http://www.charterstreetcemetery.com/

Charter Street Cemetery Welcome Center, 51 Charter Street, Salem, MA (2025)

06/06/2025

June 10th will mark the 333rd anniversary of Bridget Bishop’s death.

Bridget was the first of 19 people to be executed on the conviction of witchcraft in Salem Town in 1692, during a tumultuous and tragic period that would later become known as the Salem Witch Trials. In popular culture, these people are referred to as “witches”, but neither Bridget nor the rest of those executed during the Witch Trials were actually guilty of the crimes for which they were convicted. They were victims- people whose lives were cut short unjustly in an attempt to remedy inexplicable hardships and strife, soothe fears in a changing society, reinforce religious strictures, end longstanding quarrels amongst families and neighbors, and numerous other reasons for which we can only speculate.

In Bridget’s case, she already had an unfavorable reputation within Salem’s community, and had endured previous accusations of participation in witchcraft, which made her more vulnerable for targeting by others during the unfolding crisis. To learn more about Bridget Bishop, please consider attending two different events held this Tuesday; at 10am, Jennifer Emerson ( The Petticoat Pages ) will be hosting a livestream event on her Instagram where Bridget will be honored and remembered. At 6:30pm, author and Witch Trials scholar Marilynn Roach will be giving a talk about Bridget Bishop’s life and death. Admission is free, but space is limited (only two tickets remain)! Please sign up through the events page on the Witch House website.

The Witch Trials Memorial is located beside the Charter Street Cemetery, where visitors are encouraged to reflect upon the lives, and unjust deaths, of the victims. Flowers are always welcome to be brought to pay tribute to their memory.

03/11/2025

On this date, 211 years ago, Elizabeth Derby West was interred in her family’s tomb in Charter Street Cemetery. The eldest child of millionaire merchant Elias Hasket Derby and his wife, Elizabeth Crowninshield, Elizabeth was the child of two of Salem’s most powerful families. While a Derby by birth, Elizabeth seems to have mostly taken after her Crowninshield mother, at whose insistence the opulent Derby mansion was built, inheriting her love of fine things and desire for public recognition. In 1783, the 21 year old Elizabeth married Nathaniel West, a former privateer and employee of her father. This marriage was strongly opposed by the family, but once the couple had eloped, they had no choice but to accept it.

In 1799, Elias Hasket and his wife died, the same year they had completed their mansion in what is now Derby Square. Though the bulk of the Derby estate went to her brothers rather than her, she still received a significant amount of wealth from her father and Nathaniel was a well-connected merchant in his own right. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Elizabeth began furnishing a large estate in Danvers, on land now occupied by the Northshore Mall. She was described by some contemporaries as “vain” and did famously complain about her name’s placement at the end of the members list of her charitable society (the listing was alphabetical.)

By the end of the 18th century, the relationship between the Derbys and the Crowninshields was rapidly souring. Political and business differences between the two led to a taking of sides between the Federalist Derbys and the Republican Crowninshields. Elizabeth Derby’s funeral was not attended by members of the Crowninshield family, despite her being their sister, due to the ill will between the families. At the same time, the relationship between Elizabeth West and her husband also began to sour.

In 1803, after many open disputes between Elizabeth and Nathaniel, the couple separated. At the same time, Nathaniel West removed his name from a lawsuit brought by the Derbys against the Crowninshields, a sign that he was beginning to switch sides. In 1806, with the law more favorable than it had been, Elizabeth filed for divorce from her husband. The case of West v West was scandalous, Elizabeth bringing “all the sweepings of the brothels of Boston '' to prove her husband’s infidelity. Nathaniel was represented in court by the Crowninshield ally Joseph Story, who would soon be a member of the Supreme Court. Despite Nathaniel’s best efforts, the case went in Elizabeth’s favor, allowing her divorce and control of her family inheritance. (The fact that her brother had lunched with the judge prior to the verdict caused a stir.)

Though the Derby family had technically won, public opinion very much turned against them, as the West v West case seemed another example of Derby control over the local legal system. Elizabeth herself became a social pariah and her funeral in 1814 was attended only by her family. She left her Danvers estate to her three daughters, stipulating that it would never be returned to her ex-husbands hands. Despite all this, Nathaniel remained close with his children, remarried, and died in 1851 at 93.

