Great Salem fire of 1914

The Cambridge Association was an influential group of Congregational clergymen in the Boston area who regularly met in the Harvard College library between 1690 and 1697. The minutes of their meetings shed important light on the oft-debated question of the Puritan ministers influence on the witchcraft trials.

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men). One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in jail.Arrests were made in numerous towns beyond Salem and Salem Village (known today as Danvers), notably Andover and Topsfield. The grand juries and trials for this capital crime were conducted by a Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 and by a Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, both held in Salem Town, where the hangings also took place. It was the deadliest witch hunt in the history of colonial North America. Fourteen other women and two men were executed in Massachusetts and Connecticut during the 18th century.The episode is one of colonial America's most notorious cases of mass hysteria. It was not unique, but a colonial manifestation of the much broader phenomenon of witch trials in the early modern period, which took the lives of tens of thousands, mainly in Protestant Europe and the Americas. In America, Salem's events have been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of isolation, religious extremism, false accusations, and lapses in due process. Many historians consider the lasting effects of the trials to have been highly influential in the history of the United States. According to historian George Lincoln Burr, "the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered."At the 300th anniversary events in 1992 to commemorate the victims of the trials, a park was dedicated in Salem and a memorial in Danvers. In 1957, an act passed by the Massachusetts legislature absolved six people, while another one, passed in 2001, absolved five other victims. As of 2004, there was still talk about exonerating all of the victims, though some think that happened in the 18th century as the Massachusetts colonial legislature was asked to reverse the attainders of "George Burroughs and others". In January 2016, the University of Virginia announced its Gallows Hill Project team had determined the execution site in Salem, where the 19 "witches" had been hanged. The city dedicated the Proctor's Ledge Memorial to the victims there in 2017.

In a letter dated September 2, 1692, Cotton Mather wrote to judge William Stoughton. Among the notable things about this letter is the provenance: it seems to be the last important correspondence from Mather to surface in modern times, with the holograph manuscript not arriving in the archives for scholars to view, and authenticate, until sometime between 1978 and 1985.

Located in Salem, Massachusetts and owned by the Peabody Essex Museum the Cotting–Smith Assembly House was built in 1782 and is located at 138 Federal Street in the Federal Street District. Built as a Federalist Clubhouse in which balls, concerts, lectures, and other events might be held. George Washington attended a dance here. The original architect is unknown, but the house was later remodeled by Samuel McIntire for use as a private residence. The house is in the Federal style and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The building can be rented for special events.

The Stephen Phillips House is a historic house and museum located in the McIntire Historic District in Salem, Massachusetts, United States and was designed by Samuel McIntyre. Phillips House began with Elias Hasket Derby, one of America's first self-made millionaires from the sea trade. When he died in 1799, his daughter, Elizabeth and her husband, Captain Nathaniel West, inherited his farm in Danvers, Massachusetts. They built a country house on the property, sparing little expense. A grand estate was in the making. In 1806, shortly after the house was completed, a divorce forced Nathaniel off the property. After Elizabeth died in 1814, the house was left to her three daughters. When one of the daughters died in 1819, Nathaniel inherited one-third of the estate. He proceeded to move four rooms to Salem, the museum's present location. At that time, he added a hallway, a third floor, and a back ell section. In 1911, Stephen W. Phillips bought the house, moving in with five generations of family furnishings. He lived in the house until his death in 1955. The house remains as it was at that time, containing an eclectic collection representing the Phillips's extensive travels. The Phillips House is now owned and operated as a historic house museum by Historic New England and is open for public tours. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

The Chestnut Street District is a historic district bounded roughly by Bridge, Lynn, Beckford, and River Streets in Salem, Massachusetts. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and enlarged slightly in 1978. The district contains a number of architecturally significant works of Samuel McIntire, a builder and woodworker who had a house and workshop at 31 Summer Street, and who designed and built a number of these houses, and others that display the profits made in the Old China Trade by Salem's merchants. The district is a subset of a larger locally designated McIntire Historic District.

Salem Hospital, formerly known as North Shore Medical Center, is a Level III trauma center located in Salem, Massachusetts. A member of Mass General Brigham since 1996, it offers comprehensive medical and surgical services and includes emergency/trauma departments and a birthplace. It includes Salem Hospital and the Mass General Brigham Healthcare Center in Lynn, as well as outpatient care and urgent care. The Medical Staff includes nearly 800 affiliated physicians representing primary care, family practice and 50 additional sub-specialties. It is affiliated with Tufts University School of Medicine. Salem Hospital is a general medical and surgical hospital which had 199 licensed beds as of 2023, with plans to expand to 212 by early 2024. The hospital had 19,467 admissions in the latest year for which data are available. It performed 4,409 annual inpatient and 7,955 outpatient surgeries. Its emergency department had 90,149 visits for 2012. A helipad at Salem Hospital is a helicopter transportation hub, with multiple daily flights to hospitals all over Boston.

Brevet Brigadier-General James Miller (April 25, 1776 – July 7, 1851) was a senior officer of the United States Army who commanded infantry in the Canadian Theater of the War of 1812. After the war, he served as the first governor of Arkansas Territory from 1819 to 1824. He also served as the superintendent of Indian affairs for the territory. It was during his term as governor, and partly due to his influence, that the territory's capital was moved from Arkansas Post to Little Rock.

Harmony Grove Cemetery is a rural cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts. It was established in 1840 and is located at 30 Grove Street. The cemetery is approximately 35 acres in size and was designed by Francis Peabody and Alexander Wadsworth.The cemetery includes the Gothic revival Blake Memorial Chapel of 1905.

The Salem Athenaeum, founded in 1810, is one of the oldest membership libraries in the United States. The Athenaeum is located at 337 Essex Street in Salem, Massachusetts in the McIntire Historic District. In 2023, the athenaeum successfully completed a restoration project for the historic building. They are currently raising funds to make the building more accessible to meet modern library standards.

The Pickering House (circa 1664) is a First Period Colonial house at 18 Broad Street, in Salem, Massachusetts' McIntire Historic District. The house was owned and occupied by ten successive generations of the Pickering family including Colonel Timothy Pickering. This house is believed to have been the oldest house in the United States continuously occupied by one family. However, in 1998, the Goodhue family moved into the house, with Albert Goodhue as the primary caretaker. It is located at 18 Broad Street, Salem, Massachusetts and is open to the public under the auspices of the nonprofit Pickering Foundation. Across the street is the Broad Street Cemetery, one of the three oldest in Salem.

The Ropes Mansion (late 1720s), also called Ropes Memorial, is a Georgian Colonial mansion located at 318 Essex Street, located in the McIntire Historic District in Salem, Massachusetts. It is now operated by the Peabody Essex Museum and open to the public. The house was built for Samuel Barnard, a merchant. In 1768, Judge Nathaniel Ropes, Jr., purchased the house from Barnard's nephew. The Ropes family then inhabited the house until 1907, when the house was given to the Trustees of the Ropes Memorial for public benefit. Although altered through the years and then restored, the house looks much like its original form, with a symmetrical facade of two stories, three small pedimented gables through the roof, roof balustrade, and modillioned cornice. (Compare it to the Crowninshield-Bentley House and the Peirce-Nichols House, also in Salem.) In 1807, however, its interior was extensively renovated. In the mid-1830s five rooms and the central hall were remodelled, and today's doorway installed (with details inspired by Asher Benjamin's pattern book). In 1894 the house was moved away from the street and further modified internally. A large, fine garden was added behind the house in 1912. It was featured in the 1993 Disney film Hocus Pocus and the 2021 novel "Salem's Ropes."