The Salem witch trials were “the largest and most lethal witch hunt in American history,” wrote historian Emerson “Tad” Baker, a professor at Salem State University in his 2015 book A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Proctor’s Ledge is named for his grandson, who bought the land knowing its history. He had publicly condemned the witch trials and had punished his female servants for claiming to be possessed by witches’ spirits in the hysteria of the day. Later victims included wealthy landowner John Proctor, killed in August. On the same day in 1692, five women-Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Rebecca Nurse, and Sarah Wildes-were hanged from a tree on the ledge, and their bodies fell into a “crevice,” where the memorial now marks their names. The date coincides with the first of three mass executions there. Now, it will finally be commemorated when Salem mayor Kimberley Driscoll dedicates a memorial below Proctor’s Ledge on July 19. And for O’Connor, Benedict and much of Salem, that history has faded despite the town’s outsized reputation. A leather tannery and railroad operated nearby, and in recent years, houses surrounded it. That’s when the rocky ledge on the parcel next door turned into a site of mass execution-and when the bodies of people hanged as witches were dumped into a low spot beneath the ledge known as “the crevice.” In the night, when the hangings were over, locals heard the sounds of grieving families who snuck over to gather up their dead and secretly bury them elsewhere.īut for much of history, the site sat quietly obscured by woods and buildings. If they’d been there in 1692, they would have known. So when people began to stop by and take pictures of the empty site last winter, they wondered why. The scrubby lot lay tucked between houses on Pope Street, within sight of a large Walgreen’s-nothing much to look at. He joined the faculty of Salem State College in September 1994.Ī specialist in the history of seventeenth century Maine, Baker has been featured as an expert consultant on the PBS mini-series Colonial House he has also provided historical consultation for Parks Canada, National Geographic, Plimoth Plantation, National Park Service, Historic Salem Inc., Beverly Historical Society and many historic district commissions." He has also served as an expert witness for archaeological matters in several court cases in Nova Scotia and Maine.Eight years ago, when they bought their house overlooking a wooded ledge in Salem, Massachusetts, Erin O’Connor and her husband, Darren Benedict, had no idea why that parcel stood empty. įrom 1988 to 1994, Baker served as executive director of the York Institute Museum and Dyer Library. in history (with a dissertation on failed Anglo-Indian relations in early Maine) from the College of William & Mary under the guidance of James Axtell. After graduating from Bates with a BA in history in 1980, he received his MA in history (with a concentration in historical archaeology) from the University of Maine at Orono in 1983. Before attending Bates College in Lewiston, Maine (where he would later meet his wife and play/lead the rugby club), Baker spent a year in the United Kingdom studying at Cranleigh School, where he learned to play rugby. Baker was born in Fitchburg, Massachusetts in 1958 and attended Applewild School and Phillips Academy.
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