The Witch House
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The Jonathan Corwin House, known locally as The Witch House, is a
historic house museum A historic house museum is a house of historic significance that has been transformed into a museum. Historic furnishings may be displayed in a way that reflects their original placement and usage in a home. Historic house museums are held to a ...
at 310 Essex Street in
Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, located on the North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem would become one of the most significant seaports tr ...
. It was the home of Judge
Jonathan Corwin Jonathan Corwin (also Curwin or Corwen, November 14, 1640 – June 9, 1718) was a New England merchant, politician, and magistrate. He is best known as one of the judges involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692, although his later work als ...
(1640–1718), and is the only structure still standing in Salem with direct ties to the
Salem witch 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, 19 of whom w ...
of 1692. Corwin bought the house in 1675 when he was 35, and lived there for more than 40 years; the house remained in the Corwin family until the mid-19th century.


History

Corwin was called upon to investigate the claims of diabolical activity when a surge of witchcraft accusations arose in Salem Village (now Danvers) and neighboring communities. He took the place of Judge
Nathaniel Saltonstall Col. Nathaniel Saltonstall (also spelled Nathanial Saltonstall; – May 21, 1707) was a judge for the Court of Oyer and Terminer, a special court established in 1692 for the trial and sentence of people, mostly women, for the crime of witchcraft ...
, who resigned after the execution of Bridget Bishop. Corwin served on the Court of
Oyer and Terminer In English law, oyer and terminer (; a partial translation of the Anglo-French ''oyer et terminer'', which literally means "to hear and to determine") was one of the commissions by which a judge of assize sat. Apart from its Law French name, the ...
, which ultimately sent 19 people to the gallows. The house is an excellent example of 17th-century New England architecture, although historians are unsure of the date when it was built. Corwin family lore maintains that it was built in 1642, but some scholars claim that it was built in the 1620s or 1630s and that Roger Williams lived in it in the before he founded
Providence Plantations Providence Plantations was the first permanent European American settlement in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It was established by a group of colonists led by Roger Williams and Dr. John Clarke who left Massachusetts Bay ...
. The house was moved about to its current location in the 1940s when the adjacent street was widened. It was restored to look as it would have in the 17th century and the
gambrel A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. (The usual architectural term in eighteenth-century England and North America was "Dutch roof".) The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, ...
roof was altered. It is now a museum operated by the City of Salem and is open seasonally. In 2011, the ''
Ghost Adventures ''Ghost Adventures'' is an American paranormal and reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2008, on the Travel Channel before moving to Discovery+ in 2021. An independent film of the same name originally aired on the Sci-Fi Cha ...
'' crew featured it during season 4.


Gallery

File:JonathanCorwin-house.jpg, Sketch of the "Witch House" c.1819 File:Witch House 1865.jpg, "Witch House" taken in 1865 from Essex/North Street. File:Grandfathers Chair-1896-0115.png, Sketch of the "Witch House" from 1896. File:The-witch-house-salem.jpg, "Witch House" taken in 1901 from Essex Street. File:Witch house Salem 1906.jpg, "Witch House" (center) taken in 1906 from North Street. File:The Witch House.jpg, Front of the "Witch House" taken in 2010 from Essex Street.


See also

*
List of historic houses in Massachusetts This is a list of historic houses in Massachusetts. Western Massachusetts Berkshire County * Lenox ** The Mount ( Lenox) – author Edith Wharton's estate; 1902 ** Ventfort Hall ( Lenox) – Jacobean style mansion, built 1893 – George & ...
*
List of the oldest buildings in Massachusetts This article lists the oldest buildings in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States of America, including the oldest houses in Massachusetts and any other surviving structures. Some dates are approximate (indicated with a "") and b ...
* List of the oldest buildings in the United States


References


External links

* *
Salem Web – information on the Witch House
{{DEFAULTSORT:Witch House, The Houses completed in 1675 Historic house museums in Massachusetts Salem witch trials Museums in Salem, Massachusetts Houses in Salem, Massachusetts Historic districts in Essex County, Massachusetts Reportedly haunted locations in Massachusetts Historic district contributing properties in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Salem, Massachusetts 1675 establishments in Massachusetts Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Essex County, Massachusetts Witchcraft museums