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Blog #8: The Gallows Hill Project


When reading about Rebecca Nurse’s execution, I thought it was notable that the location of where the execution took place was inaccurate for many years. With a well-documented trial for the 1600s, it is expected that the execution would also be well documented, but this thought ultimately was wrong. With roughly fifteen of A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, dedicated to Rebbeca Nurse’s arrest and examination, the short three paged execution lacks many details. This short of an execution documentation, combined with many other short and un-detailed accounts of the executions that took place during Salem Witch Trials, leaves many questions unanswered. The book, A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, highlights some of these including the location where individuals were hanged, the method of hanging, and even where most of the executed were buried. 

Many of these questions were answered recently in 2016 thanks to the Gallows Hill Project. This project answered the question of where individuals were hung during the witch trials which had been contested over many years which helped answer the other remaining questions about the executions. It was known that Gallows Hill was where the executions took place, but the exact location on Gallows Hill was unknown. Using primary sources from the witch trials and maps of early Salem, the researchers of this project could analyze (with GIS mapping) the exact location of the trials. Their most helpful primary source was the testimony of Rebecca Eames, and of this testimony, just one line was used from 1,000 pages when she stated saw the executions take place, “at the house below the hill.” With this one line, researchers were able to use the house Rebecca Eames was standing with topical maps of that time to see what part of Gallows Hill she would have actually been able to view the best. The evidence resoundingly pointed towards Proctor’s Ledge (a patch of common land just outside of town). 

With the knowledge that Proctor’s Ledge was where the executions took place, more of the questions stated above began to be answered. Because this area was extremely shallow, there was no room for any bodies to be buried which verified the thought that families buried their executed loved ones in family plots rather than at the execution site. This location also answered the debate mentioned in A Salem Witch: The Trial, Execution, and and Exoneration of Rebecca Nurse, regarding if the victims were hung by a tree or gallows structure. Because there were no traces of gallows structures, the researchers from the Gallows Hill Project were able to verify the thought that victims were hung from trees.   

All in all this research done by the Gallows Hill Project helped answer many questions that remained from the Salem Witch Trials. It is also important to note that identifying the location of the hangings allowed for a memorial to be built at Proctor’s Ledge in 2017. With the location of the executions being discovered less than ten years ago, I can almost guarantee that more historical inaccuracies relating to the Salem Witch Trials will correct themselves with new technology that can be used to assist in these discoveries. It will be interesting to see what new information will surface over the years to come to help paint a better picture of this time in Salem. 

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