Salem Witch Trials - Visiting The Historic Sites 4K

[Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] [Music] [Music] for today's grim adventure we find ourselves in salem once again today we're going to be doing pretty much everything salem witch trials we can find here a lot of history a lot of dark halloweeny spooky history halloween is right around the corner on the other side of this building is the salem witch trial memorial and over there is one of the oldest cemeteries in the country definitely the oldest here in salem and guess what you guys are coming with us right now jessica's walking the red line through salem and if you don't know what this is and you're coming here visiting look down at the sidewalk because basically this line will take you to all the important historical sites don't really see this that often in cities but i did notice it in boston a couple years ago whenever i went through there and right now we're heading to the cemetery [Music] now as soon as you walk into this cemetery there is a giant permanent map right in the center that talks about some of the most notable people that are buried here including some judges that were part of the salem witch trials as well as other people locals different people and you know high ranking officials but you can also i think it was like two bucks you can buy a map that you can take with you and honestly as beautiful as this is i think it's a lot better and let me show you why so the reason why i was very interested in this map is that it showed some of the major symbols of what was chiseled into the headstones in the 17th and 18th centuries and i thought it would give me meaning but it's really just an evolution of what they use and has three major symbols i'll show you here the one here called death's head is what we're all very familiar with cherub we've seen a lot of here as well and then there is the urn and willow and they don't have any specific meaning so if i see the death head on a gravestone it doesn't mean oh this person maybe died of something specific or had a certain meaning of a stature in society it's really just the evolution of what they would put on headstones that essentially was less frightening over time so this just represented the flesh falling away from the body the decay of life and the bones but i guess it frightened people they thought it had a more sinister meaning so that evolved into the cherub which became more personalized and people eventually went to the earning willow which had really no personalization to it now let's walk through the cemetery and see if we can see any of these markings on the stones and we've seen them in other cemeteries but not here now they kindly asked us to stay on the path don't touch any of the stones there's obviously no grave rubbing nothing like that which we don't do anyhow but it's neat to just kind of once again walk through history the first one i see on the path is this one here which is the cherub in memory of mrs sarah sims the wife of mr stephen sims who died july 18 1767 and the 37th year of her age wow 1767. towards the back of the cemetery here's the first one we've seen here of the willow and the urn here we go here's a death head one with a crossbones above his head this might be a little hard to see because of the sun but here's another death's head now this is a very important stone here lies entered the body of john hawthorne esquire aged 76 years who died may 10 1717 now of course some of the language on here is a little bit dated like e y which means the the body this is him [Music] one of the things that both jessica and i love doing here in salem is just walking the streets and seeing all the old buildings and the architecture and the color of all the buildings right now we're walking up to the salem witch trial memorial which is basically it's almost like a rectangular shape with these little benches with all the people who died and little flowers on them as well it's actually quite nice now we're going to walk into the memorial in just a minute and take a look at everything but before you walk in there you got to look down because there's these giant stones with quotes from the people who died during the witch trials it's just right here at the beginning a couple different quotes my life lies now in your hands should save my life over here it says oh lord help me i am holy innocent of such wickedness god knows i am innocent it just keeps going and going and going these ones over here it says i do plead not guilty and then this one here at the top i can deny it to my dying and then it's cut off this one right down here it's cut off but it does say you can you can read it i am no witch oh man that gives me chills now each one of these little pedestals they're like little benches they have the names of the people who died during the salem witch trials i thought it'd be nice to just kind of walk and take the time to read each one first when we come to samuel wardwell hanged september 22nd 1692. margaret scott hanged september 22nd 1692 wilmot red hanged september 22nd 1692. some of these names are going to get me this one here and putater i think hanged september 22nd 1692 mary parker hanged september 22nd 16 92. alice parker hanged september 22nd 1692. mary eastie hanged september 22nd 1692. martha corey hanged september 22nd 1692 and i keep reading these names and the dates they're all the same dates and i'm