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The Hanging Judge of Witches & Haunts of Charter Street · The Grim: Haunted Cemeteries & Graveyard Tales

• 0:13
  Kristin Lopes: Good morning and welcome to the grim.
• 0:16
  Kristin Lopes: I'm your host, Kristin.
• 0:18
  Kristin Lopes: On today's episode, we'll be opening the gate and entering charter street cemetery located in Salem, Massachusetts.
• 0:25
  Kristin Lopes: So grab your favorite mug cozy up and let's take a dig into history.
• 0:31
  Kristin Lopes: Yeah.
• 0:31
  Kristin Lopes: After grueling hot summers, when the fresh crisp air finally hits Halloween enthusiasts had their way to save them for some spellbound fun.
• 0:41
  Kristin Lopes: It's the time of year when new England sees tourists rushing in.
• 0:45
  Kristin Lopes: None more so than Salem, Massachusetts.
• 0:48
  Kristin Lopes: Famously known for the wrong reasons.
• 0:50
  Kristin Lopes: It's hard not to know the tales of the Salem witch trials.
• 0:54
  Kristin Lopes: The golden red leaves and historic colonial homes.
• 0:57
  Kristin Lopes: Surrounded old stone walled cemetery in the center of Salem.
• 1:01
  Kristin Lopes: Originally known as old burial point.
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  Kristin Lopes: It's now renamed a charter street cemetery.
• 1:07
  Kristin Lopes: The cemetery dates back from the 1637, with 485 headstones and our own 600 residents.
• 1:15
  Kristin Lopes: The vital number buried due to not all the graves having headstones is unknown, but an estimation.
• 1:21
  Kristin Lopes: Salem was one of the founding cities of America.
• 1:25
  Kristin Lopes: But the quick craze of accusations for witchcraft.
• 1:28
  Kristin Lopes: Or which hysteria.
• 1:29
  Kristin Lopes: Persecution and death sentences overshadow the rest of his history.
• 1:35
  Kristin Lopes: Of the hundreds of accusations of witchcraft around new England.
• 1:38
  Kristin Lopes: Salem is the most historically known.
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  Kristin Lopes: Now more of a Halloween Haven than a historical destination.
• 1:45
  Kristin Lopes: The city fully embraced its witch trial history.
• 1:48
  Kristin Lopes: Tourists might find themselves on city walking tours.
• 1:51
  Kristin Lopes: ghost hunts or in one of the many cities, which themed shops buying trinkets.
• 1:56
  Kristin Lopes: Yet the real question is how to do group fleeing religious persecution from one establishment.
• 2:03
  Kristin Lopes: Find themselves committing the same acts against their own.
• 2:07
  Kristin Lopes: Salem found itself in a unique situation in the 16 hundreds and in the middle of establishing a new colony.
• 2:14
  Kristin Lopes: A group of preteen girls used, which hysteria to their advantage.
• 2:19
  Kristin Lopes: By accusing their own neighbors for very personal reasons of being in league with the devil and inflicting harm to them using skills of so-called witchcraft.
• 2:29
  Kristin Lopes: But how was charter street cemetery in the witch trials connected with no witches buried on the grounds.
• 2:35
  Kristin Lopes: Located right outside the cemetery is the Salem witch trials Memorial.
• 2:40
  Kristin Lopes: Due to the accused being guilty of witchcraft and in league with the devil, they were no longer allowed to be buried on consecrated land.
• 2:48
  Kristin Lopes: Making it impossible for any of them to be laid to rest in charter street cemetery.
• 2:54
  Kristin Lopes: Or any other local graveyard and Salem.
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  Kristin Lopes: Families of the accused have private burials under darkness, lost to history.
• 3:02
  Kristin Lopes: But the Memorial is the best place to remember their grim fates.
• 3:06
  Kristin Lopes: Actually right outside the gates of their prosecutors grave.
• 3:10
  Kristin Lopes: Every fall millions pay the respect to the wrongly accused.
• 3:14
  Kristin Lopes: Each of the witches are listed in stone by name.
• 3:18
  Kristin Lopes: With their year of execution and how they met their grim fate.
• 3:22
  Kristin Lopes: With the overcrowded streets of Salem during Halloween, the Memorial is a solemn place though, with tourists realizing the reality of the Salem witch trials.
