The location where the Salem witches were executed (by hanging) has long been suspected but never precisely defined nor proven. In general, it was known that most of the twenty-five people accused of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials, were hung on Gallows Hill, an area which comprises many acres of land (today with residential houses scattered throughout). Although most people felt the location of the hangings was the summit of the hill, in 1936, historian Sidney Perley proposed the precise location was Proctor’s Ledge, a rocky ledge near the base of Gallows Hill. Until now however, most still felt, and tradition held, that the exact location was somewhere atop the hill.
One piece of evidence came from a letter written in 1791 by “Dr. Holyoke”. The letter described a story told by a man who was born the year the hangings occurred (1692).
“In the last month, there died a man in this town by the name of John Symonds, aged a hundred years lacking about six months, having been born in the famous ’92. He has told me that his nurse had often told him, that while she was attending his mother at the time, she lay in with him, she saw, from the chamber windows, those unhappy people hanging on Gallows Hill, who were executed for witches by the delusion of the times.”
Using the description from the letter, it was found that it was impossible to see the summit of Gallows Hill from the home that Symonds was born in. However, a nearer, lower hill – Proctor’s Ledge, was well within view.