getting a little choked up to be honest giles corey pressed to death september 19th 1692. john willard hanged august 19th 1692. john proctor hanged august 19 1692 george jacobs hanged august 19 1692 martha carrier hanged august 19th 1692. george burrows hanged august 19 1692. sarah wilde hanged july 19 1692 rebecca nurse hanged july 19 1692. susannah martin hanged july 19 1692. elizabeth howell hanged july 19 1692. sarah goode hanged july 19 1692 and obviously we went backwards and this is the first one bridgette bishop hanged june 10th 1692. wow no my milk still shakes though we are that's good and happy halloween happy halloween i see a truck coming you meant to move in a little bit if you don't you get hit and you die i'm gonna eat you right up i think i have a couple of kids in here love to be ready in about uh half an hour and you know what the important uh one of the main recipes for kid souffle is what's that five pints of porpoise milk you saute them you marinate them in the purpose milk okay for about 12 hours i do mine for 13. it gives it a little kick now the next stop on our salem location is a place called howard street cemetery which believe it or not there's nobody here beside us because it's kind of off the beaten path which is kind of sad because this portion of the land here in salem plays a very important part of the story of the salem witch trials now you see that building straight ahead that's the old salem jail now it is believed out of all the people that were accused of witchcraft and hanged there was one person who wasn't hanged and that was giles corey he was pressed to death and it is believed well through records he was pressed to death in the field adjacent to the old salem jail which became the howard street cemetery which is where we're standing right now now there's no marker nobody knows for sure where at here but this is it even though nobody really knows where jal's corey was pressed to death like i said documents state that it was in the field adjacent to the prison this is a little odd that right here in the center of the cemetery are these four stone pillars that have these iron hooks on them a little stone right in the middle so maybe at some point there was a marker here who knows but still it's a piece of history you know what baby goal isn't it kind of crazy that right now it's not even the weekend and there's so many people walking through salem and essex street hundreds but nobody is over here and jessica just brought up an interesting piece of information that i guess maybe people aren't coming over here because this isn't as old as the other cemetery here in town if i'm not mistaken this place was created in the year 1801 and no this is not where giles corey is buried it's just where he was pressed to death and if you're not familiar with that story when everybody was being accused of witchcraft he was one of the accused and it meant that if you said yes i'm a witch or you pled guilty that all your land would have been taken by the state like your family couldn't have had it or anything like that so he kept his mouth shut and whenever they kept putting rocks on him making it heavier and heavier and as he was dying his his lungs his chest cavity was being crushed instead of confessing he uttered those famous lines well the famous line more weight as much as salem loves their history and the salem witch trials and the different museums that they got you would think that they would have something here for giles corey sadly they don't it always seems to be something they always seem to like drop the ball on it not knock and salem in any way shape or form it's just you would think that there'd at least be something here for him [Music] now what you're looking at right now is the old jail which is now luxury apartments here in salem the amount of history that happens here it's nice to see that the building wasn't torn down and instead they converted it into something else well this is rather interesting right here it says residences straight ahead restaurant and exhibit here as well monday through saturday 10 a.m to 4 p.m man does this place scream fall or what baby goal this is beautiful this is stunning see the spider web above the door i mean it's in the window itself all right i definitely want to live here well i like l.a i like southern california but if we lived here on the east coast and we didn't mind the snow we'd be living here in salem and you guessed it anywhere you see dead leaves jessica's gonna go tramping through him you're the cutest thing since pumpkin spice bread see what i did there see what i did there that was adorable i love you baby goal i love you well we walked up here with the intent on visiting an exhibit of the old jail and we don't really see any of the signs so i don't know if they're open today or not but we can get some really awesome shots there's a pumpkin in the window over there jessica's been walking around trying to find the entrance to the museum there's a guy so real quickly and respectfully this part of the building right here this was the officer dining area and also where people who were sentenced to to hang to die by hanging this is the room where it happened so next to the old salem jail which is where we were lie is the howard street cemetery which dates back to the salem witch trials their 80 year old giles corey was pressed to death after refusing to enter a plea to the charge of