sits on private property near an intersection, is quite large and imposing with a height of about 12 feet. The silhouette of a witch on a broomstick is painted on it, along with the words "Witch Rock." There's no mistaking that this is Witch Rock.

The boulder has called Witch Rock for many years. An 1899 edition of The Bay State Monthly called it a "vine-covered, romantic-looking bowlder," and it was apparently a destination for picnickers and tourists who wanted to visit the bucolic countryside.

It's not quite clear how this particular rock got its supernatural reputation. As I said earlier, there are a lot of rocks in New England, and many of them are stranger looking than this one. Why did this boulder get a spooky reputation?

A vintage postcard of Witch Rock from this amazing site about boulders!

One compelling theory is that the rock was initially a Native American holy place. In the spring 2004 issue of the New England Archaeological Society Bulletin, Martin Dudek and Craig Chartier mention a tradition that native shamans (pow-wows in the local Algonquian dialect) would sit and watch mists rise from the crevices in the stone. Perhaps this was some type of divination? English settlers usually labeled native religious practices as witchcraft, so it makes sense that an Algonquian holy rock would be renamed Witch Rock. Rather than a place for divine inspiration it became a place of terror.

The modern legends associated with Witch Rock are less sociological and more supernatural. One is that the soul of a witch hanged during the witch trials is trapped inside the rock, along with various evil spirits. All of them like to howl and sometimes try to escape through the cracks in the rock. Another legend claims the early settlers noticed the Indians avoided the rock, and concluded that it must be bewitched. A third combines all these and says the Indians avoided the rock because there was a dead witch's soul trapped in it.

Whatever the origin of its reputation, Witch Rock probably does have some connection to Native American lore. According to a May 2012 article in Southeastern Massachusetts newspaper The Wanderer, the property the boulder sits on was owned for many years by a family of Abenaki and Pequawket descent. The matriarch of the family, Shirley Vaughn Thompson Norton, told her children that the spirit of a hanged witch lived inside the boulder and would emerge every full moon. On Halloween night the boulder was naturally used as the backdrop for apple-bobbing and other festivities.

Mrs. Norton can probably be credited with maintaining the legend of Witch Rock. For example, in the 1960s she designed commemorative Witch Rock plates and sold them to the local chamber of commerce, and in the 1990s she began painting the witch's silhouette on the boulder. Sadly her family no longer owns the property but the legend seems to be firmly established now! It would be interesting to know how long her family owned the house and how long they had been telling the legend.

Rochester seems to be the place to live if you like spooky rocks. According to Mattapoisset and Old Rochester (1907) by Mary Hall Leonard, the town also has a Devil's Rock which bears the imprint of Satan's footprint. Some towns get all the fun boulders!