• 3:32
  Kristin Lopes: That it's all, not just a bunch of Hocus Pocus in the witch city.
• 3:37
  Kristin Lopes: Upon entering the grounds you're quickly met by judge John Hawthorne.
• 3:41
  Kristin Lopes: Known to locals as the hanging judge judges.
• 3:44
  Kristin Lopes: During this time we're supposed to assist the accused and defense and guarantee a fair trial.
• 3:49
  Kristin Lopes: Hawthorne didn't he famously was known for his harsh questioning and biased views in the trial.
• 3:55
  Kristin Lopes: Even going as far to overturning the acquittal of Rebecca nurse.
• 3:59
  Kristin Lopes: And convincing the jury to a guilty verdict.
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  Kristin Lopes: After years past, most of all those involved had guilty conscious of the deaths and treatment they caused the innocent victims.
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  Kristin Lopes: Hawthorne, however, didn't.
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  Kristin Lopes: Even on his death bed, he never repented felt differently of his actions.
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  Kristin Lopes: All of the trials outcomes.
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  Kristin Lopes: Hawthorne's great.
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  Kristin Lopes: Great grandson is the famous American author, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
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  Kristin Lopes: Hawthorne shame and his family's actions and partake in the trials.
• 4:28
  Kristin Lopes: I created the catalyst for him to add the letter w to his last name, to distance himself from their reputation.
• 4:36
  Kristin Lopes: Hawthorne and his family though, still lived in Salem.
• 4:39
  Kristin Lopes: His wife, Sophia suffered from migraines and they took nightly walks around old burial point.
• 4:45
  Kristin Lopes: They're walks her said to give inspiration for, to Hawthorne for his writing.
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  Kristin Lopes: Maybe his ancestor.
• 4:51
  Kristin Lopes: Wasn't too happy with his choice in differentiating his last name and overheard Sophia and, and they had.
• 4:58
  Kristin Lopes: Those talks.
• 4:59
  Kristin Lopes: Which might've led him to attempt to reach out or be seen.
• 5:03
  Kristin Lopes: Judge Hawthorne is rumored to hunt the grounds at night.
• 5:07
  Kristin Lopes: I'm hearing photographs by visitors near his grave.
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  Kristin Lopes: Or as a dark apparition to the eye.
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  Kristin Lopes: Nearby is judged birther and mule Jed.
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  Kristin Lopes: Another well-known appointed judge in the witch trials.
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  Kristin Lopes: He personally was a good friend and acquaintance of one of the men accused of witchcraft, captain John Alden.
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  Kristin Lopes: Beyond friendship.
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  Kristin Lopes: They had also been shipmates at sea.
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  Kristin Lopes: Jenny was supposedly conflicted with the accusations against the captain.
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  Kristin Lopes: But he doubted his honesty.
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  Kristin Lopes: If he was in league with the devil, when questioning came in court.
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  Kristin Lopes: He was believed the accused could lie and not be honest in their testimonies as they turn their back on God.
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  Kristin Lopes: Each time Alden looked at as accusers in the room, the inflicted girls found out and fit.
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  Kristin Lopes: Aldan then quit.
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  Kristin Lopes: Why he wasn't succumbing to fits or falling down.
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  Kristin Lopes: We looking at him.
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  Kristin Lopes: Like the others.
• 6:00
  Kristin Lopes: But the judge remained silent.
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  Kristin Lopes: Captain Alden's case shows us how the witch hysteria was starting to appear to be more formed of false accusations and created fits.
• 6:12
  Kristin Lopes: Not from witchcraft, but from just preteen girls.
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  Kristin Lopes: Luckily for Alden after being taken into custody and being sent to Boston, he escaped a few months later.
• 6:22
  Kristin Lopes: His tale, although tragic in many ways was more fortunate than others accused.
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  Kristin Lopes: Both Hawthorne and Jenny at one point.
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  Kristin Lopes: Partook in witchcraft while questioning a slave who claimed to be a witch.
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  Kristin Lopes: They experimented with a method she claimed to use on her victims yet, somehow, both men weren't seen violating the law regardless of their actions.
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  Kristin Lopes: It's also worth noting slaves who were tried for witchcraft were ordered by their employers to confess to the crime.
• 6:52
  Kristin Lopes: And not all given fair trials.