03/07/2025

Charter Street Cemetery features three primary kinds of stones that make up our original gravemarkers. Slate is found most commonly, both gray and purple, along with sandstone and marble. Many of these gravemarkers consist of both headstones and footstones to mark the space where someone was laid to rest- though, sadly, some graves only have footstones remaining. Some of these stones have shifted places within the cemetery over the years for a variety of reasons, so they may no longer exactly mark where in the ground the deceased was laid to rest. We also have sixteen box tombs primarily with marble and sandstone ‘tabletops’ resting atop granite or brick-and-stucco bases.

Chiseled quite thin, slate headstones tend to be fragile, and are prone to delamination: the process of the slate’s layers breaking apart and falling, either as chips or as entire pieces. It is also somewhat common for these markers to fall over entirely, lacking a sturdy base by design, despite extending a few feet below the ground. The sandstone and marble gravemarkers are thicker, so they do not fall as frequently- but suffer from the relative softness of their materials- and are also not only prone to their own delamination, but also to sugaring, or the material degrading back into their less-formed, sandlike quality. Ironically, though the marble stones are some of the latest original markers in the cemetery, they have worn away the worst in comparison to slate and sandstone. For these reasons- observing both the natural and human influences on the wear of these gravestones- we no longer permit visitors to make contact with the stones, place anything atop them, or make stone rubbings (taking newsprint and crayon or charcoal and copying the carving’s reverse indentation).

Slides 1, 2, and 3 feature gray and purple slate stones. Slide 4 shows sandstone grave markers in a fragile state. Slide 5 is of a marble headstone, in the average state we find much of the marble to be within Charter. Slides 6 and 7 show sandstone and marble tomb tops. Finally, slides 8 and 9 are comparison photos of marble and slate headstones- the first being taken over 100 years ago by Frank Cousins, and the second being taken today. Here we can see evidence of the wearing down of marble, most vulnerable to environmental factors such as acid rain.

Questions about headstones? Please ask us!

02/28/2025

Charter Street Cemetery Welcome Center’s logo features a ‘Death’s Head’ symbol, sourced from the original design of our oldest headstone- belonging to Doraty Cromwell- who passed away in 1673. Death’s Heads primarily resemble a skull with wings, but sometimes appear as skulls accompanied by other decorative symbols such as hourglasses or crossed bones. This reminds the viewer of the human appearance after death, with the wings conveying an ascension into the afterlife. The prevalence of this symbol on headstones throughout colonial New England suggest that the image was not meant to be frightening to those visiting their loved ones’ graves; rather, it is evocative of the sentiment sometimes replicated in Latin near the images themselves: “Memento Mori”, translating to “Remember that you must die”. Many of the graves in Charter Street bear epitaphs encouraging the viewer to keep their own mortality in mind and count each remaining day of life as a blessing. This image was not associated with any specific stone carver, but was seemingly a regional variation of other symbols on headstones from Puritan England around the same era, reflecting the desire to refrain from using overtly religious symbolism. The usage of the Death’s Head symbol fell out of fashion by the early 1800’s, being slowly replaced by more classical images of willow trees and urns, along with cherubic faces and lifelike portraits of the deceased.

Today, visitors to Charter may remark that they find the imagery on our headstones as surprisingly morbid. This reflects a change in public attitudes over the centuries towards symbols like skulls, sometimes causing negative associations or discomfort in the viewer. The ways in which we interact with death on a societal scale have shifted towards avoidance until a time of loss arises, in contrast to someone living in Salem during the 17th and 18th centuries - which explains the relevance they would have found in the symbol of the skull.

Questions about Death’s Heads? Ask away!

11/05/2024

Salem's Great Fire of 1914 was devastating in its effect on the city, leaving thousands homeless and causing millions in damages. One of its many smaller side effects was the damage done to some old stones in Charter Street cemetery, notably those of John and Anstiss Crowninshield. The husband and wife had been prominent members of one of Salem's wealthiest families and attempts were made to preserve the damaged stones, using the encasements of the time. Unfortunately, the frames in which the stones were placed were not able to prevent further damage and the conspicuously empty frames stood as a testament to the difficulty in preventing further damage to an already damaged stone.

We are therefore very pleased to be able to show off the work of stonecarver Andrew Carr (https://www.youtube.com/) who recently installed replicas of the originals, painstakingly copied from photos taken by Frank Cousins in the early 20th century. Installation was no easy feat, especially as the encasements weighed several hundred pounds each and went down several feet into the earth, but for the first time since the Great Fire, undamaged stones for John and Anstiss stand in Charter Street Cemetery.