witchcraft legend has it that before he died he placed a curse on the sheriffs of salem and many who have held the position since have either resigned or died from heart or blood ailments the curse is said to have been broken in 1991 when the office moved to middleton oh wow yeah okay i'm a little spooked out now what you're looking at right now you see that black portion when they were doing the hangings that wasn't there and said it was a drop ceiling can you imagine that now i should go on record and say this that if you do decide to come here to the old jail chances are you're not going to see this room it is closed to the public we just happen to run into somebody who is kind enough to let us in here and we're not trespassing by any means we don't do things like that now also in this room there's a fake window and it's over here in this corner next to a plaque that says parker brothers now imagine just looking through this window i'm going to bend over this way a little bit you can kind of see across the street so if you would imagine looking through this window the original parker brothers location dating back to 1891 was located directly across the street from the jail right ironic view of fun and games right across the street oh man and with that let's get back to historic salem and explore some more we still have to visit the place where the witches were hung now here's where the story of the salem witch trials gets rather interesting you see right now jessica and i are standing at what's known as proctor's ledge where it's believed that those who were accused of witchcraft were actually hung basically on this hill that's behind us now for years many people including historians believe that the actual site was over on what's known as gallows hill but they're all wrong other historians who read eyewitness accounts and looked at old maps concluded that where they hung the supposed witches was in plain sight of people living in that nearby area the city of salem eventually bought this land and made this little park dedicated to those who died now again there's absolutely no way of knowing the exact spot but it's nice that now i think they dedicated it in 2016 that now they have a spot that's close to where it was that people can come and pay their respects stay off the slope respect the area and warning no entry after dusk and i'll say this people here in salem are pretty serious when it comes to things like this you can't see it from where i'm sitting right now but jessica's standing right in front of john proctor's marker and of course proctor's ledge it's a nice little area too bad it's right on a main street to be honest but at least they have something let's walk a half circle with all the people who died now you're going to notice flowers and stones and shells on top of the wall as i walk just different people leaving offerings it's pretty wild but very nice the only person that's not here that we noticed was giles corey guy who was pressed to death he wasn't hung so i don't know if that has something to do with it [Music] oh [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] even though this place is known as proctor's ledge supposedly according to the website in salem it has nothing to do with the man john proctor who is actually hung and accused of being a witch even though he owned a lot of land here in salem at the time now jessica and i through grimlife collective we've visited some amazing places throughout our life we have many more to come both fun nostalgic and interesting some of them scary and stuff like that but i don't think we've ever really visited something with this magnitude of history you know i feel like we've visited some historic places but nothing that had this level of dedication to that history yeah well so many people i mean we all know no matter where you are in the world you know about the salem witch trials if you don't you're living under some kind of weird rock on the opposite side of the solar system but these are all innocent people and there's a whole town that recognizes that and they embrace it in a fun way even though it's a very tragic tale you know but what's really neat it's a lot of times with history when something bad happens or something shameful towns they they cover it up or they erase it and at one point salem was very shamed shameful about what happened here so it's nice to see that they're not now i guess you used to say that i mean they built this amazing memorial and it's become a tourist place where you can come and just you know pay your respects and learn some history walk history which is what it's all about with that being said from salem massachusetts the witch city thank you for joining us on another grim adventure and as always happy halloween happy halloween

Channel: grimmlifecollective

Views: 330,436

Keywords: Salem Witch Trials, Salem Witch Trials Documentary, Salem Witch Trials Movie, Salem Witch Trials Trailer, Salem Witch Trials Buzzfeed, Salem Witch Trials Meech, Salem Witch Trials History Channel, Salem Witch Trials Movie Trailer, Salem Witch Trials Bailey Sarian, Salem Wich Trials Ted Ed, Salem Massachusetts, Salem Massachusetts Halloween, Salem Massachusetts Vlog, Things To Do In Salem Massachusetts, Salem Massachusetts Witch Museum, Salem Massachusetts Hocus Pocus, Salem MA

Id: kcQ2YZHHmlI

Length: 23min 0sec (1380 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 29 2021