• 6:54
  Kristin Lopes: Jenny did sit on many of the Salem witch trial cases, but also saw normal court cases during the height of the wish hysteria.
• 7:03
  Kristin Lopes: Hawthorne Jitney.
• 7:04
  Kristin Lopes: We're part of an emergency court.
• 7:06
  Kristin Lopes: The special court of oil and termer, meaning to hear and decide for the witch trials.
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  Kristin Lopes: Jenny and Hawthorne were just two of the judges on a panel of many during the trials.
• 7:17
  Kristin Lopes: The witch trials ended when they were placed on hold from complaints to the system.
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  Kristin Lopes: From the citizens of Salem.
• 7:24
  Kristin Lopes: When the cases were allowed to be tried again, spectral evidence was no longer allowed.
• 7:29
  Kristin Lopes: This evidence was mainly used on the cases prior for guilty conviction.
• 7:34
  Kristin Lopes: But no other evidence and a lack of solid cases.
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  Kristin Lopes: This put an end to the trials and the emergency court.
• 7:41
  Kristin Lopes: The burial ground is filled with other notable prominent members of the Salem community during the trials.
• 7:47
  Kristin Lopes: But also other few residents from history pointing out the last governor of Massachusetts bay colony, Simon, Brad street.
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  Kristin Lopes: Chief justice, Benjamin Lynn, who oversaw the Boston massacre trial.
• 8:00
  Kristin Lopes: And captain Roger Moore, passenger of the Mayflower who was just six years old on the journey are all buried within.
• 8:08
  Kristin Lopes: Charter street.
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  Kristin Lopes: Cemetery has beautifully aged headstones.
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  Kristin Lopes: Carved with heads of wings, symbolizing the soul, leaving the body.
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  Kristin Lopes: And early British, colonial speech inscribed to the souls, laid to rest.
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  Kristin Lopes: That makes a picture.
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  Kristin Lopes: Perfect cemetery worth strolling on a fall day.
• 8:25
  Kristin Lopes: Yeah, many of the homes or businesses surrounding the grounds claim, they're visited by past residents of charter street.
• 8:33
  Kristin Lopes: Apparitions and a nearby bar, a Victorian woman, and a child is tourist.
• 8:38
  Kristin Lopes: Enjoy lunch while touring Salem are very common.
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  Kristin Lopes: It's also speculated that some of the nearby buildings are built on graves or remains from the cemetery.
• 8:49
  Kristin Lopes: Uh, coffin was found in the safe, nearby bar.
• 8:52
  Kristin Lopes: During the modeling, which as you can imagine, Contributes to the stories and hauntings of Salem.
• 8:58
  Kristin Lopes: Some visitors will walking the grounds have experienced a heavy feeling of depression when walking among the graves has, if there's little hope to be found in the world, deepen sadness and despair.
• 9:10
  Kristin Lopes: Another resident we haven't mentioned yet, is Mary Bright Corey.
• 9:15
  Kristin Lopes: The second late wife of Corey gills.
• 9:18
  Kristin Lopes: Gives us the infamous so-called witch who was pressed the death in the witch trials.
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  Kristin Lopes: Why though was he the only one?
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  Kristin Lopes: He refused sentencing and wouldn't accept the charges of witchcraft against him remaining silent the entire time.
• 9:34
  Kristin Lopes: According to British law back then if a subject refused sentencing.
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  Kristin Lopes: They were pressed to death.
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  Kristin Lopes: Gil's died from the pressure just eight years after Mary's passing.
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  Kristin Lopes: She is rumored to heart charter street appearing as an apparition in the back corner of the cemetery.
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  Kristin Lopes: Mary is seen wearing a blue powder dress while holding a picnic basket in hand and sometimes seen with a young boy believed to be her son, both had passed away from a fire.
• 10:04
  Kristin Lopes: Some believes the sightings of a lady in white senior round charters straight also might be married.
• 10:10
  Kristin Lopes: The lady in white is very elusive and camera shy.
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  Kristin Lopes: So it's hard to say for sure.
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  Kristin Lopes: It's speculated that the Irish immigrants who are buried on the outskirts of the cemetery, where the sightings happen might be the lady in white, in the stead.
• 10:25
  Kristin Lopes: The separation of the Irish from the main cemeteries consecrated land from being Catholic was still a very common practice at this time.