We briefly discussed John Crowninshield in a post last year, which you can find here: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AmZcpRurB/

09/20/2024

With visitation to our sites on the rise, we will be returning to our reservation system for the Sept/Oct/Nov season. Starting Sept 21st, visitors to the Witch House and Charter Street Cemetery will be required to make an online reservation, available through our websites: thewitchhouse.org and charterstreetcemetery.com

-Charter Street continues to be free to the public, but also has a capacity as to how many people can safely go through in one day without risking damage to the historic site. Over 1,000 people will still be permitted to go through each day. As previous years have resulted in a line so long as to be potentially disruptive, we have instituted a reservation system, allowing us to maintain the crowd control of a line without a huge crowd and without visitors being forced to wait in a physical line.

-Reservations to Charter are completely free and visitors are not required to pay money to anyone for access to the cemetery. Reservations will go live through the website each day at 8:00 AM, with admission starting at 10:00 and ending at 4:45. The entrance to the cemetery opens onto the street, so we ask that you do not arrive too early for your reservation, as there is nowhere for visitors to wait that does not eventually block the sidewalk.

-Licensed tour guides will still be allowed to bring their groups through the cemetery, without needing reservations, as long as those groups continue to be no larger than 15 people.

-Our staff will be on hand to answer questions, but visitors may also reference our FAQs on our ‘Visiting’ page of the website or search our database for a specific stone in the cemetery. Please treat your fellow visitors, the site itself, and our staff with courtesy.

08/16/2024

We're hiring! If you have a passionate interest in historic homes and/or cultural sites, we'd love to hear from you! With Salem entering its busy season for tourism, both the Witch House and Charter Street Cemetery need more folks with enthusiasm for educating the visiting public while protecting the sites from overcrowding and damage. Please message us directly if you are interested in applying!

03/31/2024

Charter Street Cemetery and its Welcome Center will be closed for Easter Sunday. We will reopen Monday the 1st.

03/30/2024

Philip Cromwell is an unassuming figure in Salem’s 17th century history, but it does not take much looking to find him attached to a business transaction or civil appointment in the town records. Born in England in 1613, Cromwell first appears in Salem officially in 1642, although it is quite likely he had been living there for a few years. Philip began his Salem career as a ‘slaughterer’, running a butcher shop by his house (on land now occupied by The Hotel Salem ) but would move on to dabble in many more professions.

When Philip had arrived in New England, he had left behind a wife and son. Single men were not especially trusted, especially single men who were technically married, and the Salem court ordered Cromwell to return to his wife or bring her to America. Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Cromwell was perfectly comfortable in her English home and refused to move, but so did Philip. It’s uncertain whether the court formally issued him a divorce, but Philip would marry the widowed Dorothy Keniston in 1649. If this was scandalous in any way it did not prevent the town from giving him 100 acres of land that same year. A few years later, in 1652, Cromwell’s brother Thomas would arrive in Salem, bringing with him Philip’s 16 year old son John.

As was common for respectable land-owners (or, at least, land-owners), Philip held a number of civil positions. He was frequently surveyor of fences for the South Fields. He would be made clerk of the militia and highway surveyor, as well as spending a year as a constable in 1658. His position as constable made him an active persecutor of his Quaker neighbors. Whether he had any personal animus towards Quakers is unclear, when asked by Edward Wharton, a local Quaker he was ordered to whip, how he was able to rationalize treating a neighbor this way, Philip responded, “He must needs go that the devil drives.”

Philip’s business interests had exploded by 1672, when he was appointed Clerk of the Market, responsible for regulation of prices for market goods. That same year he spent 200 pounds to purchase the ship Trial from William Hollinsworth. In 1673, Dorothy Cromwell died and Philip quickly remarried to widow Mary Lemon the following year. He continued serving in various town positions and was a Selectman in 1675 as well as 1678-1680. He was on the committee to determine the Lynn boundary line and was one of those responsible for making sure children in his neighborhood were taught to read.

After the death of his wife Mary in 1683, Philip would marry yet another widow, Margaret Beckett. Despite being married four times, Philip does not seem to have had any children other than John and after Philip died in 1693, John’s 1700 death (without children) would end Cromwell’s line in New England.

Charter Street Cemetery Welcome Center

06/06/2025

03/11/2025

03/07/2025

02/28/2025

11/05/2024

09/20/2024

08/16/2024

03/31/2024

03/30/2024

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