Site of infamous Salem witch hangings is now a Walgreens

This Walgreens now stands where
the 1692 hangings of the Salem
witches took place.Researchers this week pinpointed the

exact spot where 19 witches were
hanged in Salem centuries ago: a
wooded area now overlooking a
Walgreens.
Salem Mayor Kimberley Driscoll plans
to erect a small memorial at Boston
Street between Proctor and Pope
streets after seven scholars with the
Gallows Hill Project confirmed it to
be the location of the 1692
hangings.
Illustration of Martha Corey, who was
found guilty and hanged in
1692.
Previously, it was believed that the
witches met their maker on Gallows
Hill.
Researchers used aerial photography,
eyewitness accounts and advanced
mapping technology to make their
determination of the area, known as
Proctor’s Ledge, as the killing spot.
The work, which spanned five years,
also relied on previous research
done by historian Sidney Perley, who
had also earmarked the area after
extensive research.
Lead researcher Emerson “Tad” Baker
and his team also used the 1,000
records from the Salem witch trials.
True believers have long suspected
that it was where the witches were
killed.
“[We] asked locals where they
thought it was and every last one of
them told us to go to this location,”
said Wiccan Michele Ruscitti, who
visited Salem in 2006 with her
husband. “I found it odd, since the
town embraces their history, that
there were no markers there. None …
just a Walgreens on the corner.”