• 10:33
  Kristin Lopes: Sometimes unsuspecting tourists catch more than they bargained for on their visit.
• 10:39
  Kristin Lopes: Happily snapping photos inside the grounds.
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  Kristin Lopes: They then discover disturbing hauntings in their photography afterward.
• 10:46
  Kristin Lopes: And it's picking up from graves, dark shadows, and some images, tourists can't even speak of hump, their photos.
• 10:54
  Kristin Lopes: The ghost tour is during the fall season, showing the grounds have spooked their share of Salem tourists.
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  Kristin Lopes: More than some care to admit.
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  Kristin Lopes: Apparitions orbs, EDPs, lightweight mists.
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  Kristin Lopes: And mysterious shadows have all been reported.
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  Kristin Lopes: Some say it's possible.
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  Kristin Lopes: Charter street is one of the most haunted places in Salem or possibly the east coast.
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  Kristin Lopes: The exchange of family plots where remains were removed from graves and discarded elsewhere adds to the lore.
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  Kristin Lopes: Misfortune or falling on hard times who caused the sale of family plots to other families or a lack of descendants.
• 11:34
  Kristin Lopes: I knew myself and I think others think of graves as a once buried forever type of situation.
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  Kristin Lopes: So it's a weird, McCobb part of history that removal occurred that isn't spoken of often.
• 11:47
  Kristin Lopes: I personally find it weird.
• 11:48
  Kristin Lopes: How often.
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  Kristin Lopes: graves were recycled or reused in history or remains discarded like ordinary objects.
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  Kristin Lopes: When you learn about the history of graveyards.
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  Kristin Lopes: Salem's charter street.
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  Kristin Lopes: Cemetery was no different.
• 12:01
  Kristin Lopes: Which has visitors and locals, both wondering.
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  Kristin Lopes: Do the walls or charter street even matter, or really end as we see them today.
• 12:09
  Kristin Lopes: Every inch of Salem is filled with as much history as old bearing point.
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  Kristin Lopes: It's all tied together, woven into tales of witches and colonization in American history.
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  Kristin Lopes: Movies books entails of the witches in Salem are now part of the essence of American culture.
• 12:26
  Kristin Lopes: Cult favorites, Hocus Pocus or practical magic are great.
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  Kristin Lopes: Examples of movies dipping into the folklores of Salem.
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  Kristin Lopes: Turning witches into bedtime stories for all Hallows Eve or intriguing tales for the young at heart.
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  Kristin Lopes: The classic, such as Nathaniel, Hawthorne's the house of the seven Gables and aren't there Millers the crucibles ideals and inspirations came from these very tragic tales.
• 12:52
  Kristin Lopes: The nurse family did fight Rebecca's verdict for many years after 1692.
• 12:57
  Kristin Lopes: The nurse family was a prominent one in Salem village community.
• 13:01
  Kristin Lopes: She was the first victim to be absolved at the trials in the late 17 hundreds.
• 13:06
  Kristin Lopes: Her family had a stone Memorial built in her honor in Salem village, which is now modern day Danvers, Massachusetts.
• 13:14
  Kristin Lopes: Shockingly it wasn't until the 1950s that the state of Massachusetts overturned the original rulings absolving six of the victims.
• 13:23
  Kristin Lopes: This set of course of events for all eventually to be absolved, but for the hundreds of years, how much forgiveness can be in an overturn of rulings so long ago.
• 13:35
  The Memorial to the Salem witch trial victims, just yards away from the prosecutors who sealed their grim fate hundreds of years ago.
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  Make charter street cemetery a unique visit.
• 13:48
  It gives us pause and a history lesson of those gone before us in the middle of a lot of Halloween Hocus Pocus.
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  But it also leaves visitors wondering.
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  Where does charter street, cemetery end, or might there be a grave under the Memorial of witches?
• 14:05
  What do you think?
• 14:07
  The grave grind for charter street cemetery was a gingerbread latte.
• 14:11
  From the recently opened coffee shop within black craft cult on Essex street.
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  Please visit the-grim.com for more honorary grinds in the area.
• 14:22
  Salem is a local coffee shop Haven for caffeine addicts.
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  Her now we're closing the gate on charter street cemetery.
• 14:31
  We hope you enjoyed our dig into history.
• 14:33
  If you did subscribe today to join us next time, when we open the gate.
• 14:38
  On the grim.