{"id":2386,"slug":"old-burying-point-cemetery-salem-massachusetts","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["The Old Burying Point was established in 1637 — America's second-oldest cemetery, holding Salem's founding dead: Judge Hathorne of the witch trials, Mayflower passengers, the Puritan generation that made the town's name. The stones are the file's spine: the oldest documented burying ground in the archive's most haunted town.","Hathorne's grave is the file's weight — the judge who sent the accused to their deaths buried in the cemetery his court's victims' town keeps."]},{"heading":"The judge's ground","paragraphs":["Reported figures move among the stones, and a presence is reported near the Hathorne grave — the file's suggestion being that the judge's resting place draws its own attention. A cemetery in Salem accumulating ghost reports is almost tautological — the file's own phrasing — but this is the one the record kept.","The figures among the stones are the lore; the Hathorne presence is the report that matters — the witch judge's grave reportedly watched, in a cemetery older than the trials it buried."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["The Old Burying Point is the archive's Salem-justice file — the cemetery holding the judge who condemned the witches, in a town that keeps its trials' dead under tourism's gaze. The presence at Hathorne's grave is the report; the 1637 stones are the record.","America's second-oldest cemetery holds its most infamous judge — the file's suggestion being that the ground near Hathorne's stone is the most watched in Salem."]}],"name":"Old Burying Point Cemetery","aliases":[],"type":"CEMETERY","type_label":"Cemetery","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_CEMETERY","WITCH_HISTORY"],"groups":["cemeteries","hauntings","legends"],"desc":"Salem’s oldest burying ground—where the judges rest, not the accused.","full_desc":"Old Burying Point Cemetery is a cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem’s oldest burying ground—where the judges rest, not the accused. It sits in the archive under historic cemeteries, witch history and local folklore. The dossier holds 1 reported claim, 1 legend and 1 documented fact — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The grounds are open to visitors.","address":null,"city":"Salem","county":null,"state":"Massachusetts","postal":null,"region":"Northeast","lat":42.499248,"lon":-70.898204,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":null,"research_notes":"Occult/museum batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":1828,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported figures among the stones and a presence near the Hathorne grave. The burial ground at Salem is exactly the setting the account needs — old graves, older grief, and a story that won't settle. It circulates as local folklore — the kind communities keep rather than verify. Sources including 'Old Burying Point Cemetery' keep the claim in circulation. The apparition is the file's anchor — every other report orbits it.","evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","evidence_label":"Local folklore","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Old Burying Point Cemetery","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Burying_Point_Cemetery","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Established 1637; Hathorne and Mayflower dead are buried here. A cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts with this much on record gives the file real ground to stand on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. Sources including 'Old Burying Point Cemetery' carry the record. The detail belongs to the verified spine of the entry.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1637","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Old Burying Point Cemetery","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Burying_Point_Cemetery","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[{"name":null,"summary":"Reported figures among the stones and a presence near the Hathorne grave. A cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts accumulating ghost reports is almost tautological — but this is the one the record kept. It survives as local folklore, which is to say it survives because people keep telling it. The report is preserved in sources like 'Old Burying Point Cemetery'. The story outranks the documentation, which is how you know it's folklore.","earliest":null,"evidence":"LOCAL_FOLKLORE","source":{"name":"Old Burying Point Cemetery","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Burying_Point_Cemetery","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Public cemetery; generally open during daylight hours. Be respectful of active burials.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Old Burying Point Cemetery","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Burying_Point_Cemetery","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":null,"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":1,"entities":0,"sources":1}}